Did I Speak Too Soon?

You know how I went on about the end of the Sky era yesterday? Well, yesterday, just on a whim, I put in our new Sky card, and...

It's TOTALLY working.

That's right, ALL our channels as if nothing had ever been wrong.

Sky requires a 31-day notice when you cancel, so that means we'll still get all our channels until the beginning of March. That also means, I presume, that we could call them back and rescind our cancellation now that the card is working just fine.

Should we, or shouldn't we?

THAT is the question.

No Offense!

And speaking of Sky...

Yesterday evening, I was about to watch The Simpsons on one of the free (YES!!!) Sky channels. I looked at the show description to see which episode it was, and I noticed that it was the one where Bart starts working for the local Mafia guys: Cool! I hadn't seen that one in a long time.

Seconds before the show was about to start, a voice came on a said:

Warning. This show contains strong Italian stereotypes that some of our viewers [the Italian ones, I'm assuming] might find offensive.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???

They actually gave a warning before A CARTOON to avoid offending some viewers.

I COULDN'T BELIVE IT!

I called out to my dago wife and told her to get her goombah ass out to TV room so she could hear it for herself, but she was in the tub stomping on some grapes, or in the shower scrubbing off the garlic smell, or something...

Who knows? Fuggedabouit!

The End Of An Era...

Remember a couple of years ago when I said that there was a chance that we might lose our Sky satellite subscription in the "near" future. Well, horror of horrors, it's finally happened!!!

This past October, a box began popping up on our screen telling us to insert our new satellite card and we'd have to press a button on our remote every 60 seconds(!!!) in order to get the message to go away - ANNOYING!!! Our card was supposed to have been sent to the U.K. home of one of Mrs. TBF's colleagues, but it never arrived in the mail. Mrs. TBF's colleague had to call Sky from her home in the U.K. (because Sky now blocks calls from outside the U.K.), pretend she was Mrs. TBF (after we coached her on what to say), and ask for a new card to be sent. Sky said they would do so.

They didn't.

After calling Sky a couple of times, and Sky saying they would send a new card but not doing so, we just asked our friend to call them and cancel the subscription. When, our friend called to cancel, Sky practically begged her to give them one more chance. About a week later, much to our surprise, the card came.

This past Friday, we received our new card from our friend, and...

IT DIDN'T WORK!!!

Our friend called Sky from her home in the U.K. this past weekend, and they told her it would be working within 24 hours (after we had to provide the old card number, the new card number, AND the serial number of our Sky box). After THIRTY hours, it still wasn't working, so our friend called Sky last night and canceled.

In the end it was kind of strange: WE wanted to keep our subscription, SKY wanted us to keep the subscription, but it just didn't work out. Shame!

But I'm happy to report that it's not a total loss.

Even without any card, the box still picks up quite a few free channels. Fortunately, one of the free channels, amazingly, is the U.S. Food Network. That means that we'll still be able to get our nightly dose of Iron Chef America every night at 10 p.m. - which is one of the few shows we watch with any regularity anyway. Plus, we'll still get the BBC channels, ITV channels, and quite a few others. Yes, no more NFL on Sunday nights, but... the season's almost over anyway, right? Plus, when the new season begins next September, we'll be getting close to moving back to the U.S. anyway.

Right, Mrs. TBF???

Gray Skies Ahead...

I'm not saying that we've had an illegal (to people residing outside of the U.K. and Ireland) Sky satellite subscription for the past seven years or anything, but people who look a lot like us received a letter in the mail today from a person who handles their Sky satellite subscription. Here's what (I've been told) are the contents of that letter (paraphrased):

Dear Customer,

In the last few weeks Sky has implemented a huge crackdown on viewers outside the UK. This has resulted in thousands of European viewers having their cards turned off. Most of their dealers who were supplying the foreign market have had their licences revoked and a lot have gone out of business...

This casts a big shadow over our receiving new viewing cards if Sky change them next Spring as is widely rumoured. It is possible that all may go well, but I think that is highly unlikely.

To ensure that you continue viewing and recive your new card when it is sent out, you will need to find a friend in the UK who will let you use their address, and inform Sky that you have moved....

We (OK, you got us...it's really us!) don't really have any friends in the U.K. (at least nobody pops into my his head) who could let us use their address. And, that's just as well because...I DON'T REALLY CARE! Although I did just go turn on our TV to see if we were still receiving Sky. We are!

Sure, Mrs. TBF would miss her food channels, and I'd miss the music video channels (to keep up with what the kids are listening to these days), my occasional fix of The Simpsons (I could just buy the DVDs), and whatever other shows we occasionally watch. But we really don't watch that much TV (probably less than one hour per week during the summer), and I don't really think I'd miss it that much. Plus, we could just plow the monthly CHF 90 (about USD 80) into other things.

Wait a second...would that mean no NFL football on Sundays and Mondays during the winter?!?!?!?

DOES ANYBODY KNOW ANYBODY IN THE U.K. WHO WILL LET US USE THEIR ADDRESS??????