Kill Your Television
My wife and I recently got cable TV hooked up in our new apartment. I’m not a big watcher of TV generally, but my wife would divorce me if I didn’t order it. And I concede that I would eventually miss Food Network and the History Channel before too long. I’m a fan of edutainment television. I figure if I’m going to lie down on the couch, staring slack-jawed into the blinking lights, I might as well be learning something. I really don’t have much use for network television anymore. There is rarely anything worthwhile on the networks. I would cancel all the local channels, but my wife would divorce me… and then kill me.
We had cable TV at our old apartment too, but it was a pretty basic package. Not counting all of the foreign language channels, sports channels, home shopping, and all those channels that show nothing but reruns of Law & Order all day long, there were only a handful of channels worth spending any time on at all. In our new place, we got a better package. It includes about a thousand channels and requires a hefty remote control with many multi-colored buttons that I’m afraid to press for fear that I may accidentally order a $10 pay-per-view porno movie.
Honey, it was an accident! I was confused… Honestly!
So when we got hooked up, I decided to take a tour of the channel lineup by just clicking the + button that scans through the channels. It took about half an hour to roll over back to Channel 2. At first I thought that was pretty cool. More channels = more choices, non? I’ve since come to realize it’s not as cool as I’d previously imagined. There’s too much stuff on all the time. It’s like walking into the ice cream shop and choosing a flavor. By choosing one, you miss out on all the others. So sometimes I find myself agonizing for several minutes before finally committing to a program. This whole TV thing was much easier when my choices were chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.
Anyway, I have to go now. I want to make sure I’m not missing anything good on the other 999 channels.
Bye for now.
November 8th, 2003 at 6:52 pm
One word: Tivo.
November 9th, 2003 at 2:28 am
2 words, “Replay TV”. I in the same situation as you with my wife and the tv. I was fine with no cable at all, but nooooo she just had to have it. So I made a deal with her, if we got cable, then we’d HAVE to get a Replay TV.
What’s awesome about it is that it plugs into your home network and you can do some pretty cool things. Here’s an example: Let’s say you and you’re wife are fighting over the remote control for who has the right to watch what show, right?
Okay she wants to watch something she taped last night, but you want to watch something that’s going to be on now. So instead of making her wait, (because you know you might want to practice* the art baby making that night and you don’t want to sleep with the ice queen) you think, Wait! I can tape my show, She can watch her show while it’s taping, (and wait it get’s better) and I can sit on my laptop/computer stream the “In Search Of, With Leanord Nemoy” that I taped last week and watch it on my machine.
Everyone walks away happy, nobody looses an eye, and you just might get a chance to practice baby making.
*Practice - the ACT without conception occurring.
November 9th, 2003 at 2:33 am
oh, yea I forgot 2 things too. On the Replay you can skip comercials completely and you can send recorded shows to anyone else you know who has a replay.
(Nor myself or any family members work or are connected in any way, shape or form to “Replay TV”. hehe)
It’s just that awesome!
November 11th, 2003 at 1:49 pm
I second the Tivo motion. I don’t know how one functions without one anymore.
November 17th, 2003 at 10:14 am
The whole TiVo/ReplayTV idea has definitely been floating around my mind for awhile. I’m still not sure I want to drop the cash just yet though.
I’m also a little afraid to do it because not only will I be watching all kinds of TV during the week, but I’ll also be spending all weekend watching all the stuff I TiVo’d Monday throught Friday. I’m trying to minimize my tube time.