The new low cost TV line-up

This is my new $25 line-up from Shaw cable.

Do you remember the idea behind this? You were supposed to be able to pick and choose your own TV stations. Eliminating all that chaff that was included and that you had to pay for because some rich buddy of a CRTC buddy started an inane TV channel and got it listed.
Remember Superchannel? What was super about it? It played C movies or videos that didn't sell anywhere and old Opie episodes!

So before we had this revelation of being able to pick and choose TV fare at home, you had and were paying for Toopy and Binoo as you searched at 2am for something to watch. How many episodes of The Honeymooners haven't you seen? The only thing left to do at 3 am is take a flashlight to your TV screen and try to see where the embedded camera is that is watching YOU!

But what I don't get, is why, if we can receive Hi Def channels, we need three extra ones from the same broadcaster?


So look what I get, THEN have to add expensive individual choices to them ....
If I have ABC HD why would I need another ABC? That applies to ALL the HD channels. Don't need the duplicates. I don't even know what AMI TV is, and surely I do NOT want the French edition. Same with CBC. No French, no third listing!  Never heard of Krem2. Might keep it if it is from the Kremlin. CTV has FOUR in this list. Give me just ONE.
Cpac? Now that's funny but there are better comedy channels than the jokers in Parliament.  Omni? again, they can stuff French down my throat all they want and I won't even TRY to understand what they are saying! Cancel them. 

Nothing much here is for me. The bottom eight on that list can all go back to oblivion.

So. If I COULD pick out of all those 40 channels, I would only want 11 of them and that even includes keeping the Shaw) channel !  (I might reconsider Fox, because they are sort of comedy really)

I thought I could pick my eleven, say at $1 each, THEN add a good one like HBO,  even if it brought the price to the $25. But I want CBS, Knowledge, History, Food, BBC World News, CNN, Nat Geo Wild, Show Case, RT, TSN, Comedy and I am hoping MY38 is a soft porn channel that I can sneak into the mix without anyone noticing.

Of course you can see that these would be perfect for me, without all the duplication and foreign languages and probably cost way more than I am paying now. I feel no obligation to support any channel that I will never watch. If you want a childrens' babysitter channel, go for YTV. I liked the Muppets when they were more adult. And out here in Hongcouver I am sure Mandarin and Cantonese channels will sell. But not to me. Of course if you are a displaced Quebecker grab all that French content with your cigarettes but I don't believe Maillardville has any French speakers left out there, so what's the point? 

If you like sobby love, go for CW and Lifetime. H&G if you like tools and Norm making everything perfect because he has the Fixer500 Super emulsifier to make that cabinet for Wifey, (not THAT Wifey) but strap on your hammer and watch.
If you love William Shatner in his prime, go for SpaceTV. 

This seems to get to that point where the channels will cost $200 a month! Defeating the whole idea of you picking channels that you really want for fewer dollars. And they KNOW that most channels are crap but now they don't know what you want because they've been forcing inferior channels on you all these years! 
So 30 of the so-called basic channels are needless duplications. Or foreign language. Yes I am patriotic and understand the National dual language thingy, but if I don't understand what they are saying I don't want it taking up space on my choices!

No wonder that so many are dropping their TV provider totally and going to Netflix or Popcorn and all the streaming internet channels instead.   

Too bad we can't go back to a TV aerial atop our roof and grab the programs floating past in the air. Oh no, that was too much freedom for the people and too threatening for governments as anyone could send out signals, and you might hear or see something you're not supposed to, causing them to set the sun on broadcast television so they could control everything you see.

Do you get that Shaw will get the same money and more from letting me have some REAL choice? Some human somewhere has decided what I need again. If one is good then four is better? Am I supposed to use the extra channels of the same content just to see if they are synchronized? It is not about adding channels, it is about dumping them! I get it and you get it but the CRTC doesn't!

And you see, everything is still a 'bundle'. I cannot just add HBO on its own for a single additional price. Why not? Because without HBO towing along some other dud channel friends of friends don't get that money.


I might get better entertainment content by putting a spoon in my microwave and calling it Burno and Sparky.

And it won't cost me $25 a month.

Dumbing Down

You still don't believe there is a world-wide conspiracy to dumb down the populace?
How about at least a North American conspiracy? It has to have started somewhere and now the phrase itself is becoming part of our lexicon.

Dumbing down

How does it start? Social networking? Facebook etc. Twitter, where folks spend hours upon endless hours Linked in to telling the world they had stew for dinner? Showing pictures of their new sofa? Revealing info about themselves to any and all of the information gathering agency hackers. Are those who post dumb or what?


Or sports, everyone knows how rabid sports fans are, get on with the game no matter how much athletes cheat? Sure. We all see that, Pete Rose is great. Roger Clemens is great. Tom Brady didn't know his balls were deflated. Lance Armstrong was too great to be using drugs. And now Peyton Manning had strength inducing drugs delivered to his door and said they were for his wife!
One would suggest that sports fans are already as dumb as they can get!

But TV. There's another totally black horse, galloping away with your brain to Oblivion even though it is glowing bright and friendly right there in your own living room.
You click each night to watch your favorite programs and it is overwhelmingly obvious that someone, somewhere out in TV programming land is using the medium, to slowly and sneakily make sure you have nothing important to think about. Today's TV is a no threat, comfortable place to be. With an occasional jab to let you know who the bad guys are, Putin, the Chinese, Kim Jong Un, Deux and Trois, but it is okay, the powers that be are handling it. Keeping us safe. We'll build up our military and stop these guys so just tune in and see what Big Bang Theory is doing tonight.
Silly, huh?
Well, here's a TV line-up to think about, if you have any independent brain cells left ....
And these are Prime Time viewing!

The Bachelor - a bevy of beauties compete for a really dumb but good looking guy.
SuperGirl - a flying Pipi Longstockings with a red cape! Or was it blue?
Schitt's Creek - a whole program based on an idiot phrase. Only in Canader you say?
Real Housewives of  _  _  _  - doesn't matter where. Slutty women, all tits and tattoos with those hard-edged bar voices.
Lost Girl - A succubus feeds on the sexual energy of Mortals. Without Tiny Fey.

implants at their best

Storage Wars Canada - pale copy of the US version without Brandi's boobs. 

.... are you beginning to get it? Don't stop now ....

Ted - tough guy Mark Wahlberg and his talking Teddy Bear who can pee in a urinal. Talk about issues.
Family Feud - with inane people and the whitest teeth you ever saw!
Duck Dynasty - Phil Robertson endorsed Cruz or Hillary? Of course it was The Donald.
Alvin & the Chipmunks meet Frankenstein - No, Virginia, there isn't.
Mike and Molly - Really fat people collide on their rush to the cookie jar. 
The Walking Dead - old skin and broken bones with a hunger for brains.

Herrre's Jahnnnney!

..... hey, don't blame me for any of this .....

Chicago Fire - Firemen and policemen fight anytime they meet and you get hosed.
Buying the View - where Daddy's inheritence money is spent by imbecile son and goofy wife.
House Hunters International - Let's go live in Iraq with our kids and dogs, Honey!
Shark Tank - Where poor people with good ideas get them stolen by arrogant rich bullies.
Just for Laughs, Gags - Totally poor actors and totally poor extras, all doing stupid stunts for totally bereft viewers.
Moonshiners - Hooch fun in the backwoods, "You got a purty mouth, boy."
Married at First Sight - Newlyweds find out they don't like each other. Based on a Danish series titled Gift Ved Første Blik. Maybe they shoulda kept the title.


Some others you don't want to miss after having your porridge and learning to tie your shoelaces -
When Ghosts Attack; Boo hoo - True Life; I had my cousin's baby - Super Bowl's greatest all star commercials, more Clydesdale exploitation - Ice Road Truckers; ear muff guys who just don't get winter driving - Billy the Exterminator; meets pythons in your attic - Hill-billy Hand Fishin'; trying to coax catfish outa their holes - Dirty Jobs; we just had to put the entire plot-line in here - Mike is in Michigan where he gets filthy working at a bone black plant; then he meets twin sisters who are fans of the show to discuss the top five dirtiest jobs he has ever done.        O... M... G!   Tune in to see if the girls bathe Mike?

We can't let this go without an honorable Mention tribute to inanity and those who started the TV dumb decline - Any Adam Sandler movie, Friends, Dog and Beth, Sex and the City, Designing Women, and these are all from Prime Time!
Still believe you've graduated to adulthood?

And you have no one to blame but yourself, you look back now and say how you loved Gilligan and the Skipper, grew up with Opie, Left it to Beaver and now it's almost time to cash in your Chips. You're at fault yourself for the dumbing down of the continent for allowing it to happen so subtly, and all the time you were watching! So now the powers that be have had it their way for too long.

Take-over-the-World conspirators say you need to control a population for three generations to subjugate them completely.  It is almost time people and you pnly have about a half generation to go.
Just look at the new TV series now in preproduction; Women Crying. They sob and wail throughout each episode while Cry Detectives rush through their former lives trying to find out why. [spoiler alert - they never do.]

Quit thinking and just go along with it, it is as painless as 50s television. Think of Uncle Miltie, Lucy and Ed Sullivan. No worries, we know what's best for you. Have some more porridge, we put extra 'vitamins' in it.

Really, it is okay, just taste it and think that Julia Child made it.


(or Nigela if that's your want ....)

Profiling

Criminal Investigative Analysis, also known as profiling, is an investigative tool used by law enforcement to help solve violent crimes. It is based on evidence from crime scenes, victims, and witnesses. Mostly profiling is from information of crimes that have already happened, resulting in intelligent guesstimates of projected criminal actions ....

.... It can include signature profiling, psychological profiling, modus operandi and hundreds of other aspects to pre-identify criminal intent. The techniques are used worldwide as those gang societies emerge as dangerous to civilized populations.

Recently three Middle Eastern looking men raised interest while snapping pictures of entrances and exits in a mall in Vancouver. Many people saw it and reported it. Later it was said by police that the three were British tourists and they had poor vision. Hmm. Really? This was accepted by officialdom even though all three were taking pictures. So all three had poor vision? As it turned out to be innocent there was no panic. But would that dispel any apprehension for you? Doesn't work for me. We hope that CSIS would also require further info of such public suspicions.

If you see something, say something

The latest mantra in a wary and nervous North America and Europe has been; If you see something, say something. So people did. No slight against our three British tourists. It is what it is.

Last week a hotel in Burkina Faso, was stormed by al Qaeda leaving 28 dead. Westgate Mall in Nairobi was labeled a massacre! London was bombed. Paris is fresh in memory for Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan theatre. Jakarta, Indonesia had 12 killed too.

The local police in Vancouver said they were not profiling. Of course they were not, they did not swoop down on the three and make arrests. Shoppers in the mall saw something and said something. It was the public at large who were profiling. For whatever reason but probably on a new awareness of news events around the world. They held a subliminal profile of what they saw as a potentially dangerous situation.

Every week we see another mall or public facility bombed or attacked by jihadists, or Islamic radicals. And in spite of assurances by police, the public feels threatened and nervous. Profiling will only get more intensive and extensive.

What causes profiling?
Past history?  Events that lead to confirmed suspicions? Some Highway Patrol officers in America are as high as 90 % correct when pulling over drivers on certain highways they suspect of transporting drugs. Border patrol are excellent at targeting smugglers. Reading the signs that alert their suspicions is subconscious profiling.

You don't need anything but experience, and people everywhere are gaining that experience just through paying attention to news reporting. We see the nasty characters on TV and their demeanor registers in our minds. And over time we form a profile of those criminals.

Even dogs are profiled. Watch people on the street avoid a pitbull. Why? Because their minds automatically make a negative profile on pitbulls based on the thousands of attacks on humans and the subsequent publicity.

Why do the cops watch an orange Lamborghini with a teenager revving it while driving? Because most police anticipate that Daddy's money bought him that car and he is very likely to kill himself against a tree from street racing. No one needs a written profile to be aware. 

What of two 'hunters' in dark glasses wearing those cloth caps that fold down over the ears, and hunter vests while cruising past in their pickup truck with a old camper unit. Moose decals on the rear door. There is no hunting in town. So what are they doing besides giving you the creeps?


They need to do nothing, in many minds these are the guys from a horror movie who are looking for chain saw targets.

Profiling is a viscous circle. Once two real murderers looked just like those two in that truck .... newspapers and TV exploited the story, Hollywood picked up on it for horror value. Many saw the actor characters on TV and the profile was complete, from real to fiction to real again. At least in public minds.
Profiling goes way back. Wear long hair, a headband and a tie-dye shirt and it will be assumed you smoke pot. Look the part and expect attention.

Profiling is here to stay.
Many believe there are just too many instances and too many repugnant groups who want to cause trouble to a free society, and the public is now into the psychological technique, perhaps unconsciously.
The so-called downside of these actions is political correctness and that some people may be accused of actions seen as suspicious when actually innocent. The upside is that someone may prevent a mass killing in their midst.

And politically correct, unpleasant or not, if you see something, say something. 

If you see something, say something

We have to accept profiling.