Am I being rash by wanting/getting cable?

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My boyfriend and I share an apartment. We do not have cable, but we get the basic network channels through an antenna. Lately the reception has gotten horrible — FOX doesn't come in at all anymore, so I can't watch "The Simpsons" reruns when I come home from work. :( :( :(

We have talked about getting super-basic cable, which gives you the network channels, plus PBS and some other basic shit, for about $13 a month. I'm not interested in getting more channels, really — I mostly want the channels we have to come in clearly.

My boyfriend says that he's concerned that we'll wind up watching TV all the time, and the reason we sprung for the six-disc Netflix plan is because we don't have cable. I feel like we already watch a lot of TV anyway, and we would just watch the same stuff we already do. It's really just a matter of not having to sqint and futz with the antenna everytime I change the channel.

So... boringness aside, people with cable: Should I resist the urge to give in to the cable companies? Will I be sucked into the vortex of glazed eyes and bad made-for-TV movies? Or is having cable hafter not having it for ages not really a big deal?

(Obviously it isn't in the grand scheme of life, but you know what I mean.)

― sugarpants: new and improved! (sugarpants), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

I think being without cable for four years, from 1992 to 1996, went a long way towards breaking my TV habit -- a fact for which I'm actually quite grateful, but I'll spare you the rant. By the time I got it back for about seven years I realized I wasn't using TV in general all that much, as there were other things to do with free time I enjoyed more. YMMV.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

I have cable and I still haven't been sucked out of the vortex of glazed eyes and internet forums.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

it's rubbish here in merrie england, but the 'watch more telly' effect only lasts a few days and we recently got rid of cable, going back to normal telly, and the 'watch more telly' effect was quite pronounced there as well, albeit only for one or two days.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

Hmm. It may be better just to run in the other direction and avoid television as much as possible. Perhaps it's a sign of some kind that I need to watch less, not more.

― sugarpants: new and improved! (sugarpants), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

Can you get on the landlord's case to do something about the antenna? That's among the basic services a landlord should provide to renters.

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

your boyfriend hates fun, get digital cable with 500 channels like me.

(although honestly it is a fucking rip, because all I really want are the HBO series, and a few other things; there are at least 100 channels of crap I don't want, and the programming for a lot of things has gone so fucking downhill I can't believe they're staying in business [discovery, bbca, style, etc: they run the same six programs over and over and over]).

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:49 (twenty years ago)

If I could get ESPN and the Food Network in some sort of sports and food value pack I'd totally do it. The other cable channels are worthless.

― adam (adam), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

our reception has been really bad lately too. NBC and FOX are pretty much a write off. i bug my husband for cable all the time but really i cant quite justify the cost. i guess if your a rabid sports fan or you like watching stand up comedy or made for tv movies 24-7 then it'd be worth it. but for reception? there must be a happy middle ground between adjusting the antenna every 5 minutes and paying a chunk of money to comcast. if you find it, let me know.

― katharine (katharine), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)

I don't know what types of services you guys have, but I used to have Comcast, and that was good enough, but where I live, I have to get premium service from a different company. I pay the same price for far fewer channels.

Do you have a cable outlet already installed? Sometimes you can get basic channels for free just by connecting your tv to the outlet. It's worked for me in every apartment I've lived in.

― You Work For Irene (dymaxia), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

that is called "stealing cable".
usually in old buildings they didn't wire stuff very well and unless the company has come out and fixed it (which they never used to do, because it was a pain and expensive for them; now, though I think they're more on the ball) lines all get spliced together on the roof. I did this for 8 years and then whoever's line I was patched into cancelled or moved, and there went my cable. god you don't know how much of a pisser it is to suddenly have to pay money every month for shit you got for free for almost a decade.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

i don't have cable, so can't watch even the 7 or so regular channels...so I just don't watch TV - ever. Like Ned and others have said, this isn't some superiority thing, it's just that once you're out of the habit, you honestly don't even *think* about it. I find it hard enough to make time in the evenings for cooking / reading / music listening / chatting with wife / walking dog / drinking wine / cleaning up / calling friends / going on internet / etc, as it is.

― paulhw (paulhw), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:23 (twenty years ago)

UK cable ISN'T rubbish. Well, 80% of it is, but the amount of non-rubbish is easily enough to justify getting it if you can afford it. When I had to program in my 20 favourite cable channels, I found myself wanting even more.

(in case you're interested, I'd hate to be without Living, Sky One, ITV2, ITV3, BBC3, Paramount Comedy, UKTV Gold, Discovery, History Channel, Sky Sports, among others)

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

As for US cable - $13 a month isn't a lot to mean you can actually watch TV and not get angry with the set every time. As to whether you'd just spend your life in front of it, well, that comes down to your personalities. Personally, I probably watch *less* TV now I have lots of channels - this maybe because I don't just get comfortably familiar with the same old ones, but actively search otu stuff I really *want* to watch. Plus, with cable you know that almost all your fave shows will be repeated/on again very soon, so the urgency to watch there and then isn't nearly so strong.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

I love having TV as an alternative to all those great things paulhw listed. There's nothing intrinsically evil about TV.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

You can't go wrong with TV.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

(having said that, I can't be bothered to set up my digital TV box)

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:28 (twenty years ago)

FOX doesn't come in at all anymore

from what i heard this would not be a bad thing. ;-)))

― nathalie in a bar under the sea (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

I've never had cable myself, so I love it when I get to try it: Housesitting, motels, the folks house at Xmas. I watch about three hours of TV on Sunday night, but this last sunday they didn't play Simpsons, they had some Ryan Seacrest special, so I switched from Fox and watched:

LOCUSTS!! With Lucy Lawless.

I'm with Paul above, I don't really think about TV very much, I listen to the radio ALOT though because you can multi-task.

― andy --, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

Please don't tell me I missed LOCUSTS! I was actually looking forward to watching that, I absolutely LOVE retardo made-for-TV disaster movies.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

I live in Italy right now and cable doesn't really exist here. Everything is either terrestrial broadcast or satellite. That being said, I don't watch TV (at least, not on the TV). When I want to see a show, The Simpsons, or The Daily Show, I just download it using BitTorrent. This site, http://www.btefnet.net/, is the best that I've found, and tracks pretty much every show you'd care to watch. Cable in the US can be bloody expensive, save your money for a bigger monitor, or retirement, or something besides the drain.

― you better believe it (you better believe it), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 17:33 (twenty years ago)

locusts was disgusting.

I'm a boring slob who enjoys tv. I want cable. :(

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

If reception is your main issue a one time investment in a high powered amplified antenna might work.

― laurence kansas (lawrence kansas), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

LOCUSTS! did rule, actually. It was apallingly bad, and even in this era or hi-fi computer animation, the swarms of bugs were really fake.

But Lucy Lawless as a hot, overworked pregnant entemologist was classic, and it turns out the super-Locusts were created by the New World Order Federal Goverment! WHo needs cable?

― andy --, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

Cable TV is practically obsolete with a high speed internet connection - anything worthwhile except sports can be BT'ed *commercial free*. But if you don't have a high speed connection right now, it will cost more than $13/ mo.

― mjfan, Tuesday, 26 April 2005 18:34 (twenty years ago)

our high speed connection gets bogged down a lot and bit torrenting stuff is quite as fun as sitting on the couch, flipping channels, to see how many stations are airing L&O reruns. TV rules.

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 18:36 (twenty years ago)

isn't quite as fun I mean

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 18:36 (twenty years ago)

We've been without cable for quite some time now. I miss it. Sometimes, I feel proud of myself for not spending so much money on cable, as though I'm ahead of the game because other people have this obligation and I don't. But in truth, I still watch a lot of tv - I just have less variety. Also, we check out loads of movies.

Anyway, once a month or so we have the "Should we get high speed internet/cable??" talk.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 18:44 (twenty years ago)

http://www.thebluedot.com/borderequalszero/cable/index.html

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 18:49 (twenty years ago)

It's a hard thing for me to justify, since I'm trying to save money like crazy, but god I hate having to fuck with the antenna! I don't know if the landlord would be interested in helping with that, though, since we just have a set of rabbit ears on top of the box. But THANKS MUCHLY to the person to posted the BitTorrent link — I've been looking for a good one, so I will give it a try before I give up for good and have the cable secretly installed while my BF is at work.

(I will just tell him the reception magically improved.)

― sugarpants: new and improved! (sugarpants), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

I can't live without premium cable, I'm such a yuppie.

― You Work For Irene (dymaxia), Tuesday, 26 April 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

any other american ilxors been w/o cable for a long time? i think for me it's been 15 years. i am stubborn about the whole paying for tv deal. in fact, the last year i had it i got it for free.

― gershy, Monday, 21 January 2008 04:58 (eighteen years ago)

1980 - 2003, 2003 - 2006

― remy bean, Monday, 21 January 2008 05:05 (eighteen years ago)

Five years in my case, ever since I moved to the new place. (Initially it was down to budget but the cable doofs around here proved to be so incompetent in general I thought, "Hell with it.")

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 January 2008 05:05 (eighteen years ago)

no cable for me, and i don't know that i've ever paid for it. i've gotten it free a few times.

i do want it though. to get L O S T with better reception. and to watch sports. i go back and forth all the time about whether to get it.

― jergïns, Monday, 21 January 2008 05:09 (eighteen years ago)

my tv is on quite a bit, but mostly just as background, currently there are no shows i watch regularly. the kids watch it but being limited to pbs for the most part is good at this stage of their developmnet.

― gershy, Monday, 21 January 2008 05:17 (eighteen years ago)

no cable: 1981-1999, 2006-2008

i still want the ~$100 package but im feeling pretty stingy lately. i can use torrents if i need to see something that bad.

― sleep, Monday, 21 January 2008 05:25 (eighteen years ago)

not a lot of time for tv lately anyway. the best was having a gf with cable though

― sleep, Monday, 21 January 2008 05:31 (eighteen years ago)

Never paid for TV, but a few places I've lived have had cable. I'm getting free satellite TV in about a week or two, so the streak will continue.

― libcrypt, Monday, 21 January 2008 06:58 (eighteen years ago)

six years pass...

ATM, after like 15 years of no TV whatsoever, I have cable with HBO/Cinemax and I just bought a Roku 3, and I have netflix too. I'm kind of enjoying basking in the suburban-style home entertainment gluttony. Cancelling the cable after the NBA playoffs are over though.

― Doritos Loco Parentis (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 7 May 2014 03:48 (eleven years ago)

Living at the base of a mountain (on the wrong side) I don't get any over-the-air channels. Thought about getting cable, but realized that even when I do have it, I might watch an hour a week at most. Not really worth the extra $60 per month IMO. When I had Time Warner, they used to offer a "broadcast cable" or "starter" package that just offered the channels you'd otherwise get with an antenna. I recently moved to an area with Charter as the cable provider and they seem to offer no such thing.

― naus, Wednesday, 7 May 2014 06:01 (eleven years ago)

I got bittorrent

― james lipton and his francs (darraghmac), Wednesday, 7 May 2014 11:19 (eleven years ago)

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