I hated cable/satellite companies because their idiotic insistence on "packaging" everything made it so that you have to pay for channels you have zero intent of ever watching. Many times they made me pay for channels I actively hated.

Then streaming happened.

Finally, you could buy only the channels you wanted to watch. It was cheaper and didn't mean your money was going where you didn't want it to.

It was good while it lasted.

Now streaming has gotten just as stupid and expensive as cable/satellite ever was. Netflix, for example, has started "cracking down" on password sharing. I don't share my password, but this is the kind of idiotic shit that makes me want to start.

No, I don’t think the entire world should be able to share one account. No business could survive on that, and I want to support those services I use. But I do think that if you pay for an account, it’s none of Netflix’s fucking business who is doing the streaming or where the streaming is being done. Just lock it down so you can’t stream more concurrent streams than you’re paying for. If I pay for one stream at a time only, then Netflix will only stream for one concurrent user. If I pay for five concurrent streams, then Netflix won’t stream six or more at the same time off my account. Software companies have been selling by seat licenses forever.

HBO's "Max" has gone a different route in fucking their customers. Right now in order to keep my subscription when it expires, I'm going to have to pay the $150 annual fee. That's $50 more than the $100 I used to pay. And it's like, whatever, because the price of everything is going up. Except in order to get 4k quality, I will now have to pay $200. So it's like... fuck that. No more paying for a full year. I'll pay once or twice a year for a month of service and just catch up on all the crap I want to see. Because nothing is worth this kind of abuse.

Right now I'm struggling to think of a single service that I'm invested enough in keeping year 'round. I'd say Disney+, but they're planning on cutting and delaying a lot of things I want to watch (Marvel & Star Wars content), so even that will likely be chopped.

It's crazy how streaming won the war only to piss it away like this.

Now that I've been cutting streaming services left and right to save money for fixing all the stuff going wrong in my home, I'm confining myself to the few streaming services that I still have left. Which is Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Discovery+, and YouTube. Some of these were pre-paid for a year... but Netflix will be rotated with with Hulu and Paramount+ and Peacock so I can keep up with all the shows I watch.

Since I missed a week blogging, I thought I'd list out some of the stuff that I've been watching.

I've watched the Season Finale of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law three times, but have held off talking about it because I wanted to make sure that everybody had a chance to see it. There's a lot to love about this series (starting with Tatiana Maslany), but if I had to pick one thing that absolutely thrilled me... it would be seeing Matt Murdock happy. Unlike the dark, dour, depressing Daredevil in the Netflix Universe, which was amazing... the MCU version is the complete opposite and amazing too. Hats off to Charlie Cox... only an actor with some real talent has the chops to pull off both versions of the character. What's so hilarious to me are all the people going on and on about how She-Hulk RUINED THE CHARACTER! No... they didn't. That version is still available to watch if that's what you want. If nothing else, the action was on-point...

In all honesty, I think that the reason people are pouring so much hate on She-Hulk is because it confronts toxic masculinity head-on. Oh well. Stay mad about it, I guess. I thought the series was entertaining as hell and really want a second season.

I'm not done raving about Andor yet. That show is remarkably well thought-out and realized. And the acting is just beyond. Diego Luna is incredible (as expected) but there's nobody falling short of his example, and it's amazing to watch. The eighth episode is fantastic in that you can see they are actually building towards something, and nothing that's come before was by accident. Four more episodes of the first season to go, and I am betting they will just keep amping up as we hurl towards the finish line. Must watch television.

I've been heavily invested in the Netflix series From Scratch with Zoe Saldana. I am fully aware how the show ends (it's based on a true story), but I didn't realize just how heartbreaking they would make it out to be. It's one thing to know something... it's quite another to see it play out with such nuance. After the fourth episode, I only have the heart to watch them one at a time. The problem is that I thought there were six episodes... there are actually eight, and I still have the last two to go. Well worth your time if you're in the mindset for it...

Just have a box of Kleenex ready.

And speaking of knowing how the show ends... I finished the first season of House of the Dragon. Since I've read the book on which it's based, I know exactly what it's all leading to, but that hasn't dampened my appreciation for the show. It reminds me of the early seasons of Game of Thrones. But since the showrunners won't have to make up their own ending, I think Dragon has a much better chance of having a good ending (unlike Thrones which was a complete shit-show)...

Apparently they have the book broken down into four seasons. So three more to go to find out if it actually lived up to its potential, I suppose.

And I'm going to end with this YouTube video of Wayne Brady talking about one of the most hilarious sketches ever to appear on television. This is a deep dive that peels back the curtain in a very interesting and important way...