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How to watch tv online while traveling

Shim — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:46:45 +0000

While we’re off roaming the globe, our television options can be somewhat limited. Every odd MotoGP Sunday I can wander to an English pub to watch Valentino Rossi win another race, but during the NHL playoffs and Superbowl it was near impossible to see anything more than the highlights. Finding a sports bar with satellite tv open at 5AM can be a challenge.

We often only have three or four channels in English, most of which are news or movie networks. Many of the shows we watch back home aren’t licensed for worldwide distribution until years after they air back in Canada and while networks do broadcast sporting events online they too are often restricted by broadcast licenses, so they geographically restrict who can watch the video streams online.

Over the last nine months I’ve compiled a list of reliable sites and resources that have helped me workaround the geographic restrictions of watching television online. The list is always growing as I come across new resources in an effort to not miss out on my sports fix till they figure out how to internationally license sporting events online. If you have any to add, I’d appreciate it.

atdhe.net – Daily updated links to video streams of sports and television programs.

myp2p.eu and myp2pforum.eu – Daily updated links to P2P streams of sports. Various players required.

Justin.tv – Internet TV broadcasts, Flash Player.

UStream.tv – Internet TV broadcasts, Flash Player.

Sopcast – P2P internet tv player.

TVAnts – Another P2P internet tv player.

nRuby – Canadian proxy server.

WorldProxy – Another proxy server with CA, US, UK, and AU proxies to choose from.

Hotspot Shield – Browse anonymously using a US proxy.

VLC Player – Plays many video formats not natively supported by Windows Media Player or Quicktime.

KickYouTube – Go to any Youtube video, change the url from youtube.com to kickyoutube.com, download in a variety of formats. Love it.

And of course there’s torrents if you’re cool with not watching a live stream. I won’t go into details as there are a million well known sites available where you can download a television series, movies, and whatnot.

I should note that while it is not legal to re-broadcast sporting events and television, these resources are merely sites that link to existing broadcasts by people who could care less. As per usual, use at your own risk.

Read the original article here: How to watch tv online while traveling

Week 35: Fight Night

Shim — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:24:12 +0000

Walking the streets of Koh Samui around Chaweng beach can be a little like running the gauntlet. We’ve been bombarded by tailors trying to coax us into their stores for cheap suits, shirts, shoes and the like. Restaurants handing out drink coupons and herding street traffic towards their tables. Street vendors trying to sell us knockoff t-shirts, soap carvings, statues, jewelry, and a ton of other mass produced stuff. Taxi drivers endlessly asking if you want a ride. It can be a bit much, but is a defining part of the Thailand experience.

Among the cacophony of all this, there are trucks roaming the streets with loud speakers proclaiming the greatness of the evenings scheduled Muay Thai boxing matches. Its always the ‘Fight of the Year’ and every fighter is supposedly a district champion… but 6 years ago I did take in a Muay Thai night and it was a memorable if somewhat shocking experience. Back then, they started with the youngest fighters around 6 years old and progressed to the regional champions who were usually in their mid 20′s. It was strange paying to watch little kids beat each other up, and it did get quite bloody when they got to the later matches. But I’d say it’s a must see if you’re in the neighbourhood since the Thai people are so enthusiastic about the sport and it really is a good time.

Kelly hadn’t been to a match on her previous visit to Thailand, so when we came across the posters a few nights ago for Thursday where they were pitching a main event between a 300lb American guy and two 140lb Thai guys, the circus freak glamour of it all pulled us in. We bought ringside tickets for 1000 baht a piece and settled in to watch 7 matches.

There were no kids fighting this time, but the weight classes were from 115lbs to 170lbs (excluding the American) with a few other foreigners fighting in the higher weight classes.

When it came time for the main event, we found out that the giant was NOT going to be fighting them at the same time. Instead, he would fight them one at a time, alternating through the 5 rounds. My extreme disappointment was tempered when the little guy started throwing flying jump kicks at the first bell.

All told, it was a good night out. We had a few drinks, successfully predicted a bunch of the matches, laughed a lot, and witnessed that speed and agility will dominate if there’s two people ganging up on a fat guy.

Read the original article here: Week 35: Fight Night

Week 22: Dinner Parties with Friends

Shim — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:23:55 +0000

It’s likely due to our limited time left in the Philippines that this week we attempted to be a little more social with a few of our local friends. We’ve been busy working and preparing for the next phase of our trip, but no excuses! Parties must be partied…

Early in the week we had Patrick from Dive Society over for a lasagna dinner accompanied by a few bottles of wine. He’s given his notice at the dive shop where he works as a dive instructor and will be becoming a nomadic yogi rambling through Bali in the near future. We hope to meet up again in Thailand in a couple months. Patrick is also an illustrator. Check out his portfolio site if you’ve got a minute.

A couple days later, we invited Andrew and Chantal by for my special brined chicken dinner. Dinner was a success, but it may have been turkey in disguise because within an hour, I was unconscious and in bed. Coming back from the CR, the bed just looked too comfy and resting my eyes for 5 seconds was inevitable. Tryptophan or too much rum? I suspect too much work. Having been up since 6am for conference calls pretty much every day this week, I was pretty worn down by the evening. Sorry guys! Next time, it’s Red Bull and Jägermeister shots after dinner for everyone! ;)

Saturday we went to El Dorado for a few drinks. We met up with Raina, a photographer from Toronto who contacted us through the blog a few months back and ended up coming to vacation in Dauin. Oddly enough, we actually have some mutual friends back in Canada. It’s a small, small world. She swears she’s not stalking us, but I’m still adding her to my limited profile on Facebook, just in case. Just kidding Raina!!! I know you’re watching.

Sunday, we went for a dive at a site called Masaplod South. I’ve been there before and it’s one of my favourite sites. There are some nice coral slopes with tons of stuff to find. Some highlights were 2 frogfish, a mandarin fish, a couple pipefish, a blue ribbon eel, and a tiny cuttlefish. There’s also tons of nudibranch amongst the corals. The last time I was there I saw 4 or 5 huge cuttlefish the size of my forearm around 27m. Unfortunately the visibility wasn’t fantastic for this dive, but I still enjoyed it. Having become familiar with a few dive sites, we’re definitely spotting a lot more fishy creatures.

On Monday (Kelly will kill me for crossing over into the new week!), Patrick invited us and Raina over for dinner. We had a nice stir fry with a bottle of wine, a couple beers, and some funky gin/lime shooters. Dancing ensued. Puppies were played with. Photos were taken. I highly doubt Raina made it to the 6am Siquijor ferry the next day.

Lucky for us, there’s still 3 more weeks of saying farewell to come!

Read the original article here: Week 22: Dinner Parties with Friends

Week 13: 3 Months Housewarming Party

Shim — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:29:45 +0000

We’ve been in the Philippines for 3 months now. Since we’ve finally settled we decided to throw a little housewarming party at our new place and invite a bunch of people over to celebrate. We started out the week by heading into town for party supplies. Off to Hypermart in Dumaguete, we loaded up a shopping cart full of Mexican food supplies, and another cart full of beer, rum, gin, and soft drinks. We nearly cleared the shelves of San Miguel. The grand total? About $200. I love how cheap food and beverages are here. Unless you’re wanting specialty items, nearly everything is 50% what we pay back home. Booze and beer is even cheaper with no government taxation like in Canada.

On Wednesday, Andrew & Chantal (friends who we met on the Bias trip) had a birthday party for Chantal’s mother and invited us over for dinner. Chicken adobo and spareribs, with rice and salad. Yumm. Funnily enough, after showing up we pieced together where we had seen them before. When we first came to Dumaguete Kelly had gone to check out a few possible rental places while I was laid up sick in bed. She was talking to a person about seeing a place and when she walked out, Andrew had walked in the door. The next day when I was feeling better, we went to take a look at the place, but it turned out it had rented the day before to Andrew. They had just beaten us to it. It wasn’t furnished, so we likely wouldn’t have taken it, but it’s funny how small a town it is. Here we were having dinner on the front lawn, chatting with the owners who had shown us the place months ago. At Andrews party, we also ran into Greg who had been at a spontaneous party night a month or two back when I was kissing cockroaches. Again, such a small town.

We spent the next 2 days pre-cooking for our party. We invited the whole El Dorado Resort staff and Dive Society to swing by as well as a few long term foreigner friends we’ve made. So we were expecting about 30 people (those who weren’t working that evening) to show up. We hand rolled almost one hundred soft taco shells (they were supposed to be burrito wraps, but we switched flour brands at the last minute and they started to shrink as soon as I stopped rolling them… Too much gluten?), and made big batches of pulled pork, chicken, ground beef, and refried beans. Kelly made 3 different salsas, and Spanish rice.

Needless to say, the party was a big hit. All the dive shop boys came by, and while they didn’t all understand the concept of a taco (most just piled up a plate of fixins)… it was a hilarious time with plenty of dancing and jokes. Later in the evening, more of the resort staff showed up after work and “Chef” even asked me how to make taco wraps, so they must have turned out okay. We partied on until one in the morning, then leaving the damage assessment for the next morning, headed to bed.

Yesterday was cleanup and recovery. All in all, it wasn’t too bad of a scene after a little garbage detail and mopping, but we were paying the price for drinking cheap Tanduay rum the night before. I spent most of the day laying in the hammock one of the Swiss dive instructors brought us for a housewarming gift and Kelly laid in bed all day watching movies.

Since recovering we’ve vowed to do things differently next time. No cooking. Making those taco wraps by hand was excrutiatingly difficult with the heat and all the hand rolling with a wine bottle. Andrew suggested that the next time we hire one of the kebab street vendors to come by and cook all night long. 5P for each kebab. Sounds like a plan to me!

Read the original article here: Week 13: 3 Months Housewarming Party

Week 8: Boracay

Shim — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:29:42 +0000

We’ve spent 2 months in the Philippines! Wow, that went by fast. This week we headed off to the Buglasan festival in Dumaguete which is kind of like a tourism fair for the local communities on Negros Oriental where each town or barangay sets up a display area lauding their tourist attractions. It was quaint, and there was a great selection of barbecued foods and baked goods at the concession area. Plus, each evening there are musical competitions and we were lucky enough to show up on rock band night having missed the marching band event the previous day… There were around 40 bands playing that night for 10 minutes each. I don’t know the words to many of the songs they were singing, but it was a nice break from the love ballads pouring out of most places.

A couple days later we headed off to Boracay to check out the white sand beaches. We’d been putting it off because we’d heard it was over-commercialized and touristy, but after the last 2 months in the Philippines and realizing just how rural the country is outside of the cities, we decided to take a week or two to see if it was a viable place to live long term. We flew from Dumaguete to Manilla but due to a flight delay we really didn’t have any time to scope out Manilla. From what I saw it was big, with lots of hi-rises. Flying on to Caticlan, we were met at the airport by the hotel ‘shuttle service’ – where a guy with our names on a card piled us and our luggage into a trike and took us to the Caticlan port. We then took a short 5 minute boat ride over to Boracay and another 5 minute trike ride to the hotel we had arranged to stay in.

The beach in Boracay is as advertised, a kilometer or so of fine talcum powder like white sand. Resorts and restaurants line the beach and there are hundreds of vendors constantly trying to sell you knock-off sunglasses, watches, ATV and sailing tours, massages, souvenirs… you name it. The never ending barrage of “Maam, Sir, you want to buy __________?” becomes annoying in short order and we quickly stopped acknowledging them with a polite “No, thank you… Maybe another day…” and marched up the beach avoiding eye contact. It was remarkably hotter in Boracay and the vendors did eventually convince me to buy some very overpriced face towels in a moment of weakness.

We went diving a few times on Boracay. Unfortunately, there’s not much to report. The shallow reefs are dead and damaged from a previous typhoon and anchor damage and with few fish to see from excessive overfishing, which has thankfully now been outlawed in the area. The deeper reefs are just that… too deep to really enjoy at a recreational level. Even at 35 meters, we were still a good 5-10 meters above the reef wall at Yapak at most points. The highlight was spotting a large school of Harlequin Sweetlips (Big yellow highlighted fish… Unfortunately, no pics because Kelly’s strobe battery broke). I did my nitrox certification training while there which basically lets me dive longer with less nitrogen entering into my bloodstream since I’m breathing a gas mixture with a higher percentage of oxygen. Since many resorts here offer free nitrox when diving with them, it’s an added safety measure provided we’re not diving too deep.

We did some shopping while on Boracay since there are a few retail stores with import items that are harder to find elsewhere. I didn’t find a dive computer/watch, but I did get a ‘pokey stick’ to keep myself off the reef, and also acts as a tank banger to get other people’s attention under water. Not to mention delivering an occasional loving poke to Kelly while on the surface. Kelly finally found some boardshorts which were strangely nowhere to be found when we were doing last minute shopping in Vancouver. Must be winter there or something… ;)

Other than that, we spent most of our time in the many good restaurants along the beach. Bolero, a newer Mexican restaurant grabbed our favour with it’s music selection (the owner can actually name recent bands from Canada aside from Celine Dion and Bryan Adams!), selection of tapas (hot wings!), and of course the rum bar where I had to try the Tanduay Premium – the top shelf of the locally made rum. I’m happy to report I have a new favourite.

Since it’s still technically low season, much of Boracay is under construction improvements and many resorts have screens or windbreaks up between the resort and the beach to minimize wind and blowing sand. Unfortunately it creates some unfavourable beach areas and reduces the view… Not something you typically see in the brochure advertising.

We headed east from the main beach and ended up at the kite surfing beach named Bulabog where we watched a beginner drop his kite onto a nearby boat. Oops! Wandering about, we checked out a few possible long term rental opportunities away from the hustle of White Beach… but with the lack of comparable diving opportunities and the tourist party atmosphere, it just didn’t seem to be an ideal setup for the two of us. If it were a week or two vacation… with the good food and drinks, I’d highly recommend coming to party at Boracay, but as a long term option it just didn’t seem to fit the bill quite right.

We met a lot of people while in Boracay, which resulted in a couple of late night party sessions… at one of which it was decided that we were all going to go to the local cock fighting arena the next day to see the fights. We arrived at the arena around 2pm and needless to say, cock jokes were in full effect. I’d previously seen cock fighting on tv so had some idea of what to expect. It’s not exactly the most humane sport going… but much like the bull fights in Spain, it was something to be experienced once. Basically, two roosters are brought into the ring, they parade a hen around in front of them, and bring in two other roosters which they waft and taunt the fighting cocks with. Once sufficiently aggravated, the betting begins and all hell breaks loose. The whole arena begins shouting and making hand gestures to each other that indicates the amount being bet and on which cock. It’s sheer madness. We made some small bets amongst ourselves since we couldn’t find a fixer to bet for us. Betting completed, they unwrap the 3 inch blade strapped to the rear of the roosters leg and release them into the glassed in ring. The cocks then jump about lashing out with their spurs, attacking each other till one is wounded and falls. A referee then grabs both roosters and brings them beak to beak. If they both peck each other, they are dropped and fight again. If only one pecks the other, they are usually squared off anyway till the other rooster fails to stand. It can be over very quick, or drag on for 10 minutes till one cock gives up or is dead. One of the guys we came with, Dylan had an uncanny ability to pick the winner of nearly every fight we watched earning him the title “Cock master”… While not necessarily something I’d recommend for everyone, it was definitely an experience in the local culture.

So, here we are back in Dauin. We’re looking at moving to another apartment in the same resort this month. The one we’re currently in has grown a little small for us. We’re currently thinking we’ll be staying here till January or February. Then we’ll possibly move on to Thailand for a few months for a change of pace.

Happy Halloween!

Read the original article here: Week 8: Boracay

Malapatay Market

Kelly — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:10:08 +0000

About 20km outside of Dumaguete lies Malapatay, a sleepy little seaside town which comes to life every Wednesday. People from all over the island come to, buy, sell, barter and trade everything for anything at the Malapatay Market.

We arrived around 9:30am and things were already in full swing. People, goats and pigs were everywhere, and hundreds bamboo huts lined the palm fringed street. Each hut was crammed full of everything from fish, & meat products to exotic fruits & strange vegetables. You can even find household goods, clothing, and furniture.

Further down the street livestock was being traded, and the sound of squealing pigs filled the air. Two men bartered back and forth as they both tried to get a fair price for a pair of chickens, and someone else weighed pig snouts from a hanging scale.

Suckling pigs roast in roadside pits, as people sit on plastic chairs waiting for their seafood to cook on barbeque stalls. Not everyone is there to shop. For some the market is an excuse to socialize, to eat some good food, and just enjoy the weekly outing.

Read the original article here: Malapatay Market

Insomnia

Shim — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:48:48 +0000

Over the last week I’ve been waking at obscene hours in the morning due to crazy wind and rainstorms, loud air conditioners, bats, cicadas, mosquitoes, jet lag, and any number of other excuses. So, I’ve been watching a lot of tv till the rest of the country wakes up and breakfast is available (I’m really looking forward to having my own kitchen soon!). While there are many of the same television networks we’re used to like CNN, BBC, National Geographic Channel, and The Discovery Channel. It’s fair to say that there’s a number of interestingly quirky shows and stations that have caught my attention. Here’s a few:

The Soundtrack Channel – That’s right… music videos from soundtracks. That’s it! Classic.

Religious Evangelism – There must be 20 channels, non-stop, day and night. I can buy my salvation from most of them for a pledge of $80/month for 6 months.

Al Jazeera – News from Iraq and the middle east. Recent hilights? Installation of solar powered street lights in Baghdad.

FOXCRIME – Even here, FOX airs CSI non-stop.

Russia Today – News from Russia. Much ado about Georgia and Russia lately.

2 Karaoke channels – 24/7 karaoke. One with a SMS text request number.

The Pentagon Channel – News and entertainment for US Troops stationed overseas. Heavy emphasis on tanks.

Viva Prime – A local sports channel with basketball, horse racing, and cock fighting (very brutal).

Cinemax, HBO, & Star – A constant stream of bad B movies.

AXN – Action/kung fu movies and Jackass style stunt shows.

Velvet – Chick flicks and princess based reality tv shows.

The Hiphip-Hooray Show – I have no idea what the show is actually called since its in Tagalog, but its a gameshow where contestants alternate between saying ‘Hiphip’ and ‘Hooray’ while clapping their hands above or below their heads. A contestant is eliminated when they say the wrong verse or clap in the wrong position. Can carry on for 10-15 minutes. Repetitive, but funny as hell.

Chicken Bingo – Again, no idea what its called due to the lack of english, but it combines bingo and answering questions from 5 or 6 categories. When a contestant gets a question right, they wag their elbows like a chicken.

The Hallmark Channel – No longer just making cheesy gift cards… Now they also air cheesy drama shows and movies.

BALLS – A sports network. Primarily covering a lot of golf and basketball lately. Their tagline? “We’ve got them.”

Read the original article here: Insomnia

How to watch tv online while traveling