Free TV

Pursuant to the next-to-last post:  the only thing we were missing, after putting the satellite feed on hiatus, was live sports.  Iain and I enjoy hockey, in particular, and were missing our Hockey Night In Canada fix.

I did some research on antennas, because I had heard something - somewhere - about over-the-air broadcasts.  When we started with Bell Expressvu, we purchased our PVR, and it has an input for OTA.  Some posts I read cast doubt on whether we could use it that way, but we decided to invest $30 (on sale) for a set of rabbit ears with a gain boost.  Iain actually understands this stuff; I just sort of wing it.  At any rate, he was willing to spend that much to give it a try.  It turned out to be money well spent.  Have a look at the picture above.  This is a shot of our television screen, when Five For Fighting was performing.  Not bad for rabbit ears, huh??!  This is the broadcast out of Ottawa; if we lived in Ottawa, we could pick up a lot more HD channels.  The only other one available here right now is SUN tv.  They show some movies...so we might turn it on occasionally.

My next mission is to write a letter to the CRTC, complaining about the CBC plan to shut down their repeater tower at Foymount.  I want digital OTA at the cottage, too!  And am not prepared to invest in a dish for a place where it will get so little use:  I want my free tv.  The thing about it is, I am already paying taxes to support the CBC, aren't I?  So I have, at least, the right to complain...right?

By the way, our opinion (I am speaking for Iain here, too), is that Five For Fighting is the best band name ever.

A Young Author with Talent!

"The Frog In The Hole" by Emma Lindsay; wonderful!

A brief update from the island:

Things have been fairly quiet around here of late, as is usual in winter for us. We are spending a lot of time planning and dreaming, as it has become obvious that we'll have to do something about the cottage, within the next year or so.

Our hope had been to raise the building, putting a new foundation beneath and renovating the interior to better suit our needs. After consulting with a contractor, however, we were advised that the lifting would be difficult, expensive, and would leave us with so much work to still do that it made more sense to remove the old building and start anew.

Not that we have decided to do that, either. The old girl still has some life in her, after all; so we are considering other options. They all cost money, though, no matter what we end up going with. Lots of money, *sigh*.

We've been noticing how some of our bills just keep getting more bloated. The Bell bill is one of those. The cost of call answer just went up another $2 (plus HST, of course). Since we were in the market for a new telephone anyway, we picked up one with an answering machine built-in, and cancelled that feature.

The other big ticket on that bill is ExpressVu. We love to watch sports and movies, but most of the rest we can live without. Sad to say, TMN is not showing much of interest right now, and it looks like the Senators aren't going anywhere this year. So we took some advice from Holly and Larry, and signed up for Zip.ca, and put our satellite feed on hold until the end of April. (Not that it was easy to do. The Bell online service doesn't work worth a hoot, and I ended up having to phone for assistance several times. Their system is so annoying)

We're also watching some of our favourite shows via internet. The broadband feed is surprisingly good, and we pipe it right to our tv.

The only thing we are really missing is sports. There is no substitute for live tv when it comes to hockey (unless you go to the actual game!). For the time being we are living without it, and just watching the highlights on TSN.ca.

Well worth it, to save $100 per month. And we aren't feeling deprived in any way, having lots to watch just by surfing and getting the videos from Zip (we are finally watching 24, which we have never seen, and are deeply engrossed in season one!).
 
Iain got to see Down-Under Dave and a bunch of our other favourite people on Friday, an occasion I was sorry to miss.  Saturday was spent getting Iain's Mom hooked up with a new computer, and it is now Sunday evening, and we are looking forward to another work week.  Haha.
 
I am off to attack "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" again: I'm down to the last quarter and it's hard to leave it alone.

PUPPY LOVE (PUPPY LOVE, 11 Feb 2011, Page C1)

So much like our Puck, except missing the tassles on the ears!

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PUPPY LOVE

Ottawa Citizen
11 Feb 2011

One of 11 puppies abandoned near the Canadian War Museum last week seems to be enjoying life in foster care at a Stittsville home on Thursday.read more...

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