Boo Internet... Yay DVR!

Yes, Alaska is considered a remote place by many.  For the most part though, it has almost everything I need here and I had little to complain about.  Then I tried to choose an internet service provider.  Here in Juneau, and maybe all of Alaska, you  have two choices:  GCI Cable or DSL with Alaska Communications (ACS).  The choices were kinda crappy.  GCI didn't offer unlimited usage and ACS had low bandwidths.  Basically for around $52 (cheapest option) with GCI, I could get 3Mbps download with 7,500MB included usage.  For $65 (cheapest option), I get crappy 320kbps with ACS, but unlimited usage.  Initially since I planned on streaming and didn't want to worry about overages, I went for the 1Mbps bundle at ACS, which ran about $85 a month.  Pretty outranges prices I think (but again, this is Alaska) so I'm kinda rethinking my internet options... especially now that I discovered the wonders of DVR.

The house I am renting came equipped with a DirecTV dish already.  My landlord uses and raves about it.  so I looked into it and you get loads of channels for like $65/month (+ taxes/fee).  For the first year, the promotion is such that it's like $35 a month.  I think I get over 200 channels now, most of them HD.  Plus a few months of free movie channels, and a $100 referral bonus for me and my landlords.  I never had this many channels before.  In the past I always got the cheapest cable & internet bundle since I didn't really watch a lot of TV.  Most of the shows I liked, I could get online.  Well, there are a lot of rainy days here in Alaska and more channels may come in handy.  Plus... now I have a DVR for the first time ever!!  (Yes, I know I'm years behind.)  I already have plans to record every NCIS episode on USA and whatever other channels that play it so I can catch up on the show (although I would've liked to watch it in order from the start).  For $7/month, it's probably a much better deal than paying all kinds of extra $$ just so I can stream videos online.  Besides, I'm on the computer all day at work so I am going to try to minimize time spent on it in the evenings. It's so easy to waste time surfing the web.  No more.  From now on I'll waste time surfing channels.  Yes, I'm going backwards in time.  :)