Places to try in NYC

LIST OF FREE STUFF

Manhattan Outdoor FREE Fest Events
http://www.rivertorivernyc.com/events/index.php?rndnum=1791490260

$20, $10 & Free theater
http://www.nymag.com/guides/cheap/theater/
http://nymag.com/urban/guides/nyonthecheap/pleasures/theater2.htm

Cheap Eats Guide - http://nymag.com/restaurants/articles/cheap_eats/04/index.htm

Long Island City Beach - http://www.nywatertaxi.com/

Watertaxi Coupon - http://www.nywatertaxi.com/general/webcoupon.pdf

McCarren Park Concerts - http://thepoolparties.com/events.php

Summer Concerts - http://gonyc.about.com/cs/music/a/summermusic.htm

Ferry Ride / Island Tour - http://www.govisland.com/

Brooklyn Botanical Garden - http://www.bbg.org/
Free Tues (all day) & Sat 10am-noon

Bronx Zoo & NY Botanical Gardens
Free Wed (all day)

Museum of the Moving Image
Free to gallery Fridays from 4:00p.m.-8:00p.m. (does not include film screenings)
35 Avenue at 36 Street in Astoria, NY

I Said Good-bye To TiVo

Last week I made the decision to not get cable TV and cancel my TiVo subscription. I have not regretted it - I can still get network shows via antenna, and I can watch most other shows online via my laptop connected to my TV (just watched last week's CSI last night).

The thing is, Apple TV is the wave of the future. I have, in fact, already seen the future in my sister's living room - they bought one of those big screen iMacs, and they don't use their television any more. They just download whatever they want to watch in torrents off the Internet, whenever they want to. No cable subscription, just an Internet connection. This is basically what people really want: total freedom of choice in what to watch and when to watch it. If I were a little more freewheeling in my downloading habits, I could have the same setup right now without a fancy Apple TV, but the main point is that the Apple TV will make it easy just like TiVo did.

However, the content providers (anyone, ranging from "premium channels" to movie studios to TV networks) will never give full freedom of content to their customers, because it goes against their revenue model. People don't want ads, and they'll pay money to not see them. TiVo gave me some freedom - skipping ads on live tv, and recording my favorite shows for me, but there was no true "on demand". When I was at my parents' house recently, I watched the whole first season of Dexter on their cable DVR, and it was fantastic - but really, why am I going to pay a cable company at least $1200 a year for the ability to download something that will be released to DVD and I can get via Netflix? That would be the same as buying 60 DVD box sets or 100 DVDs, and there's no way I buy that many DVDs a year. Cable provides too much content, and not enough true choice; they'll flood you with content, but not give you any way to customize or limit it. No choice of provider, no choice of channels, no choice of hardware - it's totally a monopoly, and way too expensive.

Apple understands all of this, and they are laying the foundations for becoming the premier on demand content deliverer. They are telling the content providers: "Don't worry, let us handle everything, we'll show you the money." They made inroads with the major networks (go Steve, being on that Disney board was smart) so that they can deliver those shows on demand via iTunes. They even have some preliminary deals with some movie studios. TiVo always tried to be neutral instead of making deals - they tried to make everyone happy, but because they never showed the content providers how they could make money the content providers never wanted anything to do with them. They were just selling a mechanism to deny providers money by allowing viewers to skip commercials. Apple creates an additional revenue stream by selling the content for the providers. TiVo's been trying to rectify that mistake with their little banner ads and other cutesy tech, but it's too late. They just aren't using the right model.

It's a little scary to think of Apple monopolizing this market with their hardware, but Microsoft is so far behind them I don't think they could ever recover... unless maybe they decide to buy Sony. But even then, even owning all the content and movie studios and hardware everything else Sony owns... they still couldn't muscle Apple out of this market, because the products are just too good (same reason why they couldn't give Microsoft Money away for free versus paying for Quicken). Microsoft and Sony were so busy fighting the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war with their all-in-one game console/media centers that they just totally missed the big picture - it's the content, stupid.

Apple has already won.

Zelda

So I finished all the levels of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii. However, I didn't go the completist route and get every single farting thing in the game. The Twilight Calculator says that I've completed about 80% of the game.

Should I trade it in? Is it worthwhile to be a completist? Is there a different ending if I get everything? I know that if I find all the bugs I'll get the giant wallet (who cares) but what I'm really wondering about is what happens if I get all the Poe Souls. I can't believe I've only got 40 out of 60!! Where the hell are they all??

I dunno. I enjoyed the game, but I find that now that I've beaten the levels, I'm not too interested in going nuts playing it to total completion.