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There is not a ton to share today since Shobhit and I spent most of the evening last night watching the Emmy Awards. I rode my bike home from work, leaving five minutes early, and barely managed to get Hulu + Live TV set up on the smart TV so we could watch it—and still I missed most of host Marihka Hargitay's opening bits because I was still finishing up the making of chai for us to drink.
I will say that getting access to the Emmy Awards via any streamer was a bit of an ordeal. We don't pay for cable anymore and rely only on streaming, which means I need to get a free trial of something in order to see any live TV on a streamer. And I made more attempts this time than ever before: I had already done this sort of thing twice with YouTube TV (to see the Olympics and then to see the Oscars), creating new email addresses both times; I realized later that I probably used both of my credit cards with each of those attempts which probably was the reason I kept getting an error because I was no longer eligible for a free trial—creating a new email address alone is not enough; they recognize when a credit card has been used before.
I went through the same thing trying to create a dummy account on Fubo, which I must have done more than once before as well. We tried using Shobhit's credit cards and that also did not work. This was all attempted on Sunday evening, and we kind of gave up. I began to suspect that perhaps these systems were also recognizing IP addresses, and we could not fool them even with new email addresses and credit cards. (I just Googled this, and apparently yes, IP addresses do also factor into this. I'm going to run out of workaround options here pretty soon.)
Well, I finally managed it when I got to work yesterday: YouTube TV and Fubo were clearly not going to work; I googled what all streamers offer live NBC and found that Hulu + Live TV does. I created a brand new Yahoo email account, signed up for a three-day free trial, and used my Visa credit card since I would have previously used my Apple Card for a Disney/Hulu month earlier this year. I should make a note of this: next time I need a free trial in order to watch an awards show, I can create another new Yahoo email; create a Hulu + Live TV account; and either try using my
debit Visa card, or in a pinch just use one of Shobhit's credit cards. It's deeply important to cancel after the awards show airs, though, because otherwise the price for a month of that type of account is $90! (I canceled my account this morning.)
The next time this will even possibly be necessary is the next time the Oscars happen, which is likely more than six months away. And an alternative option there would be to find a friend's place to watch it at (not very likely) or maybe buy a ticket to watch at a place like Central Cinema, which Shobhit and I have done a couple of times before. So we'll see.
Anyway, I got the account created, but when I got home and opened the app to use it with this account for the first time, I had to jump through several stupid hoops before I was fully in: scan a QR code, log in on my phone, enter a quick ID that was generated, and then it asked me to select preferences that have no relevance to my purposes. I'm glad I left work a few minutes early. I did manage to get in and have live TV on a few minutes before the show started—but, again, I did not have the chai done yet when it started. Oh well.
I also worked on our puzzle during commercial breaks. This is a very effective way to make use of time during commercials. Highly recommend.
Mariska Hargitay was a fun choice to host, actually. She wasn't the greatest in the world, but she wasn't bad. I think it was smart for the producers to finally choose someone deeply embedded in the TV industry, and from an actual show, who could poke fun at TV as someone who actually loves it rather than looking down on it. That always works better. People who love awards shows (as I do) don't want to spend three hours with a host who is just sneering at everyone there.
My biggest takeaway was that, after the show won 14 Emmys (8 at the Creative Arts Emmys the week prior; 6 last night at the Primetime Emmys), I really need to re-up a subscription to Apple TV soon and watch
Widow's Bay. I'm still going to wait a few weeks, though, so I only need to subscribe for two months in order to also watch this year's
Slow Horses while it's actually airing. Then there will be a couple of other shows, include season 3 of
Silo, to catch up on. Oh, wait. There's only six episodes in the season: I can wait a couple weeks after that and then subscribe for only a month. The season finale is October 21, so I can subscribe on, say, September 22 and have the show covered by one month of subscription. I think I'll do that. The second episode is not until September 23 so I might as well sign up on that day. I've got it all figured out! (To clarify, this is a month I'll actually pay for; free trials are never that long.)
I have a huge backlog of titles to watch on Netflix too, which I thought I would re-up soon as well, but I have enough to watch on Apple TV that maybe I should wait to do Netflix until the Apple month is done. I'll still be going to movies in theaters, after all; there won't be time to watch all the Netflix stuff at the same time, especially when we also have a couple regular shows to watch on HBO.
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I've mentioned before that I like to try making a theme, however stretched, out of the photos I embed in my Daily Lunch Updates (DLUs). Today's photos are all kind of throwbacks—from two different Lusio "
Liminous Art Events," which I totally forgot I've been to four of, between 2018 and 2021. Ivan went with me to the first but I went to all the other three by myself. The photos in this post are from 2018 and 2019. I didn't even deliberately choose all photos from the same organization—I went looking for unused "dlu photos" that could in any way be taken to reference TV, because of the Emmy Awards. But, I had nothing workable when I searched "TV" or "square," or "tube." But "screen" got me one of these shots; and keywords "frame" and "box" got me the others.
So there you have it. These photos are meant to vaguely allude to TV somehow, and they don't at all! But, I used them anyway. Soon I'll go back to burning through the many photos still flagged for use from the trip to Europe.
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I just spent my lunch break reading my e-book on my phone on the outdoor terrace of Rainier Square, as I typically do. It was cloudy and 63°, though, making it the chilliest it's been up there since spring; I would not have been able to tolerate it without my jacket. I think my lunches up there for the remainder of the year are numbered.
At least the temperature is going up the next couple of days—forecast highs of 72° both days. Thursday we have our long-planned Merchandising Department terrace party in a reserved section up there, and I'm rather looking forward to that. I suppose logically the next social for the entire department would be some kind of holiday outing in December. I certainly hope one actually happens.
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[posted 12:35pm]
