Football is a simple game.

One thing about being a consistently snarky asshole here is that I tend to bring the sarcasm out in my readers.  So I must say I was pleased to get an email a few minutes ago from someone who saw this header to today’s AJ-C Question of the Day and commented, “I kind of thought the offense was expected to outscore opponents in EVERY game”.

Damn, I love you guys.

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Adventures in cord-cutting, a continuing series

I promised a follow-up about how my self-weaning off Dish Network and into the world of streaming went after a full season of college football.

The answer:  pretty good, and when you factor in the cost savings, even better.

I had a fairly robust satellite TV package, along with a relatively slow internet service account with Mindspring.  Between the two, I was spending roughly $200/month for a package that included ESPN, Fox Sports and the SEC Network.  I had service issues with both providers and that motivated me to make changes more than anything.

Here’s what I replaced them with:

• A Comcast/Xfinity bundle that gave me basic cable, high-speed internet service and HBO, for $70/month.
• Sony Playstation VUE, that gave me access to ESPN and Fox Sports, at a cost of $29.99/month.  A package including the SEC Network was an additional $5/month.

While I had to sign a three-year deal with Comcast to get the advantageous pricing, that decision looks better in the aftermath of the FCC ditching net neutrality.  Sony pulled a jerk move, bumping the cost of VUE another $10/month less than sixty days after I signed up.  The good thing about the streaming services like VUE is that you can sign up on a month-to-month basis, which made it easy to jump to Hulu’s new live TV service, which also costs $39.99/month, but gives you access to its library at no extra charge.  Hulu includes the SEC Network as part of its service, so that at least saved the added expense during football season.

Hulu is a bit of a pain to navigate, but everything I wanted to watch could be found with a little digging.  There’s also 30-day archive access to events, so I was able to watch the Rose Bowl broadcast when I got back from California.  (No, I didn’t feel the same way about the national championship broadcast.)

The one thing I miss from Dish is that it was very easy to jump between two stations you were watching at the same time, something that came in handy on a Saturday afternoon.  Moving from one game to another is clunkier on Hulu.  But that’s a relatively small price to pay for the overall improvement.

I would recommend finding the highest speed broadband access you can swing.  In addition to Hulu, I’ve also got Netflix and Amazon Prime for general entertainment.  I haven’t had a single issue with buffering the entire time since I’ve switched.

So, to sum up, my service problems, which were slow broadband and weather-related issues with satellite service, have disappeared, and I’m saving about $75 a month on TV and internet, combined.  Not too shabby.

One other non-television related matter to share:  if you have Comcast broadband service, you might want to check into their new cellphone service, Xfinity Mobile, which was recently introduced.  There is no access fee and unlimited text and calls are free.  The only thing you pay for is data, and there are two plans to choose from — a $12/gig option and an unlimited data $45 option.  (You can change on the fly.)  Best of all, it’s on Verizon’s network, which is what I had before, so I have the same service, but dropped my cellphone bill by about $65/month.

I can’t say it’s perfect, but it’s definitely good enough that I have no regrets making the move.  And the money savings are sweet.

Crossing the 40 million-hit mark

Did that today.  Kinda cool, ain’t it?

All y’all are great for stopping by here.  My sincere thanks.

Fabris Bowl Pool results

Everything good must come to an end, I’m afraid, and that includes the bowl season.  It’s time to crown a winner in the Bowl pick ’em.

STANDINGS for WEEK 1

Rank	Selection Name	Standings Adjustment	W-L	Pts	Tie Breaker Game 23-26
1	revdawg	Adj	30-10	30	20-17
2	JimCornettesRaquet	Adj	29-11	29	68-63
3	Gen. Stoopnagle	Adj	28-12	28	28-24

Congrats to revdawg!  Hope you took your wisdom to a sports book.

For the rest of us, there’s always next September to regroup.

“Senator, Georgia is playing in the national semi-finals. What are you going to do next?”

I’m going to the Rose Bowl!

Jeez, how surreal to type that… In a season full of pinch me moments, today may very well be the pinchiest of them all.

Posting, as you no doubt can guess, will be sporadic for the next few days.  I just hope it’s equally euphoric when the dust settles.

In the meantime, you guys know the drill.  Behave, you scamps.

Ho, ho, ho, y’all.

I hope everyone out there is having the merriest of Christmases today.  Certainly the Dawgs have done their part to add to the merriment… and maybe, with a little luck, that one package they left under the tree that we can’t unwrap for another week will have something a little extra special in it.

In the meantime, in the spirit of the season, the GTP traditional musical tribute is a rotation between my two favorite Xmas songs and this year it’s Robert Earl Keen’s turn to perform.  He recorded this version of “Merry Christmas From The Family” earlier this month.

Gift Guide PSA

I just wanted to let y’all know I’ve done the first page update, adding several of your suggestions, along with another of my own.

Keep the recommendations coming!