Monday, October 22, 2007

With or without cable

What a pickle I am in.

Boyan and I spent our first full weekend in our new apartment and it is SUCH a relief to be done moving. We got internet yesterday (finally) and a refrigerator on Saturday, so it seems we have returned to civilized society from the depths of the dark ages (no internet, no food, no T.V.). There is, however, one last thing that needs to be resolved, which is our T.V.

Our new apartment faces west, which makes it difficult for my beloved Direct TV satellite to find a signal in the southeast sky. Our new landlady, Dottie (who I'm sure I will be writing PLENTY about in the future) informed us that it was impossible to find a signal from our apartment unless the dish was on the roof, which of course is not allowed. But she was more than happy to refer us to her Charter Cable sales rep (she gave me his name and direct line) who I am positive she is in league with (commission anyone?) .

Boyan and I looked up the reviews, they got a 1.87 out of 127 reviews ( you can read them here, some key quotes, "A nest of Vampires. A Den of liars" and "I also will give them one star as zero is not an option.") and prices (WTF! SO EXPENSIVE $80/month?!?!) and decided that we definitely were in a pickle. Either we could forfeit our DirectTV and TiVo (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) or we could give Charter Cable a try.

We're pissed that our landlord tries to choose our cable provider for us (Last time I checked this was AMERICA! I'm a consumer dammit I get a choice!) and that they are so unaccommodating.

So Boyan and I decided that if it's not DirectTV it's nothing. We'll download the shows we want to watch (ABC already lets you stream their episodes free online) and rent movies to bide our time. Now, those of you who know me know that I am more than a little obsessed with television. Do you think I can do without it? What will become of me? Will I go through withdrawals, shaking convulsing, foaming at the mouth like an addict? Standing outside neighbors windows trying to catch someone watching the Office or Grey's Anatomy? Or will I become more productive? Write more, exercise more? What do you think, can I do it?

1 comment:

Britta said...

You can totally do it. Heck, RUTH and I did it for two years!!! And guess what happened during those 2 years? I lost weight (because of course on the offchance that I actually craved TV, I knew I could always find a welcoming screen in front of an elliptical trainer at the gym), learned to cook more elaborate things (like banana cake), read more books (The Berlin Stories, anyone?), kept the house cleaner (vacuuming is kind of therapeutic when you just want to use something that plugs in)and overall learned a TON from reading articles on the internet. ;-)

Go for it-- you will benefit in ways you never expected.