Freedom from the man

This week Pork Chop and I decided we were going to stop paying a fortune for TV, so before we could change our minds, we drove over to the Comcast offices, turned in our beloved DVR, and downgraded to limited basic cable. Imagine my astonishment to discover that there is a downgrade fee, and that it's only $2 less than our new monthly cable bill. Highway robbery, I tell you. Luckily, Pork Chop knew about some obscure "service protection plan" for which we pay $1 a month and which entitles us to one free service visit a month, so he requested that they combine the downgrade visit with a visit to check out our fuzzy picture and voila -- no downgrade fee.

After we got home we talked some more and decided we frankly don't want to pay $15 a month in perpetuity to get channels that are broadcast free, anyway, so we devised a new plan. We used some Amazon gift certificates from my illustrious employer and purchased an outdoor directional amplified HD antenna and an external TV tuner for our computers and when that comes, we will get rid of cable TV altogether (unfortunately we'll still have to pay them for internet).

It will be interesting to see how this setup works, but hypothetically we will use our computers and the Xbox 360 as PVRs and still record all of our network shows, which is most of the stuff we care about, anyway. (Lost and American Idol, where would I be without you?) It's been a while since we did anything new in the way of gadgetry, so I'm kind of excited. I'll let you know how it goes.