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Foxtel Now has "on demand" access for sports - including Super Rugby.
But it seems they don't want anyone to know. Nowhere on their website or promotional literature do they mention anything other than "live feeds" for sports broadcasts. Why on earth wouldn't they update their own information? I had to ask the user forums before I could find this information. I'm happy to now spend some money on a Foxtel Now subscription, as I can actually watch my favourite game, and not just live matches. A Melbourne real estate agent has just been sentenced to 5 years jail (meaning a couple of years if he doesn't get into trouble whilst inside) for stealing over 4 million dollars from clients.
What sort of an arsehole steals money from TRUST funds which are holding their own clients money meant to pay for home purchases, and spends it on jewelry and other "luxury" items. Are they not earning enough already with the current over inflated housing market? F*cking bloodsucking leeches. Is there no end to some individuals greed? How do you justify in your own mind such an action. This guy deserves 20 years in jail. No mercy for this sort of unconscionable behaviour. I shouted out loud at the telly tonight, encouraging the high school students who are staging protests across the nation regarding gun control.
Good on them. They have put on notice the useless crop of self interested politicians in the US Congress who are unable and unwilling to stand up and do what needs to be done. These kids are tomorrow's voters, and they will be active, and they will not be returning to office those who are currently failing them. They are not a marginalised "electorate", they are middle class apple pie America. And they are putting up the middle finger to the entrenched gun culture that pervades U.S politics. The saddest part about the whole thing is that no-one is willing to back them and stand up for what is right, and it's being left to them to force change. Have you ever noticed that fresh squeezed orange juice from the supermarket is almost twice as expensive for 1 litre as it is for 2 litres?
I can't drink more than a litre in the recommended 4 - 5 days from opening - it's just a waste to buy a 2 litre bottle. But why the hell does it cost the same to buy 1 litre as it does to buy two litres? Sure packaging in bulk saves manufacturers cost (packaging, pruduction, transport), but this is hardly "bulk". This is really shitting me at the moment, as I quite like orange juice with breakfast, and I think it's really unfair of supermarkets to price a product in this way. And I refuse to pay twice the price because I'm buying less of a product. Coles and Woolworths, you're just losing sales. And FU. I wish I could watch Super Rugby on television, but the Australian broadcast rights are so tied up with Fox Sports that it's almost impossible to view a match unless you subscribe to Foxtel. And that means a full blown subscription, with IQ box, channels you'll never watch, and a "premium" sports add on pack. So if you don't live in an area with existing cable infrastructure - forget it.
And this really shits me. I love my Rugby Union, and I think a lot of other people might get turned on to the game if only there was an opportunity to WATCH THE FUCKING MATCHES. There's no such thing as just subscribing to a sports channel or two with Foxtel. It's always a "premium add on" package. And screw Foxtel Now - you can't record, and there's no "on demand" for sports. I work during the majority of the times that Super Rugby matches are live, so Foxtel Now is just FUCKING USELESS. There's no point in subscribing to it if I still have no access to the only thing I want to watch on it. Get with the times Foxtel, if you're going to charge for a "premium" service, then make it actually accessible. As you can tell this is really pissing me off. I wish the ARU could find a way to fund Rugby Union in this country without making broadcast deals that mean 95 percent of Australians don't have access to watching matches on television. How can you grow the game and make it stronger if no one can see the friggin matches? Sorry, I failed to mention that Channel 10 broadcasts the "match of the round" on Sunday morning at 8.00am (great, this is when I'm getting ready to leave for work). But who decides what makes the match of the round, and does it ever involve the team I support? This is where Rugby League has won the battle for audience share. It's a truely shit game compared to Union, but the viewing public can actually watch a match on television. Such a shame. Altered Carbon on Netflix.
This is the best goddamn sci-fi series I've seen on TV. The Expanse comes a close second - also on Netflix, and both are "Netflix Originals", so they can't be seen elsewhere unless you're the sort who has no conscience regarding theft (it's funny how some people don't bat an eye at stealing something which others have spent a lot of time and money to produce - that sense of entitlement to consume any form of digital entertainment for nothing staggers me) . But it's worth the subscription cost just for these two. It sat in my list for a couple of weeks. I thought it might be worth a look, but quite often these things are a bit average. Sci-fi can be a bit hit and miss at the best of times. and the initial trailer I saw doesn't do the series justice. But after 15 minutes of the first episode I was hooked, if a little confused, and wanting answers. It jumps right in to a vastly different world than ours, and the viewer has to be patient in order to start connecting the dots. Don't give up, the wait is worth it. Excellent production values, dark and wicked humour, clever and involved story, intelligent dialogue, good SXF, and it's been crafted by a team who are damn good at what they do. Based on a 2002 novel by Richard K. Morgan, the first in a trilogy: Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies. I must get my hands on these, they promise to be a terrific read if the TV show is anything to go by. Obviously I'm a sci-fi fan boy, but even if that's not your thing, the story and clever surprises have something that most people would get a kick out of. The perversity of the "Meths" (from Methuselah), who can basically "live" forever, is staggering. This is not a "sponsored post" and I receive absolutely no financial incentive for writing this. I just love it. I'm not specifically promoting Netflix, but kudos to them for providing the funding to produce something this good. Why is it that Microsoft Windows does not have the logic built into it's updates that if a restart is required, and I shut down the PC, the next time it starts up the update is completed? WTF?
Is this not the same thing as a restart? Surely a "hard" restart, even with a gap between the physical shutdown and startup, can be used to complete the update in the same way as a "soft" restart. Can the update not write necessary changes to system files on shutdown which are then processed on next startup, in exectly the same way as a soft reboot? Because it's friggin annoying to have a pending update which requires a restart, shutdown the PC, startup sometime later, and be told by the OS that a restart is required. Really? And let's not even start on update scheduling. I went to register a domain name today, and guess what?
The domain I had in mind was available, for $3860.00. I don't want the TLD that much. And neither does anyone else, otherwise it wouldn't still be for sale. Why are the dickheads who bought up domain names back in the "dot.com" boom, in the hopes of making fast money off people who hadn't yet formulated their business or personal need for a recognisable domain name, allowed to keep possession of these internet addresses? Whole swathes of decent domain names that could be used by legitimate businesses or individuals go unused because some arsehole is squatting on it. If there is no legitimate claim, or the sole intention is to basically extort money from a potential domain name registrant, ICANN should be empowered to strip these "owners" of the right to renew the name. Companies like Huge Domains should be put out of business. "Service you can trust". Yeah, you can trust them to rip you off by trying to sell you a domain name which costs just a few dollars to initially register for sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. Thankfully the Australian Domain Name Authority has some sensible policies in place to prevent this sort of rubbish happening with .au domains. Of course ICANN was born (there were predecessors from the early days dating all the way back to ARPANET - look that one up if you're at all curious as to how the internet came into being) in the country which most values free enterprise over all else, including common sense, the good 'ol U.S.ofA(holes). So nothing's going to change anytime soon, and tens of thousands of top level domain names will forever go unused. Not that I was expecting to be able to register the TLD I wanted, but it still irks me to see them going to waste. I've got to hand it to the commercial television stations - they're pushing back against pay TV with their Freeview app and strident advertising. Lets face it, they know how do do the latter.
Such a shame the more channels that are added the more crap that's presented. As Bruce Springsteen once lamented there's 57 channels and nothin' on (only he was actually referring to cable TV - Foxtel anyone?) Seriously Channel 10 , Jake and the Fatman? This is how you fill up your programming on the extra spectrum you purchased. What a waste of airspace. It might be kind of fun for a 10 second trip down nostalgia lane, but this stuff was absolute shit when it first aired 30 years ago, and it's not a fine wine, that's for sure. No wonder you're having trouble making money. I don't want to spruke a paid service, but there's some excellent and very well produced series coming out on Netflix and even Amazon Prime, and unlike Foxtel, there's no f*cking advertising ( I really dislike paying to watch ads). Commercial television management - if you're serious about retaining audience share and making it a worthwhile proposition to put up with advertising, maybe you should re-think your strategy of airing 30 year old repeats and lowest common denominator productions like I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Or give up the spectrum that you bid so much for just to prevent other players from entering the market. Your deep pockets have not been a value proposition for the end consumer. F*ck I'm a telly snob, but my brain just can't cope with the banality that is the current state of commercial free to air television. Have you ever become frustrated by the way traffic on a freeway comes to a complete stop?
Not a traffic light to be seen for the next 50km, and yet there we sit, going nowhere fast. What does it boil down to? People have no idea how to merge! It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you match the speed of the traffic on the road you are trying to merge into, you can slot in without disrupting the flow. And a bit of courtesy goes a long way, but it seems it's just too much for some drivers to give-way a little, because it would put them one car behind their current position in the race to where-ever (probably the next f*cking fast food joint). But it seems this message just doesn't get through. It should be compulsory for learner drivers to learn this skill, and it should be part of the driving test. New Zealand has the right idea, they actually tell drivers how to "merge like a zip" with big signs on almost every on-ramp. Or in the local vernacular "mearge leike a zup". |
AuthorA white middle aged man who doesn't understand why things need to be so annoying - usually the small things that just shouldn't be an issue. But then maybe I'm just a grumpy old fart who refuses to accept that my position of institutionalised privilege gives me no right to complain or feel outrage on behalf all members of our society? You can make up your own mind about that. Archives
March 2018
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