Here’s how to know when you should write a How To post

When you find something complicated or difficult or annoying, but then you figure it out or at least have some tips, write about that.

I consider myself fairly tech savvy.

• I can spell PHP.
• I can walk a Frenchman through my cable TV setup while on the phone 9 timezones away and not looking at it (it being the cable TV).
• Don’t tell, but I even know how to change your computers’s (IP address) location so you can watch something streamed online even when you’re not supposed to.*

Sometimes I’m a “bandwagon fan” in sports. In other words, if a team is popular, I’m happy to jump on and root for the team. The Golden State Warriors are on a tear and they’re honestly fun to watch. My 9-year old quotes Steph Curry on a regular basis. I wanted to watch the game tonight.

Here are my challenges:

1. I refuse to pay for top-of-the-line cable packages when I want to watch just a few games (and pretty much nothing else on the 389 channels available).
2. I’m more than willing to do something, like, uh, change my IP location so I could watch a game that’s blacked out in my area.**
3. I’d be happy to shell out $6.99 to NBA TV to watch the game streaming on some device. That’s the price for a single game.
4. I’m even willing to pay for the rest of the season on NBA TV for $59.99. But none of this matters because of #5.
5. I can’t figure out the whole black out thing. Tonight’s game was being shown nationwide so it was blacked out, uh, nationwide. Really? I took a class called “Logic” in my MBA (no, seriously), but this makes no sense.
6. I’m not willing to spend more time than it takes to actually play a basketball game to try to watch a basketball game.
7. We could also watch the Central Southwestern Michigan Razorbacks play their arch rival the South Dakota Tech Wallabies in women’s NCAA Division III volleyball.*** At that’s not blacked out.

I’m stopping with the numbered list. I’m unveiling the secret and hype that’s building in this epic post of gargantuan proportions. I’m just going to give it all away. My future 7-part video course for Udemy is ruined right here, right now. I’m going to give it away for free here. You don’t even have to sign up for my mailing list. I’m not going to give you bonus items for not signing up. I’m just going to tell you how to do it and call it a day.

If you don’t want the solution, stop reading now!

I couldn’t figure it out. I got in the car and went to Billy Bob’s Extra Spicy Wings & BBQ**** I spent $4.36 on a mango lemonade (which makes about as much sense as blacking out games), my parking was validated and a guy behind me even explained a call by the referees I didn’t understand. It was festive and a great game. There were loads of others people there (Hint alert! Hint alert! Those are your future course takers because, duh, they couldn’t figure out how to watch the game at home either!)

Please note, if any of you create a 7-part video course on How to Watch a Basketball Game on TV (or any screen will do), please send me 7.08% of your net profits. I think it’s only fair as I’m giving you this business idea (with MASSIVE INCOME potential … ;-)).

If you don’t build the course, write the How To post or at least tell me the secret, someone else will and you’re going to have to live with that.

• Possible: watch reruns of Nurse Betty
• Impossible: watch a basketball game on any screen in your house
• Repossible: order a mango lemonade and go out into the world

* For the attorneys out there, I just said that I know how to do it, I didn’t say I do it!
** Note “more than willing” does not equal action.
*** Little inside joke with my 9-year old. Ask him who’s playing tonight’s collegiate field hockey quarter finals (in the eastern Appalachian division).
**** Not the joint’s real name, but not because I’m protecting them, because I just can’t remember. It was several minutes ago, after all.