In the mood for Christmas music but want a little more edgy approach to the classics and some catchy new holiday stuff? Tell your Alexa device to “play the Dan and Shay Christmas album.”
Thank me later.
The group Dan and Shay is actually spelled Dan + Shay. But I don’t know what your Alexa device will play if you say Dan plus Shay. Things could get weird.
Have you ever whispered to the Alexa device because you were trying not to disturb anyone else nearby? I have. Try it and see how she responds to you. I bet she gets all flirtatious and a bit naughty sounding and whatnot. Kinda awkward. Your significant other may get suspicious.
Gotta say I’m hoping I get the chance to make it to the Platte City Holiday Lighting Celebration Wednesday night. The Thanksgiving Eve timing of this event for some of us is often problematic for family/travel reasons, but if the opportunity presents itself I’d like to check out the “falling snow dance party.”
Hats off to the folks at the Platte City Chamber of Commerce for adding a couple new activities to this year’s celebration. Events like this can get kind of stale if it’s the same thing at the same time year after year. Adding new kickers like the falling snow dance party and a walk-in snow globe is an OG move.
Never stop thinking outside the box. Kudos.
Speaking of Christmas celebrations, don’t forget Parkville’s annual Christmas on the River event is ready to roll on Friday, Dec. 6 beginning at 6 p.m. in Historic Downtown Parkville.
You can help kick off the inaugural Parkville Holiday Wonder Walk in English Landing Park, presented by COUNTRY Financial. This wonder walk looks cool as heck, and guarantee I’ll be checking it out at some point this holiday season.
As for Christmas on the River, there will be holiday entertainment starting at 6 p.m. Other activities will include the opportunity to visit and take photos with Santa Claus; hot chocolate, kettle corn and more; kids crafts and parents lounge, hosted by River Park Church; live music and photo ops in Pocket Park; dining, shopping and open houses at all your downtown favorites; specialty holiday vendors; reindeer food and Letters to Santa at The Farmacy on Main, 111 Main St.
And my personal favorite thing about Christmas on the River: the holiday fireworks show, which begins about 8:45 p.m. along the Missouri River.
They really got carried away with the cost of the NFL Sunday Ticket this year. I love watching NFL football, much prefer it over the college game where there are way too many clock stoppages and the halftimes last longer than a Catholic wedding. I had been a loyal subscriber to the Sunday Ticket for years, more than 20 years in fact. But I started to sour on it a bit when it moved from DirecTV to YouTube last year. YouTube offered $100 off last year so I did sign up for another year. Wasn’t all that crazy about the streaming aspect of the games as opposed to watching them on the satellite dish of DirecTV in previous years, probably due to my slow internet speed at the time. Also, streaming the games made switching to and from games on the Sunday Ticket to the game playing on the local CBS or Fox channel much less convenient than when it was all on satellite.
When this year YouTube wanted $449 for the full season of Sunday Ticket I literally LOLed. Surely as a past subscriber, if I called them they’ll offer some discounted price, right? They did not, unless I wanted to sign up for a YouTube TV subscription. I did not. And so for the first eight weeks of the current NFL season I was not a Sunday Ticket subscriber.
Things changed a few weeks ago when I received an offer to sign up for the remainder of the season (half the season) for $184. Now you’re talking, this didn’t feel like sticker shock. I took them up on that price. Could have gotten it even cheaper had I taken out a YouTube TV monthly plan. But I did not.
However, streaming of games at our place was still a little dicey, so I called our internet provider, Spectrum, to complain. Called them at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. They were outside our house at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday morning. Not even kidding. How’s that for response time? Guessing response was so quick because my home is part of our Landmark business plan through Spectrum.
Anyway, they upgraded my modem (their equipment) at no charge and I struck up a helpful conversation with the Spectrum tech. He asked how old our router was. I told him at least five or six years old. He advised me to upgrade it immediately or the new modem he had just put in may not fully cure the streaming problem. Get at least a one gig router, he said. While the technician and I were talking, I searched Amazon.com and ordered a 1.8 gig router, Netgear brand. It was about 8:30 a.m. when I ordered it, by 4 p.m. that same day it arrived at my front door. Gotta love the convenience of Amazon shopping. What a time to be alive.
Of course with a new router you have to reconnect every internet device in your home with your new network name and password, from all your televisions to your cell phones, from your computers to your Alexa devices and don’t forget your internet-enabled thermostat, etc. It was all well worth it. The new faster router was only $75 and it has been the best $75 I’ve ever spent.
Here’s the tip you need to know about your home internet router. “Technology moves so quickly that you should buy a new router every two years,” the Spectrum technician told me.
Boom. There’s your helpful technology news of the week.
I’ve got an interesting and helpful DirecTV tip coming for you in a future column.
We’ll have all three of our kids and all six of our grandkids in the same place at the same time this Thanksgiving, which is a very rare event. This means the rest of the week the door of The Landmark may be locked at times we would normally be open. But calls to the office will automatically get forwarded to my cell phone and I’ll also still be answering your emails.
Here’s hoping your Thanksgiving is a great one. As always, we thank you for reading and for inviting The Landmark into your home.
(Consider getting outside the box and into a falling snow dance party. Email ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)
