Today, I woke up and purposefully didn't watch Mike & Mike before I went to work. Something that I haven't done since I started working in June 2005. There have been days where I went into work early, or holidays of course, but this was the first time that I chose not to watch.
In my studio, I would only watch for about 20 minutes as I got ready. But since getting Tivo/DVR in 2006, I would wake up around 7:45 and pause the TV on ESPN2. Then I would shower and start watching around 8am. By around 8:40, I'm dressed, have my lunch made, and caught up to live TV, and out the door.
But today I stopped watching, and it has nothing to do with Mike & Mike. I still enjoy as much as ever.
In the short term, it's because I'm working on a pitch and was tired and though I could use an extra half-hour of sleep. But the only reason I thought of it, is because I'm moving. The first issue is that I'll be leaving my new apartment around 8am to take the train to work. That's an increase of 40 minutes of transit time each way. But instead of getting up 40 minutes earlier, I figure I'll just get up at 7:35, shower, dress and make a sandwich in 25 minutes.
Plus, there's the logistics. If the TV is in the basement, and my shower/clothes are on the 2nd floor, and I make my lunch on the 1st floor, it's not really conducive to watching TV as I get ready. There are some advantages to having everything is one room, I suppose.
This leads to a separate yet related transition. We're not planning on getting cable TV, and I'm actually looking forward to it. No Comedy Central, no Food Network, no movies on FX/TNT/TBS, no Mythbusters, and NO ESPN NETWORKS! Egad. Have I lost my marbles. Well, for too long TV has been sort of a given, a standard timesuck that eats away the free time. Especially with DVR, there's always something to watch.
But really, what do I need to watch on TV? I like 30 Rock and 24. And I need football. And they're all on the major networks. I can catch Always Sunny and even the Comedy Central shows on Hulu if I want. But mostly I don't think I'll miss all that TV much at all. Between being more active, reading books, watching DVD's, and writing I'm looking forward to not paying $50 a month for cable.
Besides, it's not like I'm giving up the PS3. That'd be crazy.
Sounds like it'll be interesting! I was thinking of cutting cable, and the hardest part of it is losing live sports. The big events are all on the major networks which you can pick up for free over the air, but there's a lot of stuff on ESPN (football, college football) or other channels (hockey, baseball, etc.). But I'm sure that over time things will get better online with a shift like the kind Hulu created. ESPN360 is already a step in that direction as long as your ISP is a partner with them. Plus you can always go to a sports bar if you really want to catch something anyways.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing to look out for is the internet bandwidth caps, as this could limit how much you could watch online. I don't know how much the limit is for other companies, but Comcast is 250GB/month. Might sound like a lot but it's not that much if you watch a lot of shows in HD. But it sounds like you're not going to be trying to watch a ton of stuff online each month anyways.
We'll see how this goes . . . I dunno . . .
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