The Princess and I met up with friends today and ventured to the local movie theater to catch “High School Muscial 3: Senior Year”. Release Friday, this is the (obviously) third installment in the High School Musical trilogy, capitalizing on the run away success of the first movie, released in 2006 on the Disney Channel.

We went to a noon showing the theater was about half full, but upon exiting the theater at 2:30, the lobby was quite full of kids wearing High School Musical gear which seemed to indicate a much busier showing.

Honestly, I was a bit worried about paying to see the movie. Sequels usually aren’t very good and “High School Musical 2″ was certainly nothing to write home about (nor pay extra for) so I had pretty low expectations for part 3.

The premise of the movie, obviously, deals with the “Wild Cats” and their last few months of high school. THe movie opens during basketball seasons, slides through prom, the spring “musicale” and graduation. Frankly, the large portion of kids at the movie were young ‘ens. around the Princesses age. The songs are catchy, the romance tame, no slurs, epithets or violence which is appealing, but does the high school experience really translate to the third grade set? I’m not sure.

Overall, the movie was okay. Much better than I anticipated, but my expectations were pretty low. THe musical numbers were very….opulent, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I like musicals. I did have a few problems with the movie. Here they go.

Most of the lead characters are in excess of 20 years old, with the exception of the principle leads, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgins and Corbin Bleu. The actress who plays Taylor McKessie, actress Monique Coleman, is 28 years old.

Dude, she’s MY age.

Also, I have to wonder, though, if we’re setting our kids up for some seriously unrealistic expectations of high school life AND high school relationships. I mean, beyond the winnings spots teams. Troy scales the tree outside of Gabriella’s room to present her with pizza margarita and chocolate strawberries, he drinks hive junker truck over a thousand miles to see her on prom night (and, where are his parents? Who would let their son drive a junker 1000 miles when the damn truck won’t even start up and drive home?). And, in my experience, the idea of cohesion inside the class as shown in HSM is….well….mythical. Admirable, buy mythical.

Overall, I’d take your kids to the movie without concern if they’re fans. The kids seem to like it and it wasn’t totally horrible from my perspective either (but I like “Elf” and “Goonies”, so take my taste in movies as you will). And, it was kind of neat to sit back for a couple of hours and reflect on my high school experience for a little bit…..

Last year, in the fall, Big Daddy got tired of paying the cable bill.  He decided that he wanted to try switching to satellite and so long as I could still DVR my shows (my extensive DVR schedule is another post indeed) I didn’t care.  Since we signed up in the fall we got the NFL Season Ticket FOR FREE!

Big Daddy pretty much only watches his favorite teams.  He’s not a football fan, per se, but doesn’t mind watching a game on Sunday.  We might have turned on the FREE NFL programming a time or two but since we’re not football fans, we didn’t use the service at all.

Fast forward to yesterday evening, Big Daddy and I were having the talk about the budget when we realized that we were being billed for the NFL package through DirecTv to the tune of $42/month.  Neither Big Daddy nor I had signed up for the NFL package.  We wouldn’t.  We don’t watch that much football (hockey, is another story).  Big Daddy gets on the phone and called DirecTV to find out why, exactly, we’re being charged for a football package that we haven’t and won’t use.

In June, DirecTv sent a notice with our mailed bill letting us know that unless we declined, they’d be subscribing us for the NFL package this year.   Well, Big Daddy set up our bill to play automatically through our bank account.  I won’t get into the fact that Big Daddy and I are space cases about paying the bills and just having our set bills pay automatially means that the satellite doesn’t cut off during Blue’s Clues because Big Daddy or I forgot to pay the bill.  Since our bill was always paid, Big Daddy and I never opened any statements.  We didn’t need more channels, didn’t need special offers and most assuredly didn’t need a Two Hundred and Eighty Nine Dollar football package.

So, Big Daddy gets on the phone and calls DirecTv.  Not only do we not want this package, we want our money back (as apparently our bill has been high since August and it took us until October to figure it out.  I won’t tell you what that means in regards to how often Big Daddy and I balance our checking account either).    Not only will DirecTv not cancel the service, but they won’t refund the money already paid towards this useless, to us, package.

Instead, we get $120 worth of credits (at $20/month for six months) to help ease the Two Hundred and Eighty Nine Dollar sting.

Now, dont misunderstand me.  Big Daddy and I had anb obligation to read the fine print AND to open our statements (and you can bet your butt that we’ll be opening every. single. DirecTv statement from now on in), but it seems like a pretty good revenue event for DirecTv doesn’t it?  Well, we offer you this for free and then you’re automaticlaly enrolled in our three hundred dollar yearly package!  You don’t have to call!  We’ll just sign you up.

Yeah…no.  We didn’t sign up for DirecTv when we did for the NFL package, but I’m sure people do and I’m sure we’re not the only people missing the YAY!  You’re already signed up for LIFE porition of that deal.  So, beware.  Freebies from DirecTv may not actually be free…..And read your statements!!