This is the letter regarding my choice to drop DirecTV/cable. The only thing that is worth subscribing to on cable for me is HBO. But I am no longer willing to pay for the initial cable/satellite package needed to add on HBO. As an a la carte service though, I feel it is great value for money.

Dear HBO,

I just wanted to alert you that I have been a long-time customer (over 10 years) of HBO. I have always enjoyed the movie selections, but more importantly and prominently the original programming like series, movies, and events that HBO produces.

After all this time, it saddens me that I will be cancelling my HBO. It’s not the product. It’s the delivery. I am ditching DirecTV. I will now be acquiring all of my TV via the internet through sites like Hulu or purchasing through iTunes.I would love for HBO to make its programming available via broadband or through iTunes the day after it originally airs, but while I am willing to pay for HBO, I am not willing to pay for cable or satellite anymore.

I hope that the executives at HBO realize that HBO’s strength is in its role as a content provider and not as a network limited by cable. Perhaps you can strike a deal with cable internet providers to offer the channel as a broadband add-on without cable programming.

It’s been a great ride, but goodbye.

Kristen Leep

So, last night I was super tired and IU just didn’t have a lot in me after doing the online tech support for my pops. Not his fault or anything, I was just tired. So anyway, last night Jen came over and I scanned some pictures for her to put on Facebook. Now, I’m inspired to do some of my own. Perhaps this weekend. Rob has a show tomorrow at Zanies with Yuki. Apparently there are 4 bands playing (really?). So tonight I sense some laying low even though it’s First Friday. I kind of want to go out, but I also want to stay home and plow through some stuff. I have a feeling with the temperature drop, I’ll end up choosing the stay in option. Because I am lame like that.

Today on Twitter Rachel Maddow shared this Dutch train station video. It seems to be inspired by one from T-Mobile last year in England. After watching both of these, I get teary that all those people collaborated to bring some random joy (and probably pimp some products, but whatever). Enjoy them!

So, I said I was going to try to blog each day in April, and well, here I am. I really wasn’t lying about that. There’s a lot of stuff that happens in my life or that I see that probably doesn’t deserve a full blog post, which is where Facebook and Twitter fit in.  Anyway, Rob always says I should do a food blog. I don’t know about that, but I do have strong opinions about food things. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

This March I was extremely disappointed for a few days when I kept trying to score a Shamrock Shake.  I tweeted all about it. I know I’m not the only person that thinks they are an awesome seasonal treat. Plus, Rob and/or I have been sick for the last month on and off, so there was only like a 3-day window where I actually wanted to eat dairy and wouldn’t be concerned with producing extra mucus. My throat was still sore and the Shamrock Shake was ideal! So, what gives with the Indianapolis McDonald’s not carrying them?  Is this one of those regional things? Sometimes, Rob makes me feel like I come from a foreign country, even though I’m just from 3 hours north. It probably doesn’t help that I consider anything south of Kokomo to be southern Indiana.

I went to 3 different McDonald’s in 2 days until I gave up after seeing someone’s Facebook status that the Indy region franchisees voted not to participate. Boo! Apparently though, if I had trekked over to the 71st and Michigan Rd. McDonald’s I could have had one. How did I find that out, you ask? Well, der, I just went to ShamrockShake.com (web 2.0 at its finest) and you can input your location to find Shamrock Shakes. Obviously, at most McD’s Shamrock Shakes are gone by the end of March- if not gone within days after St. Patrick’s Day- so you’ll have to wait until next year. Yeah, too bad I just found that site tonight.

Apparently, I’ll have to hang on he Northwest side next year or make the trek up to the Bend where Shamrock Shakes are abundant. Luckily, I have many reasons to go up there! Anyway, this concludes today’s episode of This Is Why I’m Fat- I mean Kristen Blogs for 30 Days: Maybe Not Quality, but at least you’ll get one.

So, I plan on knocking out a couple blog entries this weekend as long as I’m not getting whatever sickness Rob has acquired since coming home from Chillicothe. I was sick for a week after returning from Vegas (as were a bunch of other people I know all over the country- all the same week). It was weird. I have some pictures and I want to tell you about my tour of Zappo’s.

But before this week ends, I do want to share with you another philanthropic/altruistic endeavor. It’s really simple. It’s the Pledge to End Hunger. You go to the site. You sign your name and for doing that 140 meals are delivered to a food bank in Austin, TX. And it’s kind of a competition between states as well because the top 2 states that lead in pledges, get a truckload of food delivered to them more locally.

So, head over and sign it. You can also put in your ZIP code to find more info about hunger charities local to you so that you can volunteer, and of course you can make a financial donation if you wish. But all you HAVE to do to get some meals delivered is to sign your name to the pledge.

So, 2008 sucked. Don’t get me wrong. I’m counting my blessings. We elected a new president. I’m alive. I’m fairly healthy. I can still pay my bills (although, I engaged in some serious cost-cutting to make it easier). And for the most part I’m happy. I was really hopeful for 2008. I mean, it was a leap year for crying out loud. We should have gotten along! But like the partygoers who overstay their welcome, I will be relieved when 2008 is gone.

The Election and The Economy

The election process is important in that it gets people to discuss issues important and unimportant in the context of where we’re going as a country. But boy was it a stressful process. The 24-hour news cycle, the LOOOONG primaries, the heated arguments, the feeling of wanting to bang your head against a wall when you tried to discuss issues instead of someone’s pastor- all contributed to my stress level. In the end, we got the best person for the job (my blog, my opinion), and I am more hopeful for the next 4 years than I have been after any presidential election since I’ve started voting. Don’t get me wrong- things aren’t going to change overnight and we have a long uphill climb to fix our country- but I am confident in the fact that our President-elect is surrounding himself with good people and even people who don’t agree with him and he is up to the task of moving America forward.

You’d have to have spent the last year under a rock to not realize the economy has gone to crap. The fear over what has been happening has really held me back from doing things I have wanted to do in case the financial apocalypse comes. I really wanted to do some travelling this year with some friends and I just couldn’t justify it financially. It sucked. Not to mention that most of my family has their futures invested in the auto industry and having to witness the industry do a freakin’ soft-shoe to get a LOAN for 1/20 of what we GAVE the financial industry in a blank check while listening to people talk about how American auto workers are supposedly living high on the hog (seriously, have you been to Kokomo?)- well, I get a little stressed and worked up just thinking about it all.

My Health

In the beginning of December, I ended up needing an emergency appendectomy. I’m happy that my appendix didn’t actually rupture and that I knew my body enough that I could pretty much diagnose myself using Wikipedia. But no one really wants to be a patient. After my surgery, it was 2 weeks of only lifting stuff under 10 pounds- which isn’t exactly a lot. It’s about the weight of one of my kitties. It kind of tripped me up in my progress towards clearing the decks and finally shedding my packrat-ism, and it made getting stuff ready for the holiday season go at a frenzied pace once my lifting restriction was itself lifted.

On top of all that, I hovered for awhile back at my highest weight ever. Now I am back down to where I was when we got married (about 15 pounds off of my highest weight and where my body likes to settle in). I am not going to focus on losing weight so much in 2009. I am trying to do things that have more of an effect on my mental health than anything. In turn, I think that will address some of the reasons I do carry extra weight. I’m sure that my mental health and the fact that I literally do not have my house in order contribute to the size of my waistline, but you know I feel like I’ve been on a diet since I was 10, and I’ve been sensitive to it since the first time someone called me fatso which was probably in, like, preschool. So, I’m going to take this year off of dieting and really just concentrate on other things and just do what I can to maintain the weight where I am now and only start worrying about my weight if it tips past my highest again.

Oh, and my dentist told me that I’m probably going to need some major dental work coming up soon.

People and Relationships

I feel like 2008 was just littered with sucky people and me failing to nurture some really good relationships. There were some people I thought I could trust that turned out to be DRAMA, and I just feel like I squandered some opportunities.

Oh, and there were way too many stories of suicide in my sphere of people. A friend of ours shot himself outside a CVS in Kokomo because the pain of MS got to be too much, and I heard too many stories of soldiers who came home and just couldn’t continue. I know 2008 sucked, but I don’t think it sucked to the point of not going on and leaving loved ones behind. Just too many sad stories.

My House

In June the heavy rains and crazy storms flooded Rob’s man lair and destroyed the carpet and some of Rob’s records. Then come to find out that even though we put a sump pump in, in order to mitigate any damages in the event of water down there, because we didn’t have sump/water backup coverage on our policy (since it was done after we bought the policy and didn’t realize we needed to notify the insurance company to add it), our damage wasn’t covered.

So, while we formulated a new plan for waterproofing the basement (which thanks to Dave Lankford is now bone dry), Rob’s stuff from downstairs didn’t really have a home and it was stashed various places upstairs amongst my clutter.

Then this winter we found out that my roof wasn’t vented well enough and we were having attic condensation issues where we store stuff. Seriously, I can do without any more home weirdness happening for awhile.

Then, there’s the general issue of my clutter. I’ve been doing really well in the last quarter of the year- and especially the last 6 weeks- but lots of other stuff got in the way. I just wasn’t able to get in the right mindframe to deal with my packrat-ism until the end of the year.

General Suckage and Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong, I made some good progress this year and some positive changes that I’m ready to carry through to 2009. But I am so ready to leave 2008 behind. For some reason this year, in many different ways, I just couldn’t get it together. I was distracted by the Olympics and the election, dragged down by clutter, and never able to get on a good schedule. I was overloaded with information and stuff and even with good information, I was just unable to ACT. My execution sucked. By the time in September we got back from Jeff and Carrie’s wedding, I had just totally slipped a gear. Most days I just kind of stumbled around numbly in a daze and the bombardment of information and the weight of my stuff just dragged me down. I wasn’t depressed necessarily, just unable to focus and function.

Sometime in early November, I woke up and realized that as bad as it was that day, it wasn’t going to get any better unless I acted. I just made myself start on some small projects around the house and gradually I started to improve. I pretty much neglected anything else in order to put all of my energy towards clearing the decks. In a way, I look at myself like a clutter addict. So, I pretended like I was in rehab. I stopped buying almost anything but essentials and I concentrated on getting stuff out of the house and purging. I was on track to leave my packrat-ism in 2008, and I was really excited. Then I had my appendectomy and had to give up my original deadline of New Year’s Day. I’m still on a good track, but I was disappointed that I’ll have to carry my clutter baggage into 2009.

2008 has overstayed its welcome and I am not sad to see it go. It will go down in my own history as a year that I’d like to forget. Some good things happened, but later in life, I’ll probably just look back at it as one of those years that was like hitting a pothole and getting a flat tire in an otherwise pretty good ride. I am moving forward, and I hope that the people around me will forgive me for my flakiness and consider it a symptom of 2008.

So, adios 2008. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.