Monday, December 8, 2008

Canceled

The mastiff had some HBO that I really enjoyed watching. I don't have that at my house, so today I cancelled my cable.

I have books to read, and things to write, and I can watch it all online anyway.

Oh, right, I canceled that too. But it's okay, because in the latter days, the internet sings in the sky.

It's been a number of years since I could say, "Oh, I don't have cable." I'm going to try not to sound smug when I say it. I mean, it's not quite the same as being able to say, "I don't have a TV in my house." They're on the same track though: the my-life-is-full-enough-without-packaged-entertainment track.

Oh, that's not the track that came to mind for you? You happen to think that TV has limitless potential as a unique medium for artistic expression, especially when it comes to long-evolving narratives that dialogue with the culture at large. Well, yeah, if I'm honest, I guess I do too.

So, the track that came to your mind was I'm-a-grad-student-who-earns-little-money-and-spends-too-much-of-her-free-time-in-front-of-a-screen . . . um, okay, yeah, I could see that. Could we phrase it a little differently though . . . something to do with priorities? And corporate culture?

No. Okay, fine.

But that means I get to keep Netflix.

Also, I spelled "cancel(l)ed" two different ways in this post. And they're both right. Stop being self-conscious about it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Congratulations, Rachel. I've been off the DirecTV and Tivo for over a year now, and I've saved a ton of money. Money that I had been wasting on channels I never watched with crap shows about crap wedding cakes and other such crap.

All the shows I would want to watch are available to stream online at their networks' sites or at hulu. Though I also did get a Roku box , which sends my Netflix instant cue right to my TV. But as an XBOX 360 owner you should know you can do the same thing with your hardware.

Of course to use it, you need to pay for an "xbox gold membership." But it's still cheaper than cable.