Dexter done, replacing paper with bytes, sick of Sirius, weekend wall of work

So I took my shower early and was back in the bedroom before 8:30 to pile drive through the remaining episodes of Dexter.  My co-worker warned me this season sort of tails off at the end. I saw exactly what he meant.  There were two major twists in the finale, one is creepy, uncomfortable and unwelcome, the other is interesting.

There are also a few other side plots with unresolved conclusions, only one of them holds any interest for me. Out of the 5 seasons of Dexter I have watched I would probably rank this one above last season but below the other three.  The show definitely has lost some luster.

I, like any other home owner, have certain home maintenance items that need to be attended to on a schedule.  I used to help keep these items in order with my weekend paper to do lists which Ali always used to complain about.  I abandoned the paper lists for the last couple years.  As expected there has been some slacking when it comes to staying on top of some of these items as a result.

Well last night I started entering some of these recurring items into my Outlook calendar, complete with reminders and a recurrence schedule.  With this set up I will be reminded of these items on both my pc and handheld smart devices when they come due.  I will continue to be reminded until I “dismiss” the task, ideally after I have completed it.

Some of the chores which Ali is also involved in I shared with her so she could add them to her calendar as well.  Well Ali rebelled against my idea, refusing to accept my calendar item.  It looks like Ali is an equal opportunity list hater whether they be of the paper or electronic variety, as long as they are created by me that is.

So in the mail yesterday I got my colorful subscription reminder from Sirius.  Inside was a “personal” letter from CEO Mel Karmazin, telling me how much he appreciates me sticking around for all of these years even with Sirius giving me and all of their customers the shaft repeatedly. As a token of his appreciation he also reminded me that Sirius was raising their prices.

I saw a press release when this price increase was announced several months ago where Mel was crowing how Sirius has not raised prices since they have been in business.  The amount of bullshit in that statement was overwhelming.

I must just be unlucky since despite there being “no price increases” what I pay for Sirius has gone up by close to 50% since I have been a customer.

Mel will tell you that the subscription fee has been exactly the same. What he won’t tell you is Sirius has removed items that you used to get included with that subscription and then fed them back to you for additional cost, like online streaming. He also forgets to mention the utter bullshit “music royalty fee” that was tacked on to everybody’s subscription a couple years back.

I find this disregard for customers intelligence insulting.

So anyway my plan is to call Sirius today and tell them I am cancelling my subscription, assuming they will offer me a substantial discount to stay.  If that discount is appreciable I will take my savings and continue being a customer solely to be able to listen to the ever dwindling amount of Stern live content.

If they offer me nothing or very little I am fully prepared to say thanks but no thanks.  I have enough other listening options available that cutting the cord from Sirius would be only mildly painful at best and only for a short time at that.  Like anything else, time makes most situations easier to deal with.

This weekend I have a lot of things I’d like to get done around the house in addition to the normal collection of to do’s.  I have had the parts/tools to clean the IAC valve on the Tacoma for a couple weeks now, I’d like to dive in and get it done.  Three of the vehicles are dirty, the party van to the point where algae is growing on the back corner.

The SSR also could use some attention.  The truck needs a bath after it’s unintentional rain exposure last week and the chrome accessories I bought need to be installed.

I am almost at the point where I am ready to pull the trigger on the radio upgrade for the SSR.  I still have been bumping back and forth as far as if I want to buy all of the stuff online at a discounted price and install it myself or pay an installer several hundred dollars extra to do it professionally.

I recently started considering a third option, buying the stuff at a not so discounted rate from Crutchfield whom will give you top notch installation assistance over the phone  which would offer me middle of the road savings, cutting out the installers labor rate.  I need to figure out which route I want to travel soon.

Since the half marathon I targeted is only a month away I need to get in a long run in tomorrow as well.  I actually have been questioning my desire to do the event the last couple days for some reason.