By Juan C. Ayllon Summer is great for enjoying the outdoors, gardening, exercising and open air dining, and when it rains or gets too hot, binge-watching shows like Netflix's Queen of the South, spinning and streaming tunes in the comfort of air conditioning. With a caveat, that is! Whether it's that endless, slow rotating circle on our screen, the upload indicator stuck at 20 percent or a message that reads, "Unable to start streaming", we've experienced it. With the legions of students and others now home gobbling up bandwidth, internet providers are stretched and service is more sluggish than usual. Whether they're throttling internet speeds or simply maxed-out, the end result is the same--slower upload times and streaming service timeouts. It's maddening. Right about now, I can hear the vinyl aficionados citing this as yet another example of the superiority of analog playback over digital, and while spinning wax is always an excellent option, sometimes we just want to watch a show or click through music selections from the comfort of our couches. So, what to do?
We just go to our next viable option: Netflix not working? If you don't have cable TV, there's always Prime Video, Hulu or other go-to apps. Tidal and Qobuz not streaming? There's always digital downloads and ripped files on your media server or, if you want to go old school, CDs, SACDs, DVDs and Blu Ray DVDs are available. Bottom line, we have our options and, trust me, Belle and I have been taking full advantage as of late! That brings me to today. It's raining outside and, in a mood to explore the latest streaming music offerings, I fired up the system, clicked on the streaming app on my iPhone, and read the reddish brown message on my iPhone, "Unable to start streaming..." Irritated, I selected an excellent FLAC recording of Bill Frissell's East-West and cooled my britches. Sounds great! And with the threat of thunderstorms later, we'll unplug altogether (hint: surge protectors and power conditioners will NOT protect your system in the case of a direct lightning strike), have lunch indoors and enjoy some good, old fashioned entertaining with my mother. Problem solved. Stay safe!
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Juan C. AyllonA writer, artist, educator and owner of Prairie Audio Man Cave, he lives with his wife, Isabel (AKA Belle), and their Goldendoodle, Liam, enjoys listening to high fidelity music and all things hi-fi at their home in the greater Chicagoland area.. Archives
March 2024
Categories |