There's another option, one I never would have considered a year ago: Do without.

I have cable TV at my house, and the only reason it is there is for the 6 Mb/sec internet connection, the fastest that is available in this part of Mexico. Of the 77 channels I can receive, there is not one that interests me since they dropped the English language Discovery Channel. I watch an occasional DVD (rental cost: 10 pesos, about 80 cents) but my TV set has not actually been turned on in weeks.

You cannot imagine how incredibly liberating it is to not be tied to the idiot box, to not worry about missing an episode of [fill in favorite program name here], to not get upset because the cretins responsible for production made a complete hash of the programming continuity in "Heroes". [I know about that because I read it here on the bbs! ]

A year ago I was watching 40 hours of television a week and I'd spend another hour or so tweaking my TiVo so I'd be sure not to miss anything. God, what a waste. And you know what? I don't miss it. Not the slightest bit. When I read the threads on this bbs about the current TV shows, and the debates about what the plot line(s) in "Lost" really mean, I have an almost irresistible temptation to chime in and say "Look, guys, it isn't real!". It's hard to express how much more full my life is without TV.

It's ironic that I'm retired and supposedly have all this free time, and now is when I have left television out of my life. It's better without it.

tanstaafl.