Given The MinusCar Project’s attentiveness to consumption…
Given that television exists partly (primarily?) to encourage consumption…
Given the television already almost never gets turn on…
Given The Family pays $500/year for cable service…
Today the cable gets canceled.
I’m thinking there’s a high probability for error when canceling cable television service…
Since home internet service is tied to my cable service…
I wonder how long it will be before I can blog again.
10 comments:
Excellent reasoning--I've heard stats on how much consumption increases per number of TV hours watched, and it's rather alarming. I wish you the best in your post-cable life.
I haven't had cable since moving out of my parents' house ten years ago. My husband and I vowed we wouldn't get it when we got married and now that there's a kid in the house, we're all the more resolved to not have it. Yes, we do miss some great programming. But then there's all that life to live instead of watching TV!
We canceled cable about 2 years ago, and have not regretted it. It frees up a lot of time to do other things. In fact, looking back, I wonder how we had time to watch TV. We have an antennae to pick up a local news channel, but that seldom gets watched either. I know what the weather is going to be like. It's summer. It's going to be hot. Don't need TV to tell me that.
It clears your head of useless information too. I smile when I hear the useless TV banter around the office. "Did you see that commercial?" "Did you hear who got kicked off the show?". I have no idea what they're talking about, and that's great! I don't know anything about the latest movies at the theater. I have no clue about the latest corporate burger or pizza. I'm oblivious to the latest disease invented by the drug companies and what they have to remedy it. I'm only in tune to what's important to me, and not what someone else wants to shove down my throat.
We had two TV's, but one recently went up in smoke. We're left with our big screen, which is great for watching movies. We have discussed getting rid of it, but this may be hard to go through with. If we move, it will probably stay behind.
Go for it! You will not be disappointed!
Dial up modem, baby! It's like going "retro!"
wireless hot spots are cool.
The cable guy is coming this evening not to completely cancel, but to downgrade our cable to the very basic package- the locals plus a few other channels. We've had all kinds of fun channels and the DVR, too. Like you, we're keeping the cable modem, at least until we see if Minneapolis' citywide WiFi will a) work at our house and b) be fast enough for us. It'll definitely be slower, but we're hoping we don't care too much. It's supposed to be coming to our neighborhood in the next few months.
I always miss the good cable when it's gone, but I don't really watch it when I have it.
kill the tv! do it! you'll never miss it.
to go 'warm' turkey, put it on a cart and roll it into the closet when you are not using it. only use it for family video night...
i'm going on 10 years TV free.
minus is the new plus. (and i am the same bmike that sent you that comment so long ago...)
minus all the insipid drivel that masquerades as important news, information, and entertainment - plus all the things you'll have a bit of extra time for - like surfing the web and posting on blogs. ;)
oh, you should be able to have a cable modem and not cable tv. we manage to do it here with one of the big national corporate provider folks.
Wow. Thanks for all this encouragement.
bMike - you actually left the comment on the OIFS blog - "Freaking Out The Unimaginative"
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/thil0020/carfreelife/2006_06.html#048164
Haven't got the cable yet - tho' I just wander to my friend's to get the Weather Channel. Don't have cable modem either - go to friend's house ;) To get a.m. weather fix I think kindly of whatever neighbor got an unsecured connection a few weeks ago which, happily, seems to work best from the sofa. (I want to know more than "going to be hot." I want the radar and the wind.)
I have a TV in the basement that somebody moving to australia gave me, so fi there's a tornado warning I can get the local news waiting it out.
Ouch...just before checking in with the -auto I was on quest.com checking on the bundle price for internet, phone and directtv.
Since moving to the Liquid we have not hooked up the cable...one year next week!
We have to get internet since mama is now doing the book work for a local Bible camp...now I'm torn, to stay with my non-cable ways or to go back to TV-TOM.
I really miss my hockey, football on Monday nights, the occasional mountain bike race or cool outdoor show, and would like to watch something besides what is on ABC, CBS or Fox...we don't even get PBS on the lake.
It is rough sometimes for a TV junkie like me...but more power to ya...G
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