A couple of days ago, I uploaded a short, angry note about Astro Nusantara to this blog and, later the same evening, while searching for a follow-up or news on Astro came across a link to my blog on Google and now it’s completely disappeared.

The original article is here: Astro Sucks.

I do wonder what the hell happened but, let’s face it, who am I to question the mighty Google?

Anyhoo, on the topic of Astro, I’m going to cancel my subscription (hum, reminds me of the Doors…) sometime in the next couple of weeks and probably go back to Indovision.

Indovision are just as sneaky and gutless as Astro but at least their equipment continues to work in all weather (Astro goes down when it rains and the rainy season is coming up soon…) and you don’t have to wait a day for the guide to update if it ever updates. And the remote control wasn’t designed by Fisher Price.

A new outfit, AORA (http://www.aora.tv) has opened and will offer the Premier League but I’m “up to here” with new installations and silly promises from satellite TV vendors. If anyone signs up with them, good luck and, if you can be bothered, to tell me about it, drop me a line.

Sean

A year ago, I switched from Indovision partly because they dropped the Premier League Football coverage but also because they dropped the coverage with zero warning… in other words, right up until kickoff on the first Saturday of the season, I was still waiting for the games to begin… and stayed in front of the set for an hour past kickoff thinking, maybe… just maybe, it was some kind of technical goof. But no: they just blew it and lied to all their subscribers.

So I switched to Astro and, tonight, had exactly the same experience… keep checking the sports channels but even though the channel guide refers to football, all I’m seeing is old Pool games and Baseball. Two things which generate less than zero interest for me even when they’re live… which these shows aren’t.

Damn.

I suppose the Braniacs at Astro just couldn’t risk losing that extra month of money if they’d announced NOT showing the Premier League as soon as they knew.

I wonder how that policy is going to work for them in the long run?

Hopefully, my case will be the same as for most of their subscribers… they don’t show decent movies; their entertainment shows are all a minimum of one year old. Their navigation and equipment is slow, failure-prone… out of date… crappy. And, now they’ve dropped the only thing I wanted them for, they’re less than useless. So, off I go: back to Indovision until a decent alternative becomes available. I hope every other subscriber does the same… it’s weird to think we’re all paying for old movies, out of date entertainment and now, no sports… no football, no Olympics… sheesh.

How disappointing.

On the bright side, I’ll sleep earlier and shout less.

Goodnight all.

Another one of those stories that happened to catch my eye this morning — story by Devlin Barrett (Associated Press via Yahoo News) — the headline reads:

Paris Hilton issues tart rebuttal to McCain ad

Very cute: I was about to say, “Is Barrett implying that Paris Hilton is a tart?” but, in fact, I’ll have to credit the Associated Press and Barrett for being smart enough to wordplay on tart as in bitter and tart (as it’s frequently used in the UK) to mean hussy, slattern, slut, tramp, wanton, wench or whore. Or floozy.

Floozy is a lovely word, eh?

Barrett also describes Ms Hilton as doe-eyed… but I don’t think she is doe-eyed — ‘dough-eyed’, maybe but not doe-eyed:

To the left, a doe; to the right, Ms. Hilton…

Barrett also took time out of an obviously very busy day to pad the article with descriptions like, ‘scantily clad’, ‘tongue-in-cheek’ and ‘revealing’.

Gotta love the news.

Sean