The day the TV died

So while we were in Portland this last weekend (a better blog to come sometime soon - we had a great time and I got some super-adorable movies of the doggies), the change-over from analog TV to digital TV happened. Back in Feb/Mar when the TV was originally supposed to switch, Neil and I had made the decision to not buy the converter box and just let the TV go. Neil's gone most of the time, so it's not really much of a temptation for him, but I get sucked into the black hole all the time. When you're home alone, it's so easy just to say that you're "turning it on for background noise", and then sit down and get sucked into some crappy program for the rest of the evening. It's just such a time-suck, even though a lot of the stuff I watch is on PBS, so I can convince myself that it's actually educational. So, I was totally on board to the experiment of no TV. Then, they pushed the date for conversion back, and I got a 3 month reprieve.

So, this week was the big day. We got back from Portland Monday night, turned on the TV to check it, and got only one channel, with some lady telling us how to connect our converter box. Wow - it's real. Neil and I went to see UP on Tuesday night, so didn't get to really experiment with what it would be like with no TV, so last night was the big night. What would I do to fill all the extra time? Would I be twiddling my thumbs? Bored out of my mind? Well, I kind of cheated. I had laundry to do, which took up half of the evening anyways, then I was searching for a recipe, which took up a bunch of extra time, and then I had to make dinner. So even on a normal day, I probably wouldn't have turned on the TV until after dinner anyways. But this is when I cheated. I dished up my noodle salad and plopped in front of the TV to watch a couple of episodes of The Wire that I had from Netflix. So, the end result was kind of the same - still in front of the TV. Hmmm... not to mention that half of the programs that we watch on TV are actually on the internet, so having no TV won't prohibit our watching them. Come on, we can't miss The Office and 30 Rock, right?

So the jury is still out on whether this will really accomplish anything at all - but atleast it will prohibit the aimless flipping of channels, then settling on some really dumb program, just because it's on. Baby steps, I guess.