Life Without Cable Is NO BIG DEAL!

Katie and I moved this past July from our tiny one bedroom apartment to where we live now. Where we live now is a cool house converted into a duplex. We have a full basement where the Man Cave is. Be on the look out for the Man Cave post in the future.

Since we moved in July, we knew getting cable would be a waste of money, so we decided to wait until the end of summer (or at least until the Cowboys started playing). As the golf season started to wind down and preseason NFL games started airing, I got the itch to watch TV. After some serious googling, I found my three favorite websites and websites that can actually save people some serious $$$. What are they, you ask? http://www.ninjavideo.net/, http://www.atdhe.net/, and http://www.channelsurfing.net/. Each website is great for its own reason.

Ninjavideo.net - Great for any TV show aired in the last 8-10 years. It has movies that are currently in theaters and even sometimes movies that haven't been released (though it might just be some guy with his own camcorder that works for the theater taping it, so watch out for the flying popcorn).

Channelsurfing.net / Atdhe.net - These sites have all the shows currently being played on cable live. Obviously living in Minnesota, I can't go to a local pub and watch a KSU game or Cowboys game, but I have found that these games are always on these two particular websites.

Now to the point of my post and to zoom ahead a few months. Katie and I received an AWESOME LCD TV for Christmas and have found it to be handy. For the time being, we have decided to go without cable so we can make sure our baby girl has everything she needs. Plus, we really only watch what is on basic cable. We are now able to catch our nightly news, Conan (I'm on Team Co Co), and the Olympics when they come on. We're excited about the Olympics.

With that being said, I'll get to the point! I want to share how to use http://www.ninjavideo.net/, as it is not just a point and click website. There are a few tricks we have learned along the way. To help with the example, I've chosen Katie and I's favorite show right now, which is "24." Jack Bauer is the man!!!

We started with season 1 episode 1 and are now halfway through season 3. Just an FYI, there are 24 episodes in a season and they are 45 minutes long. If you do that math, we have put a little over 25 hours into the show in the last three weeks. Good investment if you ask me. So.....here we go. The steps for how to use http://www.ninjavideo.net/:

I'm assuming if you are reading this blog, you know how to use the internet.
Step 1: Go to http://www.ninjavideo.net/
Step 2: Click "TV Shows" on the toolbar at the top
Step 3: Click "24" on the left hand side of the screen
Step 4: Click on the text "Click here to launch the NinjaVideo Helper Beta 0.3.10" near the top of the screen. Something will pop up. Minimize it and DO NOT CLOSE IT OUT.
*If you do not Step 4 now, it will screw you up down the line*

Step 5: Select your season and episode
Step 6: Enter the code that pops up and press play
*If where the movie screen should be it says "cannot find site," try to launch the NinjaVideo Helper Beta again and refresh your browser That should solve your problem. You might have to re-enter the code and press play.

It does take abut 30 seconds to a minute to load the video, but most of the TV shows are in HD and of high quality. On occassion, the website will say it can not find the video (Error 404) and you, sir, are out of luck. Give it a minute, restart your browser, and if it doesn't work again, wait a day. As with anything new and FREE there are gliches, but they are great about fixing them and providing you a free service.

NinjaVideo works the best in Mozilla Firefox. Oh, and one last thing. If the screen goes white, I'm guessing an ad just popped up. If you look at the top right of your screen, you can press a button to skip the ad.

Wowser, after all that typing, I'm done. As Jack would say, my name is Jack Bauer and this is the longest day of my life.