All posts by Andi

Getting Rid of Cable-Part 2-Netflix vs Hulu Plus vs Amazon Instant Video

August 26, 2013 Andi Leave a comment

When I thought about getting rid of cable I thought it would be a good idea to subscribe to a movie/TV streaming application. So the question was between the top 3 streaming companies which was best? Netflix, Hulu Plus or Amazon Instant Video.

After looking into all of these options I found the subscription fee for each one to be about $8 a month so not too bad, but the content included can be tricky. Let’s start with Netflix. We have been using Netflix for years now, but we have been using the DVD in the mail version of it. I know it’s kind of old school but we like it. It’s nice to have a list of movies just sent to us and most of them are not available on Netflix Streaming. After reading up on Netflix Instant Streaming and looking at what was available (through a friend’s account) I realize the content was pretty limited when it came to new TV episodes and new movie releases. If you can wait until your favorite show’s season was over Netflix Streaming was a good option. I don’t want to wait, however. I want to watch new shows soon after they have aired. This was my main deference from Netflix, the content just wasn’t up to par. If I’m going to pay for something I want it to have the shows I want. So with Netflix looking out of the running do we keep our DVD subscription?

Before that though, let’s talk about Hulu Plus. I have never been a fan of Hulu so subscribing to Hulu Plus did not seem like an option to me. There are plenty of things on Hulu I can watch without logging in. With Hulu being so spotty with rights to the material it has never been a place I go to watch TV. I would much rather get to the point and go straight to the network’s website. That being said it was not a hard decision to not pay a monthly fee for Hulu Plus. Honestly I don’t know why anyone would pay for Hulu Plus. Am I missing something here?

The real decision came between Netflix Streaming and Amazon Instant Video. One of the things that sold me on Amazon Instant Video was that it had TV shows one day after they aired. This did not seem possible on Netflix. Amazon’s content seemed to be constantly updated. So after looking at Amazon Instant Video a lot and then seeing we could stream it using our Playstation 3 I decided to get a free month of Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime is a membership Amazon offers that allows you to watch newer movies and TV on Amazon Instant Video at a discounted price or for free. If you wanted you could just watch content on Amazon Instant Video without getting Prime but there seemed to be too many perks to Amazon Prime to pass it up. Signing up with Amazon Prime got me access to Amazon’s Kindle Library where you can rent books for free. It also gives us free standard shipping on our Amazon purchases (and we seem to make a lot of those). It is $8 a month. Amazon seemed like the way to go for us because of all the perks. Kindle Loaning Library, free shipping, newer updated content and being able to stream it from our PS3 made Amazon Instant Video the most appealing.

So lately I have been checking out some of the shows and movies that are offered on Amazon Prime. It’s exciting. There’s some really good stuff on there. Sometimes you might have to pay for a movie or a show here and there but so far it’s been great.

Also, for the time being we have decided to keep our subscription to Netflix DVDs just because it is nice to have the DVDs available and it isn’t too expensive especially if we are getting rid of cable.

Next up in Part 3 of Getting Rid of Cable I’m going to talk about HD Antennas!

Bloggings, Rantings, Reviews, Television

Getting Rid of Cable-Part 1-The Thought Process.

August 18, 2013 Andi Leave a comment

July 2, 2013

Three years ago when we moved to Chicago I thought it would be impossible to live without cable TV. Our cable and internet package price made it an easy choice to just keep it simple and keep cable. It was around $80. Within 3 years our cable and internet bill reached $130 (roughly $1500 a year!). Our cable company kept taking away channels and changing the line up and the price kept going up!

We then had a couple stints of weeks at a time with no access to cable or DVR and little help from our cable company. It didn’t make sense to be paying so much for a service that kept going off. It was really getting to me. Half of the time our DVR would freeze and not record a show and we would end up watching shows online anyway.

At the end of June we helped our friends move and they were talking about how they would not be getting cable. Instead they would be using an HD antenna to get their local channels and things like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime to get other shows. This really interested me because up until now I had not heard of HD antennas.

Pretty much immediately when we got home I started researching HD antennas and thinking about which channels we watched the most. First I had to see if I could live without cable. I made this list:

CBS (can pick up with HD antenna or watch shows on CBS.com)
-Big Brother
-Survivor
-Amazing Race
-Under the Dome

NBC (HD antenna, watch online)
-Grimm

AMC (online)
-The Walking Dead

Sci-Fi (we pretty much watched a whole season online so no problem)
-Being Human

History Channel (can watch on history channel website)
-American Pickers
-Top Shot

Those were our main shows, but then just to embarrass myself….

MTV (mtv.com)
-True Life
-Catfish
-Teen Moms, other reality shows

TruTV
-Impratical Jokers

Lifetime (lifetime website maybe)
-Preacher’s Daughters

TLC
-My Strange Addiction
-My Crazy Obsession
-Breaking Amish

Channels I will miss but can hopefully find a lot of stuff online…
-Natural Geographic
-Discovery
-Lifetime
-TLC

So those were the shows/channels we (I) were most concerned about. I found out most of our shows were on CBS and NBC and a lot of them were offered on the network’s website. I’ve also learned over time (through my husband) that you can get just about any show online somehow.

The next thing I thought about was Live Sports. The sports we watch the most in our household are College Basketball, NFL and NHL. Most of the Big Ten important games are on basic cable so that won’t be too bad, although with the Big Ten Network this might not be true anymore. It seems like more and more games have been on there.

I found that all the NFL playoff games are streamed online on NFL.com and they are also on basic cable. As far as I remember this holds true because most Bears games were on basic cable.

Recently in the last few years we have started watching more hockey. Thanks to my dad who is obsessed with the Blackhawks and with us living in Chicago, it’s exciting. Unfortunately most of these games will not be on basic cable. I found some websites where you can stream live sports and hopefully this works for us or we might be hitting up some sports bars once in awhile. So look out for my future blog on live streaming sports.

So once I figured out we were barely using our cable I decided we should go through with this. It’s not that we can’t afford cable, it’s just that the bill is outrageous and hard to justify. That’s money we could be putting into our savings.

So then it was onto researching which HD antenna to get and if we should purchase a streaming application like Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Amazon Instant Video. Check back for all of this in Part 2!

Bloggings, Food Blog, Reviews, Travel

Birthday Weekend-La Porte/Michigan City, Indiana

July 2, 2013 Andi Leave a comment

This past weekend Don took me on a surprise getaway for my birthday…this has sort of been the tradition for the past 4 years haha. Do I expect it…sorta…haha. He is the best.

We left Friday (June 21) after work around 6:30. The drive wasn’t too bad and it only took about an hour and a half or 2 hours. The destination was a bed and breakfast in La Porte, Indiana called Arbor Hill Inn. We arrived around 8 and checked in. The place looked very nice. The outside of the B&B looked cool. We were very hungry so we decided to go out and eat.

When we left Arbor Hill Inn I could see there was a very large lake nearby. The lake was called Pine Lake. There are a whole bunch of lakes in La Porte. We decided to eat at Mexican restaurant nearby that had very good reviews. It was called La Bracero. The food was great.

When we came back to the B&B there was dessert waiting for us. This was one of Don’s surprises. There was a cheesecake and a chocolate mousse type of thing, it was the Arbor Hill Special.

The next morning we woke up and went to breakfast around 8:30.

Breakfast was sausage, fruit, and mini waffles. I am usually not a fan of waffles but these were delicious.

After breakfast we went to Stone Lake. We hung out for awhile and relaxed. Then we decided we would grill here. Don of course brought a ton of stuff to grill haha so we were grilling for awhile.

At around 3 we decided to go over to Indiana Dunes State Park. It was about a 20 minute drive. We stopped at Mount Baldy. Mount Baldy is a big sand dune. We hiked around it to get to Lake Michigan. Usually you can climb up to the top of Mount Baldy but the trail was closed off. It was really cool looking and Lake Michigan was beautiful as always.

Then we went back to the B&B and got cleaned up. We wanted to check out a Polish Festival in town. There wasn’t much at the festival but we each got a Polish Sausage and a beer. Then we decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Blackhawks/Boston Game 5. The Blackhawks won so that was great! It was a really good game.

On Sunday we woke up and had breakfast about the same time. Breakfast was french toast with sausage and fruit. It was okay. We got all of stuff and checked out of the Arbor Hill Inn. Then we drove over to Michigan City so we would try Shoreline Brewery. We first stopped by an outlet mall near the brewery and Don got some new dress shoes.

We got a beer flight at Shoreline.

Most of the beers were pretty good. And there was enough in each glass for us both to try them. We then ordered Fried Pickles and the Scotch Egg appetizers. Both were great. I think the Fried Pickles were some of the best I’ve had. Then we had the Fried Calamari because it was different, it had feta and banana peppers in it. We also ordered the pork sliders. The pork sliders were not as good as they sounded. Overall though I was happy with Shoreline Brewery. We got carrot cake for dessert. It was a little too big but good.

That was how we ended our weekend getaway…..can’t wait for the next one!

Bloggings, Reviews - Travel, Travel

Chain O’Lakes-Spring Grove, IL

May 20, 2013 Andi Leave a comment

We took our first camping trip this past weekend. We received a lot of camping gear, including a tent, for our wedding. So..we decided on Chain O’lakes because it was pretty close, only an hour and a half away.

So..we left Chicago around 5:30 pm on Friday night. Traffic was terrible. I was getting worried because we had to set up our tent in the dark most likely. We stopped at Mcdonald’s for dinner and ate on the road.

We finally got to Chain O’Lakes around 7:20 pm and got checked in. We still needed to get firewood so we went to gas station nearby. Our car was so packed to the top!

When we finally arrived at our campsite another couple was starting to set up their tent at the campsite right next to us. We were both confused as to which campsite was ours. So between the 4 of us we just decided what looked like our campgrounds haha. Right before we set up our tent we saw a big animal run across the road. It looked like a small bear cub haha. I don’t believe it was, Don was convinced that it was.

It was starting to get dark as we set up our tent. The tent was pretty easy except for the rain cover part. It was so confusing and bugs were biting and it was dark! But now that we have done it we will know for next time.

Then we made a fire and relaxed by it for awhile and then went to bed. The campground was not very busy so it was really quiet. Cassie had texted earlier saying that they had decided to come Saturday morning and camp out. This was exciting!

Sleeping in the tent wasn’t so comfortable and it was pretty cold. Luckily, my sleeping bag kept me really warm. I was woken up around 730 am by sunlight and birds. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I decided to check out the showers. The showers were a short walk away from our campsite. On my way there I saw a few other campers getting up from sleep.

I was impressed with the showers, they were nicer than campground showers I remember growing up. The water was hot too! When I got back to the campground Don went to take a shower. I arranged and organized our site, put a tablecloth down, and brought stuff out of the car. Then I sat in the sun and read a little bit. Mostly I enjoyed looking out at the lake we were camping near. There were so many birds! It was so pretty.

Once Don got back we made some sausages and ate a bit. Then we just relaxed and waited for Cassie and Ian to arrive. I spread out a blanket on the ground and read and got some sun. It was getting a lot warmer than the weather said it would be. Soon I was changed into a tank top and shorts. The weather was awesome.

Cassie and Ian got to the campground around 1. They brought their dog Westley. They set up their tent then Cassie and I went to the store to get more water. When we got back we could see the guys moving a picnic table. We were confused but soon found out that a new couple had arrived next to us and said we were in the wrong spot. We decided to move the tents over. This was kind of crazy but we were able to get our tents moved without taking them down.

Then we started cooking. We made cheeseburgers, sausages, vegetables and steaks. We had so much food! Cassie and Ian made mac and cheese on their little stove. I think it was called a WhisperLite. It was pretty cool. After we ate we decided to play Small World. Then we made smores. During this time we saw a raccoon trying to get into our garbage. It came right up to our campsite! We got it to go away. Then we played Pandemic. I had been so excited to play Pandemic while camping. Why? I don’t know, it sounded fun.

All throughout the game the raccoon kept coming back. After the game (we won) we decided to go to bed. The campground had gotten really packed throughout the night, all the sites on our road were taken. I could not get comfortable and neither could Don. When I finally got to sleep I was woken up by Don getting out of the tent. It was about 130 am. There was a lot of commotion outside the tent. Then I saw Ian come out with duct tape and he taped the coolers shut.

When Don came back in he said the raccoons had opened Cassie and Ian’s cooler and took out a package of cheese and ran. Then they were fighting over the cheese. I couldn’t believe they got in the cooler!

We woke up again around 730 am. One of the families a couple of campgrounds away from us were so loud! The kid was yelling and loud. We found out they had left the back of their van open and the raccoons had eaten all food they could get to! I went and showered. This time I took Don’s advice and used the handicap shower. It was so much better than the regular one haha. When I got back to the campground we all talked about how we got no sleep. Then Ian made us Scottish Eggs. Don made the rest of the sausages and we reheated the food from yesterday. We had so much food.

After we ate we started packing up. It was so hot! I was ready to be home and take a nice real shower haha. I think choosing Chain O’Lakes for our first camping experience was the right choice. It was really great. We had a lot of fun on our first camping trip and we are already talking about where we should go next!!

Before we left we found raccoon footprints on our car!

Food Blog, Reviews, Travel

Last Day Heading to Airport…

April 19, 2013 Andi Leave a comment

Today we had breakfast at our hotel. We were able to pack and relax. Don’s dad and brother picked us up around 12 because this was when we had to check out. They told us that they were not planning on picking us up until 2 because they thought this was when check out was…

So then we picked up Tita Remy and Pong again. It was good to see them again, we had thought last night would be the last time. Then we headed to Angeles City to get lunch. In my head I was hoping and craving for something American. When we got to Angeles City (it was about a 20 minute drive) I saw a lot of Western Style Restaurants. In my head though I was thinking…we won’t be eating that.

I was wrong. We went to a restaurant called Rumpa. There were white people there! hahaa. It was American style food. And it was pretty good! I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Don got fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Pong had barbecue and it was very good. We all tried each other’s food. It was a nice change of pace.

After we ate we all got back in the car. We then drove around and went by a mall. I did not want to go in the mall….ugh I hate shopping! For some reason we didn’t stop. We drove by Clark Air Base. It did not look like much. There were a few old airplanes on display. You could see the barracks where people lived. The area looked very American.

We were going to stop at a place called Nayo Ng Pilipino. It was basically people dressed up and showing the different cultures in the Philippines. We didn’t do it though because it was already 2 pm and it was so hot!

So on the way back we did stop at the mall. Don looked for a case for the new Samsung. We didn’t find one. Basically no one bought anything. It was so crowded and I was afraid someone would step on my injured toe. I was happy to leave the mall.

So then we made our way back to San Fernando. There was so much traffic! We dropped off Tita Remy and Pong and said our goodbyes. Then it was me, Don, Fiona, and Sean in the backseat again. Off to Manila to the airport. I don’t think I have ever been more ready to be back in the US. This was a long trip. I think it felt especially long because for the last half of it we were just being driven around. It was very nice of Don’s dad and his brother to take time off and drive us around everywhere. We saw things that would have been difficult to see on our own. And we were able to see family easily. I am appreciative of that. But it felt like weeks haha…I was ready to be back in my own bed and eating things without worrying.

Ahh…but the ride there was so long. The traffic in Manila is unbelievable. I have never seen anything like it in the US. It was also hard to see the poverty in the Philippines. It was very eye opening.

Once we got to the airport it was about 7 pm. Korean Airlines were not open yet so we got in a line. We were about 3rd in line and we were told they would open around 830 pm. So much waiting! The airport was crazy crowded.

We met a guy from Maryland. He talked a lot, so that passed some time in the line. Finally at 830 we were able to check in. Then we went through security and tried to find a place to eat. We had to eat right when we entered after security because there were no restaurants at the gate. We found a crowded restaurant and got some food. I had a chicken noodle soup that was actually pretty good. Don got some pork rolls that we shared.

We went to the gate around 10 and waited because our flight was not until 1145 pm. We finally boarded…on time and left. 4 hours and we would be in South Korea. We had the tv screens again so I put on some documentary and tried to fall asleep. I don’t think I slept much though. It felt like a long flight…

GarbledSyntax