Lazy Saturday

I'm sitting here with my laptop, tea, "everything" bagel, and strawberries while Josh dances around in front of the TV giggling at the cartoons. The girls are sleeping in. We were gifted with rain last night, which turned to freezing rain, then snow overnight. It's still coming down, and the forecast calls for snow and more snow today. I won't be getting out on my bike today... in fact, may not leave the house at all!

I can only take so much more of the inane cartoons, but fortunately, Josh doesn't normally watch TV. I suspect it'll be about half an hour and he'll wander away to build some more Bionicle masterpieces. I fondly remember rotting my brain in front of Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid. In fact, I remember watching a LOT more TV when I was a kid than my kids do now. Back then we didn't have cable -- we have VHF and UHF -- but that didn't seem to matter. Today, we made a deliberate choice not to have cable, and now with the impending digital TV switchover, I'm sure we'll watch even less TV than we do now, which is minuscule. We borrowed one of those digital TV converter boxes to see what kind of reception we'll be getting, and it's pitiful -- less than we do with our rooftop antenna now. No worries. Mostly, we use our TV for DVD movies, which we are big fans of.

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about TV. She and her 6-year-old son don't have one at all. They watch movies on her laptop ocassionally, so it's not as if they're deprived of modern entertainment. (Not like that would be a big loss.) She was remarking that people seem so shocked when she tells them she doesn't have a TV. She was shopping for a new cell phone the other day and the saleman was trying to pitch one of those new cell phones that you can watch TV shows on. The conversation went something like this:

Sales Guy: "And with this phone you can even get TV!"
Her: "I don't want a TV on my phone, I don't even have a TV at home."
Sales Guy: "Oh... no HDTV?"
Her: "No TV."
Sales Guy: "No cable? What then, satellite?"
Her: "No, no TV at all."
Sales Guy (uncomprehending look): "No TV? But... how do you watch..."
Her: "I don't watch TV."
Sales Guy falls over stone dead from shock.

(Okay, I egaggerated that last part, but it was pretty close.)

I get the same reaction sometimes, on a more limited scale. We do own a TV but use it almost exclusively to watch DVD movies. (In a nod to modern life, we did get rid of our vast collection of VHS tapes a while ago.) Many people just don't seem to understand why we don't have cable. For a while, it was just another luxury we couldn't afford. At this point, though, we could afford it, but have little desire to. Sure, it would be nice to have a few stations (Discovery channel, BBC TV, etc) but I know that a lot of junk gets bundled along with the few gems, and that the junk would be playing most of the time. Besides, if you really want to see a show, you can usually get it on your computer over the internet. (High speed internet connection is something I will NOT give up.)