Monday, December 14, 2009

News Corp/Fox is greedy

Two acts of evil of late by News Corp has shown its greed. I was reminded today that News Corp, which owns Hulu, will begin charging users to view previously free content on the site. Chase Carey, the deputy chairman of News Corp, said that "It’s time to start getting paid for broadcast content online."

The other incident occurred last night. I was watching "Family Guy," and at one point there was a four-minute commercial break! I kid you not. Commercial breaks should be two minutes. My God does Fox milk the few good shows it has.

Lastly, just thought I'd throw this in: Has anyone else noticed that Fox keeps freezing? As in, you're watching a show and all of a sudden the show freezes? This happens on both the regular cable and digital HD versions (through Charter). No other channel does this.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Snow Day in Madison

This is deja vu from our last two winters here. On the CBS morning news Tuesday, they sent weatherman Dave Price to Flagstaff, Ariz., site of a huge snowstorm that was making its to the midwest. The weather band stretched from Arizona to Wisconsin, where the majority of the snow cut through the middle of the state (south of Hayward, north of Janesville), which meant that once again Madison would get more snow than up north. In fact, this did happen: UW-Superior was the only UW system school to stay open yesterday.

It sucks that Madison just happens to sit in the eye of all these snow storms. Waking up yesterday, I thought it was eerie to see the quiet streets, downed branches and basic white-out. The plows did a nice job, though I'm surprised how much ice there is today given that hardly any cars drove yesterday to pack it in. There was so much ice on the steep hill that is S. Hamilton St. that a bus got stuck this morning, and all the cars behind it got stuck.

How bad was the 19.5" of snow yesterday? All state agencies closed; no mail, no busses, nothing. The hospitals were super busy with people experiencing chest pains from shoveling and several injuries from snowblowers (FOR PETE'S SAKE: DON'T STICK YOUR HAND IN THE SNOWBLOWER!!!). UW-Madison played host to a snowball fight on Bascom Hill, though not enough students came out to break Michigan Tech's World Record.

Speaking of snowballs, did you see the seven-foot snowball near the Vintage (University Ave/Frances St.)? It took at least 10 people to build it. There also were reports of 10-foot tall (or taller) snowmen all over campus, including one in the roundabout near the Natatorium.

By evening, I saw several pizza delivery cars moving about, as well as a taxi or two. I was willing to venture out to pick up some champagne at the liquor store, but no surprise, it was closed.

Sadly, winter still hasn't even started yet (11 days away). I thought this was supposed to be a tamer winter?