Thanksgiving 2022

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789
By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go. Washington

How to watch Doctor Who

Today is Doctor Who day. Well, it is for those that care about that sort of thing.

On November 23, 1963, at 5:46 PM, BBC aired the first episode ever of Doctor Who. Nobody figured that 59 years later, the TV show would still be relevant.

Now, to be sure, the show has not been on for 59 years. In 1989, the 26th season of the show ended. From a London policeman walking in the fog outside 76 Totter's Lane on November 23, 1963, to The Doctor and Ace walking in the sunshine across a field, 26 years and 13 days had passed.

The show was canceled, and would remain so for years.

A 1996 TV movie made by Universal and BBC failed to be picked up as a series. On March 26, 2005, BBC aired the first episode of the revived series. Initially, it was considered to be a reboot of the series, but it developed into a continuation instead, with all previous episodes as part of the same canon.

The show was a worldwide hit, and reached its peak popularity during David Tennant's time as the 10th Doctor, and began to taper off during Matt Smith's 11th Doctor and Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor, bottoming out during Jodie Whitaker's 13th Doctor.

There are fans that only like the original classic Doctor Who. There are fans that only like the newer series. There are fans that like both.

So, how does one watch Doctor Who? Well, that depends on which version you want.

Classic Doctor Who episodes -- all that exist, which is another story in itself -- are available on Brit Box. Additionally, some free ad-support television (FAST) services carry streams of Doctor Who. This includes Pluto TV, Xumo, Plex, and Roku Channel.

The revived series is available on HBO Max. Next year, new episodes will debut on Disney+, but for now, HBO Max is your home for NuWho.

Whichever show you like -- classic, new, or both -- you have options when it comes to inviting the Doctor and his TARDIS crew into your Streaming Life.

Free holiday content

Being a streamer and having streaming devices connected to the TV opens up a lot of possibilities for streaming holiday content.

Let me drop this in right now: I'm not one that's afraid to say "Christmas." I say holidays because the content I'm talking about is more than just Christmas, although the bulk of it is for Christmas.

Anyway, there are a lot of ways to stream content for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other holidays using your streaming devices. And I'm talking about free content. That's right, won't cost you a cent.

Most of this is free ad-supported television (FAST) content. Now, if commercials are a problem for you, this isn't the article for you. But, if you don't mind watching some commercials, and appreciate free content as a result, then you have lots of options for watching FAST holiday movies and TV.

Pluto TV

The granddaddy of FAST apps has a Season's Greetings section. It has nine linear (live streaming) channels. If you look around the live channel guide, you'll see Christmas channels in other sections, but they are duplicates of what's in the Season's Greetings section. Of course, some other channels will occasionally have Christmas or other holiday content. These nine are all Christmas content, including movies, fireplace, music videos, and one Spanish language channel.

Xumo

The Comcast backed FAST service has a Holiday Hub that has 17 live streaming channels. This includes five music channels and a music video channel, but no fireplace channels.

Crackle

This long-time favorite now has a more family friendly approach since it was acquired by Chicken Soup for the Soul. Crackle doesn't have a live-streaming hub of holiday content, but does have a Holiday section of 160 on-demand movies. They are mostly Christmas themed, but there are other holidays represented, including Thanksgiving. Additionally, there are four selections in the TV section, mostly Kirstie's Handmade episodes.

Tubi

The Fox-owned Tubi has a Holiday Hits category with 200 on-demand selections. There is no linear content, but that is a fair number of on-demand movies and TV. Tubi has some fireplace and Christmas music based selections that run about an hour each.

Plex

This service has both live streaming and on-demand sections. However, it's doesn't contain the focus of other services. There is no Holiday or similar category in the Movies & Shows section. However, there are over 250 on-demand holiday themed movies. But beware: there are all sorts of sub-genre and mixed genre holiday movies, including horror films. Not everything is suitable for family viewing.

Unfortunately, in the Live TV section, there is no category for holiday content.

Others?

This is not intended to be an all-encompassing list of apps and services offering holiday content, but simple to share information about some of the ways you can watch it.

Why haven't I mentioned Roku Channel? Because, at least as of today, Roku Channel doesn't have a holiday hub of any type. Same with Sling TV free. On these services, you may find some content here and there mixed in with other programming, but there isn't a single place to go for holiday content within these apps. Perhaps they will after Thanksgiving. If they do, I'll provide an update.

Despite the disappointment that some of the services and apps don't have a section for holiday content, there are several free options for holiday content, mostly Christmas content. If that's something you want in your Streaming Life, you'll be happy.

Streaming the World Cup

Outside the USA, several sports fans care about the World Cup. That's the international soccer championship.

There are a number of people that watch it in the USA as well, although its popularity is nowhere that of outside the USA. Kind of like the metric system.

Anyway, for those interested, it's certainly possible to stream World Cup coverage in the USA. Live coverage will be on Fox, Fox Sports 1, and Peacock.

Fox

• Antenna, over the air, free.
• Vidgo Plus, $60/month.
• YouTube TV, $65/month.
• Fubo TV, $70/month.
• Hulu+Live TV, $70.
• DirecTV Stream Entertainment, $70/month.

Fox Sports 1

• Sling Blue, with Sports Extra, $51/month.
• Sling Orange+Blue, with Sports Extra, $70/month.
  
• Vidgo Plus, $60/month.
• YouTube TV, $65/month.
• Fubo TV, $70/month.
• Hulu+Live TV, $70.
• DirecTV Stream Entertainment, $70/month.

Peacock TV

Peacock is a standalone streaming service that carries NBCUniversal programming, including much sports from NBC as well as exclusive sports programming. Peacock Premium is $5/month, but is included with Xfinity Internet plans.

Additionally, Tubi will have replays of some games available.

If you are a soccer fan that wants the World Cup as part of your Streaming Life, you have options.

Plex on Raspberry Pi, revisited

Recently, I was visiting a family member that had Plex running on a Raspberry Pi device. I had set that up in March and it had been running ever since.

So, everything is good, right? Well, not exactly.

When I set it up, I followed instructions of others who had set up Plex on Raspberry Pi. And they used the full Raspberry Pi graphical user interface (GUI). You know, with the windows and mouse and such.

If you're setting up a personal computer, that's fine. That works well. But, it does take up resources, and that can be a problem. Not a huge problem, but everything the device has to manage and operate that is not needed is a waste of resources, and more importantly, something that can go wrong and cause a device to hang up.

You see, Plex should run just fine without the GUI. It has a small Web server running, and if I want to use a GUI, it's easy enough to simply launch a Web browser. And that's how it's managed. We don't need to physically go into the room where the device is located (where the Internet service comes in; not the main room of the house) to get on it. Launching a browser can be done from anywhere on the network.

However, there are other tasks that need to happen from time to time, particularly updates to the operating system.

Now, with it running a full installation of Ubuntu Linux, there are many applications that are installed with a setup like that. And those applications are not needed to run Linux, but they do need to be updated from time to time, for security reasons. And that's the issue with a full GUI installation for a dedicated purpose device.

So, here's what I'm thinking I'll do. I will set up another device running a headless install of Linux. With just a command line setup, the updates will be simple enough. Running SSH will allow connection from another room. And, should things go horribly wrong, it would be easy enough to connect a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to access. But most of the time, accessing the command line is easy, and updates will be two commands:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade -y

That's easy, right? And you don't even have to get out of your chair.

But if it's working, why would I want to go through all this trouble. Well, it's not exactly working. There are some issues with updates. Oh, to be sure, you can do updates, but the Ubuntu installation is wonky, and command line updates don't always work. So, it needs some work, and I'm thinking the thing to do is to just put in a new, simpler installation.

I like things to just work in my Streaming Life, and right now, maintaining Plex isn't working as it should. And I will fix it. "It tasks me." And if you know that quote, you know I may fail gloriously if I allow it to blind me as the speaker of those words was blinded, obsessed. But when you get down to it, I just want it to work.