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| Real's Cristiano Ronaldo (L) v. Barca's Lionel Messi (R) |
Let us start with the weekend – and what a weekend it was
for soccer (futbol). You see, every
season, there are a number of what are called ‘derby matches’ (‘derby’ being
pronounced DAR-bee, not DUR-bee) in the various European leagues. A derby match is a game between two intense
rivals….in the CFL, Wpg/Sask would be a ‘derby game’….NHL, Mtl/Tor would be a
‘derby game’….MLB, Yankees/Red Sox….You get the picture. Now, imagine each of those games taking place
on ONE weekend. That’s what happened in
futbol this past weekend in Europe.
There were huge derby games in France, Italy and Spain – the biggest
derby games for each league. In France
that was Marseille versus PSG (Paris St.Germain), in Italy that was AC Milan
versus Inter Milan (Milan Derby) and in Spain that is Barcelona versus Real
Madrid (El Clasico – and yes, Clasico is spelled with ONE ‘s’).
It also features two of the best players on the planet - Real's Cristiano Ronaldo and Barcelona's Lionel (LEE-oh-nell) Messi. Messi is the reigning World Player of the Year, Ronaldo is a former Manchester United star (whom Jeremy has an autographed jersey of in his closet!!).
For Terri and her channel ‘beIN Sport’, this was their
biggest weekend to date as they had the TV rights to EACH of those leagues and
these derby games. Because ‘El Clasico’
is considered one of the biggest derby games in the world, they decided to
showcase that game – and that meant Terri was studying her butt off for days
leading up to Sunday. She hosted a 50
min pre-game show, did the halftime show and then a quick post wrap-up at the
end of El Clasico followed by a show at the end of the evening recapping each
of the big games with an analyst.
WOW. A LOT of work!
She was great. There
were the expected technical glitches (there always are) but she was fantastic –
although she is much harder on herself and will likely not be as
agreeable. I think she did great! I was invited to beIN to watch the game
(since we have no TV or cable at home) and going into it her analyst and I both
predicted a 2-2 result…and so it came to pass (she says I cannot call myself a
sage – I disagree..). beIN did a great
job of really covering the game – including having reporters at the stadium in
Barcelona filing reports. This is
something that has never been done for this kind of broadcast in North America
– a reporter at the stadium for El Clasico.
It was an historic day and a LONG day for Terri, but I am so proud of
her.
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On the way home from work that day, we stopped at Wendy’s
for a bite to eat. An innocuous
occurrence save for the fact that we ordered a medium berry-flavored iced tea
with our meal.
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| Medium my ass... |
Take a look at the photo on the left. Does that look like a medium drink to
you?? This drink was/is HUGE! And as the other pictures attest, it also
didn’t taste very good. We need to
remember that iced tea here in America is actually REAL tea. Add berry flavoring to that and it tastes
like sh!t. The drink is still sitting in
our fridge – Terri refuses to throw it out, preferring to water it down
instead. Yuck.
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| Jeremy is not a fan of US iced tea... |
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Monday was ‘Columbus Day’ here in the United States. We forgot they choose to celebrate a man
considered a mass murderer by many….and it was also Thanksgiving Monday back in
Canada. We started the day by snapping
photos of the alligator in the lake behind our house!
Nope, there is actually a gator!
So, we will be vigilant when the dogs go outside from now on
as we don’t want either of them to become an unwitting snack for our yet
unnamed lake-dwelling friend. (Any
suggestions??) Our back fence actually
has a gap big enough for the gator to crawl under (or Jonny) and so we are
eager to get that taken care of ASAP – likely with some sandbags or something.
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Monday was also the day we had arranged for the internet guy
to come and hook us up – FINALLY. No
more trips to Starbucks to use their wireless network! We can finally download some TV shows to
watch! YAY!!
Cable guy showed up as scheduled – and much to Terri’s
chagrin, it WASN’T Jim Carrey. He took a
look over everything and then gave us the news…in a thick Spanish accent…
“I ave da good nyews and da bad nyews – and da bad nyews is
berry, berry bad.” He says.
“Wonderful,” I say.
“Out with it then.” – Downton Abbey is causing me to use proper English
now apparently.
“You ‘ouse is bired for da cable, jess. But da bad nyews is dat dee box is not ‘ooked
to da ‘ouse.”
“Wait a minute.
What?”
“I show you.”
So we proceed outside and he shows me these cables hanging
in a loop at the front of the house – along with two grey plastic pipes that
are supposed to have cables coming out of it.
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| "Berry, berry bad nyews" |
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| There should be a box over this... |
“Your ‘ouse is not ‘ooked up, see?”
“Yes, I see. Do you
mind if I punch you in the face? “
I didn’t say that – but I was thinking it. Then peeking down the block, I see that every
house that has people in it has that little box out front. So, we send this nice Comcast gent on his way
– “Jew call us when de ‘ook up is done, jess?” – and we called our property
manager to inform him of the situation.
He will get back to us today apparently.
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| This is what we want out front of our place... |
After all that, we decide we better call Dish Network and
ask if they need that little box in order to hook up a dish. They don’t because it is a dish – but better
safe than surprised, right?
Well, the surprise came when we actually started to sign up
and book an appointment….and we’ve encountered this problem trying to get new
cellphones….we have no credit in the US.
More specifically, we have no credit history here – and so getting
hooked up for these things is ridiculously expensive. To get a cellphone contract, they want a $500
deposit only refunded at the end of the 2-year contract. For Dish, we would have to pay $400 to get
hooked up – and that’s not refundable!!
Now we’re thinking, how much do we need cable? Is there another way around this? The Dish guy suggests waiting for the
terrestrial cable to get hooked in and try that as they will likely not be as
expensive – but they also do not have the same grade of equipment (PVR’s, HD
selections, etc.). So, we are now giving
serious thought to what our alternatives are.
We DO download a bunch of shows and we’re actually thinking what EXACTLY
do we watch? Other than LIVE sporting
events, is cable just white noise in the background of our lives while we do
other things? How much of a waste would
NOT having cable be when we look at our 51” Plasma TV sitting in the living
room (eventually). Could we buy the TV
shows we want on iTunes and watch them through something like Apple TV? We have some thinking to do…Perhaps once our
stuff finally arrives we’ll feel less anxious about it but for now, we have no
TV to watch, no furniture to sit on (other than our mattress) and nothing else
to do other than read and listen to podcasts when we’re at home. Naturally, we’ll keep you updated.
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The phone thing is another animal entirely. Turns out, Rogers cellphone plans are not so
bad up there in Canada – when we compare it to what we’re facing down here.
Monday, we visited three different cellphone companies and
are stunned at how expensive it is to get a suitable plan – forget the fact
we’re Canadians and face the credit/deposit challenge. Sprint seemed to have the most suitable plan
for us economically – but it is still a minimum $100/mth for just ONE iPhone. If we went with a family plan on TWO iPhones,
over $200…and that’s a FAMILY plan.
Individually, it’s even worse!
This allows us limited minutes to call or text back home – and when
anyone from home calls us, it uses our minutes….No, that’s ok. Through AT&T, we’d actually be charged
.19/min when someone calls us from Canada!!
We can pay a little extra for unlimited texting to Canada –
but overall it ain’t cheap to have a cellphone here. These companies must be making money hand
over fist because every place we went to was jammed with people clamoring for a
phone. I wonder if we should go back to
a land line….it’s likely dirt cheap!!
As an aside - we thought maybe we could pay extra for an
‘unlimited’ minutes and data plan – and that would allow us to ‘tether’ our
device for internet usage, but cell companies have gotten wise to that and will
now NOT allow you to tether – unless you buy a tethering plan, which is
ridiculous and capped at 6GB. We’d burn
through that in a week given our download habits.
So, more thinking to do and things to consider…Do they have
Vonage down here??
Just re-hashing all this information for the blog is making
my head hurt.
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Bed update – We paid a visit to SR today with all pieces in
question to physical hold the problem in front of his face. He is now on the same page as us and I’m
thrilled to say he has JUST called us to inform us the correct pieces are ready
for us to pick up. Can it be? Will be actually be able to sleep in our bed
tonight??? Stay tuned, folks! We’ll let you know for sure. I cannot WAIT to have this guy in my
rearview mirror…Lord forbid he ever steps in front of my car…
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There was one bit of positive news Monday – we decided to
take the plunge and learn Spanish. To do
this, we’re taking Rosetta Stone up on their promise of a 92% success rate
learning a new language. We bought a
Rosetta Stone Spanish package at the mall and did some of our first lesson
Monday night. It is fun and immersive –
they do nothing in English, no translation, nothing. It immerses you in Spanish and you find
yourself memorizing things quickly. It’s
very cool and I think we’re going to enjoy it.
We bought all five levels and by the end of it, we should be
conversational and be able to hold our own anywhere….Gosh knows we’ll certainly
have plenty of options to practice in the real world! Everyone here speaks Spanish – including at
Terri’s work. She’ll certainly get
practice.
And one thing about Rosetta Stone – they REALLY give you no
option but to learn if you are willing.
They have online sessions with a native Spanish speaker, who will ONLY
speak Spanish, they allow you to help others learning English and they have
apps for iphone and ipad along with mp3 CD’s for the car!! It’s quite the dealio!! And it has a 6-month return policy – so I
told Terri, if we can learn Spanish in 6 mos, we can return this and get
another language if we like! I’ve always
wanted to learn Italian…French…German…Wouldn’t that be something??
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That is all for now!
If you have any ideas to help us through our series of conundrums, feel
free to email either one of us! We’re
open to all ideas!
(jrstlouis@gmail.com/terristlouis@gmail.com)
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