When I was growing up, our town didn’t have cable as an option…it just hadn’t come yet. We survived (somehow) on only three channels that came in during the winter when the leaves were down. Sometime in high school (maybe 10th grade?) the cable finally made it to my town and we got it at our house. I was able to watch tv for those 2 years until college. During college I don’t think we had cable in our rooms. If we did, it was pitiful and we never watched it.
Emily and I got married right out of college and headed to graduate school. We were beyond broke for the first 5 years we were married so we couldn’t afford to have cable (except for that one year we lived in a funeral home…but that’s another story). Once we got out of all of our schooling, we just didn’t bother to get cable. We were able to get the major broadcast stations on rabbit ears both in TN and here in WV.
Fast forward to a year or so ago…without cable we tend to read a lot. We read the Sookie Stackhouse novels (upon recommendation of Lacy) and really enjoyed them. A co-worker mentioned that there was an HBO series called TrueBlood which was loosely based on the novels and he had a copy of the first season.
TrueBlood is very loosely based on the books but good in its own right. Make no mistake though, this is an HBO production so it is definitely not for the faint of heart…there is all sorts of NC-17 stuff in it (which is totally unlike the books…they are “clean”). Anyhow, it took a year for season 2 to be released on DVD and I was having no part of waiting another year to see what happened this season so I ordered “the cable” and it was installed this weekend. We call it “the cable” because the kids were asked a year or two ago what they wanted for Christmas…they replied, “the cable” like their aunt and uncle have.
Now honestly, the only reason we got cable was so we could watch TrueBlood. It premiered last night so I know we were cutting it close having it installed on Saturday. The cable guy was right on time and did a great job re-wiring the house. Apparently the previous time cable was installed in the house, the wiring rules were different…but whatever. So he gets everything hooked up and turns on the digital box which holds my beloved HBO…and it started rebooting over and over. I asked him to go get another one and he said he didn’t have a spare…but he could have one for us on Monday.
Remember I mentioned I only got cable so I could watch the TrueBlood premier? Yeah, I was not exactly happy…we hauled butt down to the Cable store (they have on in our mall) to get a new box. Huh…Saturday…yeah, no one there at 5:06 pm. I was about to call the cable guy to come get all of his evil cable out of my house (see, I knew we were right all those years) when I decided to try the cable box one more time. For some reason, it worked fine after I re-connected it. It might have overheated or had a loose connection where it was previously installed. I don’t know…but I was able to watch TrueBlood so crisis was averted!
In side news, we also cancelled our (allegedly) 3 mb dsl service (which never clocked higher than 600kb) to get 10 mb service which actually tests at 10+ mb! And it keeps getting better! We also have our phone through the cable so we have caller id and all that stuff as well as unlimited long distance! Oh, I think I love the cable after all…
LOL on the True Blood. I used to love the Sopranos. Congrats on cable. We don’t get any channels where we live, so we really are like the cavepeople in your cartoon! 😉 It’s by choice though. TV was seriously way too addictive for us and we could never get anything done. We shut it down 3 years ago for our wedding anniversary and haven’t looked back. We still rent a movie every now and then though. And live vicariously through everyone else’s stories of all the great shows out there 🙂
ROFL…my big kids have begged for cable or satellite for years. We’re still grooving with the big ugly antenna attached to the roof. I keep telling them when they want to pony up the $ for the cable we would consider it. Like I said we’re still watching antenna!
Enjoy your new entertainment…but don’t let it take over. I’ve heard it will do that! Kim
Too funny! I didn’t realize that I got you hooked on the Sookie Stackhouse novels! I met the author when I was at DragonCon last year. I’ve yet to check out True Blood… maybe I will now. 🙂
Blessings,
Lacy
You’re talkin’ gibberish in that last paragraph.
That show looks scary.
Glad you got to see your premier!
Congrats on your cable!
We have only the very very basic cable and that’s all we need. We used to have cable and we saw mostly repeats, so we got rid of it.
Still TV-less after 3+ years and quite happy with the decision. I kinda understand those who want it, but boy am I glad not to have that noise and distraction in my house.
The verdict is still out on how I feel about having cable…I definitely like the unlimited long distance phone and the caller id and the much faster internet…but we really haven’t watched any more tv than normal yet. The great thing is that we don’t have any contract so we can ramp it up or pare it down as we see fit (or cancel all together).
I do like True Blood though!
Sounds like me… had it once or twice, but not for the past years. I’m happy without it for now based on the cost… But I imagine there’s a few home/garden/outdoor/sports shows I’d love to watch!
We love true blood, guilty pleasure. But we do not have cable or a TV actually, but still manage to get them recorded from a co-worker and watch them on the lap top.
Glad you got to see your show!