The benefit of blocked cable
It’s Sunday afternoon. If you didn’t know I like watching football. So why am I writing instead of watching?
The more relevant question is why I used to watch — not just football, but anything on TV.
When I moved into my apartment almost fourteen years ago I plugged my TV into a coax cable already installed. For some reason, it worked. No cable box, no nothing. I didn’t pay for anything, but I got cable quality transmission for regular broadcast channels plus a few cable channels.
As long is it was there, why not use it?
I had ideas of stopping watching, but having it there made it so easy. So I watched. In time I decreased watching a lot, mainly to nature shows and live sports.
A couple weeks ago all stations switched to a static message saying the provider switch exclusively to digital, presumably an upgrade for some users.
Maybe it was the kick in the ass I was looking for to quit watching TV and join the ranks of this type of person:
Q: How do you know when someone doesn’t have a television?
A: They tell you.
… although people who have televisions do a pretty good job of telling you they have them too.
I still have a DVD player, so I can watch movies I borrow from the library across the street, but it’s been jamming lately so I might get rid of it too.
Incidentally, I found out about the digital change just before the Jets played the Patriots. I still wanted to watch the game so I watched at a bar. The Jets seemed to have an offense based on throwing the ball to the other team, which doesn’t invite watching much.
Anyway, I expect to write in a few months about how I wish I’d gotten rid of the TV earlier, though I like to keep an open mind, so maybe I’ll decide I like it.
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