The Weekly Wrap: August 6, 2023

On Thursday, I finally cancelled our cable service.

About a month ago, we realized that we had not turned on our cable TV in over two months. With our existing streaming services, we had no need to. There are way more shows and movies to watch on those than we could ever consume in a lifetime. Even the inane stuff I like to have on the in background while I do home tasks are now streaming.

I've always been resistant to cutting cable. First, it was the price. It would take a lot of different streaming services to equal our cable package. Then it was live sports. It was hard to (legally) stream live sports. Nowadays, both of those concerns are moot points. All the streaming services have merged and/or added content. More free streaming services keep cropping up. You can live stream basically any sport. 

My main hurdle was not wanting to deal with Comcast. It's just such a pain. But the lure of saving about $100 a month finally did it. I couldn't cut the cord online (because of course not). I could change my plan but not cancel an individual part. Their chat service just looped me through changing my plan over and over again. It took me a half hour to track down a phone number. It's not listed on their Contact Us page. It's not listed on their Help page. It's not listed in your account. The lead phone number listed in Google was wrong (at least when I checked). I had to find a PDF of the print bill to locate Comcast's phone number.
 
The call itself was a shockingly easy experience and I was able to upgrade our internet speed and cancel our cable in about 15-minutes. Then all I had to do was return our cable box on Friday.

That's it. 45 minutes of pain plus a quick errand to save over $1,000 a year. 

Should have done this a lot sooner.

​Have you cut the cable?

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• What time Americans eat dinner. [The Takeout]
• A look at the history of chain letters. [The Deep Dive]
• We need to reframe how we commonly think about boundaries. [The Atlantic - may be paywalled]
• Louder for the people in the back with ear plugs on! [Culture Study]
• Different ways to get stickers off glass. [Real Simple]
• Finally! A study shows that asking for years of experience in a job posting is a stupid idea. [INC]
• Gamification is changing how we read. [shondaland]

• A long listen about American colonization in the pacific. [The Daily] 
• We should probably be honest more often. [Hidden Brain]
• Horseshoe crabs deserve better. [Short Wave]
• Some data on remote work and productivity. [The Indicator]
• A valley of bones and it's importance to our past. [Atlas Obscura]
• The horrible outcomes of dismissing women's pain. [The Retrievals]

• I'm fairly certain the entire cast of The Out-Laws was in it to cash a paycheck while having a little fun. This is a mild raunch comedy headed by Adam DeVine and Pierce Brosnan. DeVine, a mild-mannered bank manager, is about to marry Brosnan's daughter. Brosnan and his wife happen to be criminals. Chaos ensues. It's fine as a random Friday night movie and nothing more. [Netflix]
• I'm still trying to decide if Kate is cultural appropriation or not. The movie follows an assassin on a revenge quest before she herself dies. It takes place in Japan and focuses a lot on Japanese culture. The lead actress is not Japanese - but they don't try to pretend she is. It just feels like a thriller that happens to be set in Japan. As a movie, it was fine. Pretty run of the mill action where the lead as her own moral code. [Netflix]
• Taylor Swift's tour logistics are fascinating. [beginagainpod]

• As a set it and forget it dinner, I made slow cooked chicken enchilada chili. This is an easy open and dump meal (that also helped us use two ears of corn from our farm share). Instead of serving over rice, we used the the chili as taco filling. It was a bit wet for the tortillas but tasty nonetheless. Would have been better with pickled red onions, but I didn't plan that ahead of time. [Picky Palate]
• For my lunch meal prep, I made a vegetarian version of Spanish chickpea stir fry. I basically followed the recipe but omitted the chorizo. Aside from having to wash and chop a lot of kale, this was easy. Don't nix the goat cheese. It was the best part of the dish and brought everything together. [Real Simple]