Not A Paid Advertisement

So I took the plunge a couple weeks ago and ordered something totally unnecessary.

I'm an Amazon Prime member -- have been for over five years now -- and I am a walking advertisement for the service. Most of my Christmas and birthday shopping in that time has made use of the two-day shipping. I love the streaming music service. I absolutely adore my Paperwhite, which is easier to use with said membership. And as their video library grows, I've become a huge fan of Prime Instant Video.

Which is why I eyed the Fire TV Stick for so long.

It took some convincing. First that they'd worked out enough bugs (I rarely buy the first version of new tech because I don't enjoy being an unwitting guinea pig), then because I don't have subscriptions to all of the other services. The stick lets you link in Netflix, HuluPlus and HBO Go accounts, among other things, but since I have satellite access I  haven't felt the urge to sign up for those. Really, it was mostly because I got tired of hooking my laptop up every time I wanted to watch something from PIV or YouTube ... and eventually I gave up on hoping for a deal and shelled out the cash.

Now that I've had it for a week or two ... Dang. I love this thing. I love being able to watch my various series on YouTube (especially CrashCourse, because I'm a ridiculous nerd) on a full screen while working on my laptop like usual. I've already binged on a couple of TV shows, something I have done very little of in the past as one of the last non-Netflix-using-thirty-somethings out there. Moreover, since I have no real reason to own a gaming console (the most common non-laptop way to link all those accounts), I love the $40 price tag.

If you're in a similar boat -- no gaming console and already a Prime member -- I recommend giving it a shot. (Especially judging by reviews on similar gadgets.) If you already have a dedicated way of streaming video, don't bother.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say streaming video ... Congratulations, you waste a lot less time than I do!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

?

The confusion continues. Tuesdays seem to be the days for odd discoveries. Hmmm ... Much stress. Big presentation for work tomorrow. I'm downright scared right now, but that's probably mostly due to the fact that I have NO IDEA what to expect. On the bright side, in 24 hours, it'll all be over. Thank goodness. Then there are just papers left, but papers I can handle. And a presentation for senior design, but that's a group thing. Ten days and it's just finals week. I like finals week. Things are oddly easier during finals week.
Read more

The Ashley Files: The Gerbil Story

I'm not totally sure what spurred this memory, but this is a story that needs to be told. Over the years, I've had a lot of random jobs. It started when I was young and glued pictures for bridge reports (my family's version of "working with the family business). I had a job at Subway one summer (easily my least-favorite job), was a bridge inspection field technician with the family business, worked in a church camp kitchen, and was a lab assistant. The summer I started this blog, I was working at the school's day care. It was my second summer there. The job was certainly not what I was hoping to do the rest of my life -- but for a nineteen-year-old it was decent money and okay hours. And hey, a couple times a week I got to hang out at the pool and get paid for it. Not a bad gig. [My dad also referred to it as the "world's best birth control" and he may have been right.] I don't remember a lot of the ins and outs of that summer -- most
Read more

Adventures In Employment: In The Beginning

Image
You know, I've had a lot of jobs. Boxer, mascot, astronaut, imitation Krusty, baby proofer, trucker, hippie, plow driver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carnie, mayor, grifter, bodyguard for the mayor, garbage commissioner... If someone asks, how do you describe your first job? Not shockingly (if you’ve known me at all in the last three or four years decade ) I’ve been thinking rather hard about the road to my current point, as far as the professional (or at least employed) realm goes. And I don’t know how to describe my first job. Well, okay. I suppose what I don’t know is what to consider my first job. There’s the first non-chore thing I did to earn money, which involved putting together bridge reports for the family company. They’d give me an envelope of photos and a photo log from the day’s inspections and I’d sit on the floor in my mom’s office, gluing photos onto sheets of paper and carefully writing out the descriptions. My penmanship
Read more