By Harold
In this economy, who’s passing up free entertainment? I’m certainly not. Here are three options I’ve come across recently.
Free music: This will work for anyone who lives near a campus, and it’s especially true for people in the Triangle: Students are putting on concerts practically every day. Is it as good as the New York Philharmonic? No. Am I sophisticated enough to tell the difference? Sort of. Is the New York Philharmonic coming to Raleigh and playing for free? No.
Anyway, I could fill a whole week with the student performers just at Duke and UNC — yesterday there was recitals at UNC’s Hill Hall Auditorium, today there’s a wind symphony concert at Duke’s Baldwin Auditorium, tomorrow there’s the fall horn blast at UNC and the Afro-Cuban and Djembe (African drumming) Ensembles at Duke, Saturday there’s opera with the UNC Baroque Ensemble, and Sunday there’s the UNC Glee Clubs (though unfortunately it’s the same-sex, 100-year-old formal version of Glee, and not the Broadway/Top 40 mash-up version currently on FOX).
Free education: Since I have some free time on my hands, I’ve decided to learn Spanish. Or at least remember it after graduating high school 12 years ago. Now, you can go out and spend $700 dollars on Rosetta Stone, but that’s not the theme of this post (also, in a bit of a Catch 22, if I was making so much money that I could splurge on Rosetta Stone, that would probably mean I’m working hard at my job and I wouldn’t have time to learn the language). Instead, a friend recommended Livemocha. It’s free, but it seems to use the same template as RS.
For example, you see a two dogs on the screen and you hear a voice saying “dos perros.” Well, we were conjugating the word fat, an obese woman comes up, and you hear “I am fat.” And then, “You are fat.” “She is fat.” I don’t know how much that woman was paid, but hopefully it’s enough to get a psychiatrist after this. She is being called fat about 100 times by each person who wants to learn Spanish. Also, in a neat twist, I have native Spanish speakers grading my written and spoken work while you grade their work in English.
Free sports on TV: We’re going in order of legality, so I’m putting this one last. Not that I think it’s illegal, but it’s almost too good to be true. I’ll put it this way: if my computer crashes tomorrow, I’ll have an idea why. But it would still be worth it. That’s how great this site is. Are you ready? ATDHE.net. I have no idea what it stands for, where it comes from, etc. But it appears to have every televised sporting event in the world. Tonight you can watch the Thursday night game on the NFL Network. Yesterday I watched the World Cup qualifiers from Europe. I’ve also watched Wizards and Capitals games. The quality isn’t great, and the feed freezes up occasionally, but you get what you pay for.
Hope this helps. And if anyone has any other free suggestions I’d love to hear them.
Laura
Harold
