It’s been a wintry Christmas Day here in Seattle, and so my cunning plan was to curl up in front of the TV and watch all three Lord of the Rings DVDs, back to back – the extended versions. Unfortunately when I turned on my DVD player, it emitted a ghoulish death-rattle and refused to work. So I logged in to Amazon, ordered myself a replacement ((I wanted a decent name-brand unit, and it turned out to be only a little more to get an HD-DVD player. So I did. I know that this may be a future Betamax, but never mind.)), and settled down to read philosophy texts on my Kindle. Along the way I talked to family and friends, by phone or Skype. ((I always use Skype to connect with folks back in England.))
Speaking of Skype, I just received email telling me that my old “Skype Unlimited” package was about to expire, and urging me to sign up for the new “Skype Pro” package. The email and web materials do a lousy job of explaining the relative merits of the various plans; surely they couldn’t be hoping that I’d follow the path of least resistance and sign up for the most expensive option?! Since my present Skype usage is 40% Skype-to-Skype chat, 40% Skype-to-Skype video, and 20% (prepaid) calls to England, there doesn’t seem to be any good reason to go “Pro”.