Despite price hike..YouTube TV remains the best service.

To take a break from the political, and because we're a few hours away from opening day, I thought I'd take the opportunity to bring up the recent price hike by YouTube TV. 

While it is somewhat disappointing, I've tried other free (and not so free) trials of other services and none of them match the quality I get from YouTube TV. Other live TV services I've tried constantly skip and freeze, no doubt due to limited internet speed on my "unlimited" data plan.

Of the other services,  Hulu with live TV does not have BBC America which is a must when new episodes of Doctor Who are aired. AT&Ts service, which i believe used to be DirecTV Now, double charged me after i canceled their service.  In order to get both USA and BBC America as well as ESPN on Sling, i would have to subscribe to both the Orange and Blue plans which is $40 and to get SEC Network and ACC Network, I would have to add the sports package at $15. I may be able to get by without the DVR upgrade, that's $5 and still wouldn't compare to YouTube TV's unlimited DVR. I would be up to $60 with no guarantee of the quality. 

The only time YouTube TV freezes or skips is if i don't stay off my tablet while it is connected to my Google Chromecast. The picture sometimes suffers during heavy internet traffic times, but for the most part is very good.

There is something to be said about the channels added being ones I've learned to live without, but i have already enjoyed episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show" on weekday afternoons as well as "The Golden Girls" on Sunday morning and afternoon. The continuing lack of access to Hallmark Channel has been a blessing in disguise as I no longer stay up late watching the "Girls". I have yet to enjoy "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central as my work and TV schedule haven't really allowed a viewing. I could record it of course but I'm not sure when I would find the time to watch. 

I've also recently been using my Google Chromecast much more than my Amazon Fire Stick. It's been a very long time since Amazon and Google fortunately settled their differences and we can now cast Amazon Prime to Chromecast. I've found that Amazon Prime works as well if not better on Google Chromecast. The episodes, for example, play all the way to the end and through the end credits before loading the next episode; something we classic Doctor Who fans appreciate. With fire stick i had to either hit the "return(?)" button before the next episode or give up on watching the end credits. I also don't often "binge" watch, instead watching one episode at a time. Amazon fire stick can also be temperamental at times of heavy internet traffic. 

I'm holding out hope that YouTube TV will come out with some tiered pricing plans before my bill officially goes up in late August, but regardless they remain my best option for streaming live TV. For the record, I am committed to streaming. I don't want to return to rain outs of satellite or have people in my house hooking up cable and internet. That would also involve changing mobile providers and I'm happy with the status quo. I may just have to bite the bullet on the price hike although Google may lose a lot of customers over this.

Jo No! What a dilemma!

I learned a very interesting thing the other day when i was curious who was the 

Libertarian presidential candidate in 2020.

I know her. It's Jo Jorgensen whose congressional campaign I was heavily involved with in 1992. It presented a bit of a dilemma but this complicates things further. I took the isidewith.com quiz as I do fairly often...

46%. The thing is I don't think my views really changed but in 1992 I was swept along by my friend David. I was also like most of Generation X raised during the "Reagan Revolution". We were raised to hate those "tax and spend" Democrats. So when I came out of the closet as a gay man and learned from my new gay friends that the Republicans did not support my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness like they claim, I didn't switch over to the Democrats. I met my friend David and much of what happened next would make a great trashy tell-all one day.

So here's the problem. Can I NOT vote for someone who had such a big influence on my life? Can I not vote for Uncle Joe in this crucial election? 

The reason I'm able to consider my vote is because of the electoral college WHICH NEEDS TO GO!

The electoral college allows candidates to concentrate on a few "swing" states and ignore so called "safe states". Of course Republicans want to keep the electoral college, it has benefited them each time. If we went to a popular vote, Republicans would have to broaden their appeal and not just be the gun loving, gay bashing, immigrant hating, tax hating,  women's reproductive rights opposing country club. They might even return to being the big tent party we grew up loving and admiring. 

On the other hand, we anti-republucans in "safe states" like South Carolina have an option of casting a 'meaningless' protest vote.

I love Uncle Joe. There's a reason he's nicknamed that, everybody (well almost everybody) loves him. I really want him to win just like I wanted Hillary to win but fell for what I now believe was a phony vote trading website and voted for Gary Johnson....and I want the orange pussbag to lose. But if I do cast a 'protest vote'....why would I vote for someone I only agree with 46%..when I agree with Howie Hawkins 92%?

I prefer the French system. You have rounds of voting where you can vote for anyone in the first round but you must choose between the top 2 in the second round. 

The gap between the Green Party and the Democrats is a little smaller at least according to my latest survey.  

So I have some thinking to do. I think i may have to overlook my fondness for Jo in favor of Joe. Howie is also in the mix. Oh my 2020 is getting more and more interesting. 

Liberals are Patriots!

I had a harrowing experience driving home the other day. Some trump supporters, obviously upset by my "Democrat" and HRC magnets on my car, began yelling at me and waving a MAGA hat out the window. As the pulled away in a turn lane they yelled "Donald trump....trump 2020.."followed by the N-word, which puzzles me as I am white, I guess they were working on assumption. As if that were bad enough I have to put up with outrageous comments from conservative coworkers. One that was said today is an attitude that I am so sick of.

My coworker told a customer that we may not have "4th of July" anymore "The way things are going ".

I knew what my coworker was trying to say and i almost started throwing groceries at him very hard.

My coworker was advancing the narrative that Democrats are so unpatriotic that we would try to stop people from celebrating the 4th of July. 

BULL...

forgive my language....

SHIT!

Recognizing that our country has not always lived up to it's ideals is not unpatriotic. 

Far from it.

Recognizing that our country can do better is not unpatriotic. 

Far from it.

Republicans also claim to be the party of "fiscal responsibility".

I've seen the memes.

Deficits go up under Republican administrations. 

They go down under Democratic administrations. 

Bill Clinton....lord knows the Republicans have made the Clintons public enemy #1....some of it is deserved. He did wag his finger at us and say "I did not have sexual relations with that woman".

Put that aside. The man had a budget surplus. 

Republicans now claim we can't afford universal health care while there's plenty of money for wars and corporate bailouts. They stop at nothing to try to strip individuals of health care , particularly the most vulnerable. 

Republicans also claim moral superiority. 

How many Republicans have been disgraced by extra marital activities. Or homosexuality while opposing every pro LGBTQ piece of legislation. 'Lady G' for example. 

I came across some information online that suggests that the bible doesn't in fact condemn what we think of as modern day homosexuality. The line conservatives love to throw out "Man shall not lie down with man" actually reads "man shall not lie down with young boy" and where it says "homosexuals shall not inherit the earth", the word used was the word for "boy abusers" or "boy molesters". There was a practice in ancient Greece of the sexual pairing young boys with older men known as pederasty. That is what the bible condemns.  The word "homosexual" was not invented until 1862 in Germany and doesn't appear in print in the bible until the 1940s. This use of the bible to justify discrimination against homosexuals is

BULL...

again forgive my language....

SHIT!

I came across an old notebook from high school the other day. It of course had a "Campbell" bumper sticker from Carol Campbell's campaign for governor here in South Carolina in 1986. I've mentioned in past blogs that i went to elementary school with his son Mike Campbell. Also on my old notebook however is also a bumper sticker for his opponent in 1986, Mike Daniel. Part of the reason is of course Daniel is the name I've always gone by but it also shows how bipartisan we were. We didn't hate people who had a difference of opinion. That's the difference in politics of that time and now. Republicans and Democrats had a difference of opinion then.

Now it's a difference in morality.

(Deep Space) 9 to (Babylon) 5

After about 3 years watching an episode at a time on my days off, early afternoons, etc. I have finally completed my viewing of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine all the way through. I have some observations. 

I've never really studied acting. I never did school plays or anything like that so I'm not an expert. The acting on DS9, however,  was out of this world (pun fully intended). I particularly loved some of the relationships in the show, Odo and Quark; Dr. Bashier and Chief O'Brian; Worf and Dax (both Jadzia and Ezri). I didn't think I would like Ezri Dax after Jadzia died, but I found her to be a very sympathetic character. My favorite episode was "Take me out to the Holosuite", because of my love of both Star Trek and Baseball which I wrote about in a previous blog. 

The next logical step of course is to watch "Babylon 5" as it was produced around the same time and a quick internet search will net tons of results on speculation about how Babylon 5 was pitched to Paramount before Warner Bros. picked it up and how similar both shows are. Accusations of plagiarism abound between fans of both shows. According to many of my science-fiction inclined friends, Babylon 5 is the superior show and if that's the case I'm in for a real treat because I have a very high opinion of DS9 going in.

The question now is how to watch B5? It airs on Comet TV and it is recorded/recording on my YouTube TV DVR, however I would have to fast forward through commercials and ignore the big on screen logo for Comet TV. There is a more political question, however. Comet TV is owned by the evil Sinclair broadcasting,  which forces local newscasts of the stations they own to run pro-trump news stories with or without objections from the local anchors and producers. Also in question is the fact that I watched DS9 commercial free and sat back and relaxed while I watched. Comet TV will take a few weeks to cycle back around to Season 1 and i would have to be prepared to skip through commercials. 

Babylon 5 is available on several platforms, but i was pleased to learn that Amazon Prime now offers the full series at $29.99/season. I was short on hours on my paycheck this week, so i will have to wait a little longer to begin my viewing.  It seems more fair to watch it commercial free on Amazon Prime as I did with DS9 even if it costs me a little bit extra. I'm certainly not buying it by the episode at $1.99/each!

So my plan is set. Sometime I also need to pull out my "Firefly" DVD set and give that a watch as well. Maybe while I wait to be able to afford Babylon 5!

Shaving the "Traditional" way, but with a twist.

I'm having another one of my sleepless nights so best thing to do is blog about what's on my mind.

It's early on Sunday May 24th now.

In a previous ous blog, I talked about how I was making more environmentally conscious decisions about my everyday life, the latest change is coming in the form of my shaving routine. 

I have been using Dollar Shave Club for years. My facial hair is so light that i didn't really change the blades often and i built up a backlog. I still have 7 (one 5-pack and another one in another pack plus the one I was currently using) but I decided not to wait. I have made the change to a double sided safety razor. 

After first finding a company called Leafshave and finding their blades too complicated (you had to snap them in half and load 2 or 3 into the razor) I found Rockwell which was a more traditional safety razor. They had several models but the one I liked, the R1 also called "The Rookie", wasn't available on the Rockwell website. I found it on Amazon, however with 5 blades. The next step was "shaving the traditional way". 

The shave kits on Rockwell's website all came with their more sophisticated razors (you could change the settings to a "more aggressive" shave which sounded scary. The R1 is the lowest setting (hince being called "The Rookie") and with my light facial hair it's probably all I need. Because I am a convert to Dr. Squatch soap,  I thought I would try their shave kit.

Traditional shaving involves a brush and shave soap. You soak the brush in warm water (I did that while I was in the shower), shake off the water, circle the brush in the shave soap and then brush the soap on your face.

Here's where it didn't work for me. My light facial hair meant the soap dissipated quickly. It was practically gone by the time i went to shave. The shaving itself went very well...I half expected to cut myself up the first few tries but not even a nick. When i shave this morning I will use the rest of my traditional shaving cream and see how that goes. I ordered some shaving cream from Rockwell and I also had previously ordered a "blade safe" to store the used blades before recycling and a 20 pack of blades. 

I will update this blog later with the results. Until then....

So after 4:00 I gave up and decided to get up. About 4:30 I had a bowl of chili (really starting the day off right aren't I?)

I then showered and shaved using traditional shaving cream and it worked just fine in fact a lot better than the disappearing shave soap. I still need to work on shaving under my chin both on the sides and directly underneath but I learned online it takes practice to get the hang a safety razor. No cuts at all, I think I was right to start with the R1 even if I had to get it on Amazon and not through Rockwell. I think I'm going to like this new routine. 

Open primary means another chance to vote.

I'm not sure if "Blogger" will allow me to post a 4th blog in a month, so this may be delayed until June. 

South Carolina is an open primary state. That means you don't register as a voter for a particular party, you can vote in any primary you wish, as long as you only vote in one. You can't, for example,  vote in a Republican primary and then a Democratic runoff election, but voting in the Democratic presidential primary does not effect ones ability to vote in the Republican primary for state and local offices. I have no contested primaries for Democrats in my precinct,  so I'm considering voting in the Republican primary. 

There are 4 races and 2 ballot questions. 

U.S. Senate 

Lyndsey is unlikely to be primaried out, but of his 3 opponents, 2 are bible thumpers but the other one, Joe Reynolds,  stands out.

I emailed him and got a very nice reply that he believes everyone deserves respect and should be heard and that he is running to represent everyone, not just the Republican base.

He also states in a blog that he did not vote for trump nor would he. He is also a champion of the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches. He's the one vote I feel strongly about. 

S.C. Senate District 5

I really don't care for our state senator Tom Corbin, who once described women as a "lesser cut of meat", but word is his opponent isn't much better. I'd rather see him go down to a Democrat anyway. If that's possible. 

Coroner

I'm rather torn on this one. Parks Evans, Jr. is in or running for his seventh term, and experience seems to be valuable in this case. I'm also turned off by Stacey Owens big sign on my way to and from work. However, Mr. Owens has some mental health organizations and initiatives listed on his webpage and as a person who has had my own battles with mental illness as well as friends who personally dealt with mental illness either themselves or through a loved one, i admire that. 

County Council District 20

This one is kinda personal. The Democrat running is not only a member of the LGBTQ community, but she lead Mayor Pete's presidential campaign here in the upstate. The two Republican candidates both state biblical teachings as their guiding principles, but my information suggests that Steve Shaw may be much more reasonable than Christy Cates Bright. Mrs. Bright is the daughter of retiring councilman Sid Cates who was one of the big supporters of the 1996 anti-gay ordinance, which got "sunsetted" recently but the religious right now wants to enshrine "traditional values" into Greenville county, basically wanting to make Greenville an "LGBT Free Zone". I got news for them. I ain't going anywhere. 

Ballot Questions 

The first question is tricky Republican wording. The question reads

"Do you support giving voters the right to register to vote with the political party of their choice? "

As I stated at the beginning, the reason why I can vote in the Republican primary is because we are an open primary state. While the Republicans had no problem telling their followers to vote for Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary to mess things up, what's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. They want to end that, but worded the question to make it sound like they're giving you something when actually they want to take it away.

The second question is

"Should candidates for public office be limited to having their names listed only once on a ballot for any office in each general election (rather than current law, which allows their name to appear multiple times by representing multiple political parties for the same office)?"

Some examples are candidates running as both Libertarian and Constitution party candidates (which is why I'm no longer supporting the SCLP, the Constitution Party sounds innocuous but they are an extreme right-wing anti-gay and anti-separation of church and state party, the opposite reasons i got involved in the Libertarian party to begin with).

We also have some Democratic candidates accept the nomination of the "Working Families" Party. Some say it confuses voters but I can see how someone may be reluctant to vote for a Democrat, but might vote for the same person as a "Working Families" candidate. I myself one year, when I was still in my "Never Democrat" mode, voted for a Green Party candidate even though he was also running as a Democrat. That also happened to coincide with my "3rd Party" phase.

I can see the benefits of each. But it would be easy and less confusing to list candidates once and have one or more parties listed beside their name. I may vote 'yes' because i don't like saying 'no' too much.

Several ex-lovers can attest to that.

Baseball and Star Trek in perfect harmony!

As I often tell anyone who will listen, I was not always a baseball fan. I didn't grow up with cable TV, so I didn't see the Braves on TBS or any other baseball broadcasts. It wasn't until my father got DirecTV in June of 1996 and the big sporting event at the time was the College World Series that I fell in love with college baseball and soon learned that the school I had rooted for all my life, the South Carolina Gamecocks, were pretty darn good at it. It wasn't until about 7 years ago when Gamecock great Jackie Bradley, Jr. was called up to the Boston Red Sox that i declared myself a Red Sox fan and started attending Greenville Drive games occasionally as well as games when the Gamecocks and/or my true alma mater, the USC Upstate Spartans play at Fluor Field in downtown Greenville. 

My love of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was also not until later in life. I always had other priorities on Saturdays at the time and only caught pieces of it here and there. A few years ago when i finally caught on to the streaming thing, i decided to finally watch "DS9". I started on the stand alone CBS All-Access app, but soon after discovered it was also available on Amazon Prime with no additional fee.

I'm still not a "binge" watcher. I watch one episode at a time and then move on to something else. I've been watching "DS9" for what must be close to three years now. I have now reached season 7 and recently saw what has become my favorite episode "Take Me out to the Holosuite", which of course combined my two loves.

A Captain of an all Vulcan crew, who we learn later has a history with Sisko, comes to DS9 and ends up challenging Captain Sisko to a game of baseball in a holosuite program he acquired. Through the course of the episode we see Sisko coaching his potential team and hilarious scenes with the crew trying to figure out the rules of baseball. At one point Sisko kicks Rom (station Ferengi bar owner Quark's hapless brother) off the team.

The way the episode plays out next is rather brilliant. Rather than doing the obvious and having the "Niners" win in a glorious bottom of the 9th comeback, what happens in the game actually had me tearing up. Down 10-0, Sisko, having been banished to the stands by umpire Odo, gets acting coach O'Brian to make a substitution. With a runner on 3rd (for the first time in the game), Rom comes in. Sisko reactivates the crowd, which he had requested to be turned off before the game, and while trying to signal to Rom to bunt, Rom accidentally does so and the runner comes home. The "Niners" rush the field and carry Rom on their shoulders. The Vulcan Captain objects, touches umpire Odo and gets tossed out just as Sisko had for the same reason earlier. 

In the epilogue, the "Niners" are celebrating, Sisko apologizes to Rom and a rather irritated (though he tries not to show it) Vulcan Captain chastises Sisko for celebrating what I believe he called a "manufactured victory". The crew are unphased, however and the celebration continues as they jeer the Vulcan Captain. 

As I said I was tearing up for about the last 15 minutes of the episode. At a time when we are sadly lacking sports of any kind including baseball (sorry KBO you're not quite doing it for me) it was a welcome reminder of the power of sports and the ability it has to put smiles on our faces. And tears of joy in our eyes.