"Why you too should cancel cable"
Posted by rick Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:30:00 GMT
Here’s an uplifting little read: Why you too should cancel cable. I think the last time I had cable was when I lived in New York which would’ve been around 1998 (“we”, my wife and I, have never had cable the entire time we’ve lived together). I actually auctioned off my television at work on May 6th, 1998 after having what alcoholics would call a “moment of clarity”...
Having been convinced some time ago that there is nothing but propaganda present in today’s television broadcasts (other than the NCAA college basketball tournament which is long past) I have finally decided that it is pointless for me to own a television—hence I am offering mine for sale.
The television is a Magnavox, cable ready 21” set (I believe that’s correct, maybe it’s slightly bigger). Picture is perfect. Sound is somewhat fuzzy. No remote control (this was destroyed in a television disillusionment episode, sorry). I purchased it at The Wiz 2 years ago for around $300.
I estimate that the set is worth $100 (or more) to someone who is interested in watching television. I will conduct the sale as follows:
1 – The sale is offered to the person presenting the best offer to me via e-mail (received) prior to midnight (EDT) tonight. Earlier offers receive precedence over later offers of the same size. I reserve the right not to sell if no reasonable offers are received.
2 – Assuming there is such an offer I will bring the set to the Setauket office tomorrow morning. At that time the potential buyer may inspect the set, and either accept or decline the sale.
If the sale is declined then the person with the next best offer will be contacted. This will continue until the set is sold or there are no more offers.
Happy shopping,Rick
It was sold to a co-worker who wanted to neutralize the impact of the mother-in-law who had moved in “temporarily” some non-trivial amount of time prior.
These days we have 3 televisions in the house, all piled on top of each other, one of which is a 13” set I had as a kid, which I connected to my Commodore {VIC-20, 16, 128} computers over the years. The other two televisions are color 70’s vintage and were given to us for free by someone who was about to trash them. In the past few years this is all I can recall watching on them:
- a bouncing message on the screen of a Commodore VIC-20 (ran for a few days straight)
- over-the-air broadcasts of lots of UK basketball games and NCAA tournament games, occasional miscellaneous college hoops
- a couple of World Series games when the Red Sox won it
- channel {2,4,5} radar maps showing tornadoes swooping into the local area
- the presidential debates and a couple of State of the Union addresses (you have to watch them to play Presidential Debate Bingo and the State of the Union Drinking Game)—for these we’d tune all 3 televisions to different broadcast channels to see just how biased and moronic the coverage from the major networks is in real time. (Answer: thoroughly)
- some DVDs
Occasionally we’ll have a television-addicted visitor come and stay for a while and crank up the Idiot Box, but otherwise it’s pretty much just an appliance that show hoops and weather occasionally.
