Little House on the Prairie

Hey Jebediah, flip it over to Ice Road Truckers, will ya?

A couple of weeks ago I turned in my digital cable box to Comcast. At the time, and in fact up until the very moment that I handed the box to the guy at the counter, I was still wrestling with just what I was going to do. I was waffling hard between just cutting off the digital cable or getting rid of cable entirely. I imagined living without cable to be not unlike what Laura Ingalls Wilder's life was like on the prairie. I had imagined myself reading books by candlelight, going to bed at 7:30 and waking at 4 to milk cows or work the fields. For whatever reason, I went this route rather than continue to pay for TV.

There are several reasons I chose to get rid of cable. First and foremost, I was watching too damn much TV. And I'll watch anything, seriously. Ever heard of Ice Road Truckers? I knew I had a problem when I started to really care about what misadventures Bear and the boys would find themselves in this week.

Secondly, I hate paying for TV. I have never enjoyed giving my money every month to Cox or Comcast. And cable is expensive. Hell, I was paying close to $50 a month and I was still under a discount plan I signed up for when I moved to Portland. In another month or two it was going to creep up to close to $80.

Lastly, all the best TV is free! OK, so this isn't exactly true. I mean, if that were true then I'd be able to receive Ice Road Truckers through my newly purchased Radio Shack antenna and clearly I cannot - and believe me I've tried. But for free I do get The Office, 30 Rock, SNL, OPB, etc. I can even get Hole in the Wall, which is like the Ice Road Truckers of Fox.

My biggest concern with going off the grid (or as close as I wanna get) was not being able to receive NFL football games on Sunday. As many of you probably know, I'm kind of a big football fan. It's my only vice. OK, that's a lie. But it's my biggest vice. Not true either. Anyway, I went pretty much without football all last season when I was working in Mississippi and it sucked. Fortunately, I can get most of the games (the exception being ESPN's Monday night game) and with relative clarity. At least clear enough that, for free, I can live with it.

So for now, I'm living the simple life. Spending more time with the kitties (well, Pants anyway), reading more, and watching a hell of a lot of crap on free TV. Have you seen Hole in the Wall? It's funny as hell.