Streaming Video

I have become a fan of streaming video. The TV networks show many full episodes of TV shows online the next day. Last Christmas, Robin & Kris gave me a 3-month trial subscription to Netflix.  I set it up in the living room through the Wii and also watched it on my laptop.  I liked it a lot, but Steve was never able to get used to using the Wii controller to find programs.  Robin & Kris have Apple TV, and I watched season 1 of Game of Thrones last spring at their house.  This year, Robin & Kris gave me a Roku box for my TV, which is a lot like Apple TV.  Amy & Joe got me a 3-month trial subscription to Hulu Plus.  I also discovered that I can view many Amazon Instant Videos for free with my Amazon Prime account. Another friend told me about Crackle, which is free, but I have not registered for Crackle yet.  I don't know yet if I can get the network TV streaming through the Roku box on Hulu Plus.  If I can do this, it almost completely eliminates the need for a DVR.

Fringe

I watched the finale of Fringe tonight.  I can't remember a show that captured my imagination like this one. I did not start watching until season 3.  Some of my co-workers were talking about it at work and I was intrigued.  Robin got me the DVD set of season 1; I found a used DVD set of season 2 online; I got caught up on season 3 with amazon instant video.  I watched season 4 & 5 on Fox. Weird science, futuristic, great characters and fascinating story line. It reminded me a little of the X-files.

Did your first paycheck of 2013 feel short?

Many people are in for an unpleasant surprise when they get their first paycheck in 2013: withholding taxes went up and net pay will be less. My first pay was actually more because there was no health insurance deduction; however, the numbers did not add up. I checked the pay stubs online and compared the tax deductions to the prior pay stub and sure enough, federal, state &FICA withholding went up significantly

More online calendars

I have online calendars on Yahoo, Windows Live, Google & Cozi. I had birthdays on Yahoo & events/reminders on Google & Cozi. After manually syncing Yahoo & Google calendars, I found the import feature to sync Windows Live. The import did not work with Cozi; none of the event names transferred.  I could probably eliminate the Yahoo & Windows Live calendars. I get Google reminders on my iPhone, so it is the most useful.  I like Cozi's weekly agenda reminder e-mail.