Monday, October 22, 2007

Cable TV Zombie


Turns out I am addicted, totally hooked to cable TV.

It sorta crept up on me. Quitting smoking was hard enough (especially when watching Prime Suspect which involves cigarette after delicious ciggie) but this is just ridiculous.

Living alone in a big house with no cable TV is just...torture. Still, I think I can do this. It helps that I organized my DVDs by genre so on any given night I can pick and choose from a musical, romantic comedy, sci fi or action adventure film. And then there is always the TV category which is FAT thanks to the box sets.

Still, having no instant connection to the pretty faces and families and scenes with the click of a button is lonely. I miss the instant noise, life and human feed. My house feels empty.

Every week I get about 3 cable offers in the mail. Apparently, not being plugged in is a sin against mankind. My house must be connected to the grid, or it is going to fall off the map into a netherworld of goody goody projects.

Granted, my internet connection was the first thing I sorted 0ut and that connects me plenty. But the internet doesn't fill a room with blustery noise. It does not drone on for hours about detergents and blind dates. I grew up with cable TV, we have been close for a long time now.

Home improvement projects, fall jaunts, books and animals have been filling my fall days. So for now, I am going to bite the bullet and live without the excitement of cable.

But late at night I walk past my neighbors with their brightly lit living rooms and their talking TVs and pretend I am flipping their channel changers - Mtv to E! to VH1 to A&E to VCAM and then perhaps a waddle through the networks.

Oh cable TV, WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU!?!?!?

4 comments:

Miss Molly Manglewood said...

You might like the absence of cable once you get used to it - maybe not. I've never had cable so I don't actually understand your withdrawal on a personal level.

But, you can get all of your celebrity gossip online, and support your locally owned video store by renting all the best shows when they come out on DVD. And that vacuum of silence that seems so oppressive right now can be filled with new music and public radio! Yaayyyy! NPR 4 EVER!

Tanner M. said...

Eva,

I got a quick fix for you - Joost.
Seriously, it's a free download, and it's cable on your computer, for free. You even get a browsers similar to a cable tv browser... try it out, i guarantee it'll satisfy your cravings, or at least dull them a bit.

I usually watch a couple episodes of the National geographic channel and the venture bros on my macbook while i'm laying in bed at night.

If that's not technology working for me i don't know what is.

btw... you could make your own Stuck in Vermont channel with Joost...look into it.

Suzanne Lowell said...

it feels good once you finally kick the habit. think of all the time that's not being sucked away. and when you do get that chance to flick channels in a hotel room or when you're house-sitting or something -- it feels so decadent and there's no guilt associated!

Eva the Deadbeat said...

Thanks fellow cable-less TV people! You are SO BRAVE! I think it is a good thing even if the cable companies are hounding me like fresh meat.

And thank god NPR is all talk radio all the time now. It is saving my pitiful addicted-to-trash-TV life!

MUST FILL EMPTY ECHOING VOID WITH .... SOMETHING!!! How to survive winter?!?!? Will NPR and Joost keep me alive?

ARGH!!!!