The Dolan Weblog

Sugar Daddy finds it hard to resist constant news.  When we have six or seven channels that offer 24/7 updates, he feels compelled to constantly switch between them, as if one of them will suddenly have an item that a) none of the other outlets have, b) will change his life, or c) will give him an excuse to start monologueing about some point of law.  (Snore.)  In addition, we are really not responsible enough to have as many channels as cable offers.  It’s just too much for us to wrap our brains around.  This is how most of our evenings are spent:

Sugar Daddy: (Flipping through the cable channels) What’s on TV?  How many channels do we have again?

Dolan Mama: Mmmm, like, 950? But anything above 900 is just music.  And a bunch of those aren’t in English.

SD: (Pausing on a station broadcasting in Urdu) Hunh.

DM: Out of all the crap on, you’re stopping here?

SD: Well, what do YOU want to watch?

DM: Put it on guide and let’s see what’s on.

SD: (Pushing remote channels at random, hoping he’ll somehow accidentally hit the guide button.  Puts it on the cartoon channel instead, which means BabyGirl comes running and plops down to watch her shows.)  Think she’d mind if I changed it?

DM: Have you even met your daughter? She will lose her stuff if you change now.

(We give Baby Girl until the next commercial, then distract her so we can continue to surf.)

SD: (Two hours later) OK, that’s all 800 channels.  Did you see anything you wanted to watch?

DM: Which channel was the Dog Whisperer on?  Is it still on?  Or that show about Bible history–I think it was in the 300’s.

SD: (Pushing random buttons to find Cesar Milan, winds up on the cartoon channel again, BabyGirl comes running) Crap.

We usually wind up watching a marathon of something–Dirty Jobs, CSI, just ’cause the show is still on when we get back around to it an hour later.

So he started making noise about getting rid of cable TV.  Really, the kids don’t watch during the school week, so it’s mainly BabyGirl and me who would be affected.  And there really is a lot of junk programming on.  When we flip by some channel with a half-lit surfer broadcasting his current Dungeons and Dragons game from his parents’ basement, we ask, “And we’re paying for this??”

We’ve been without cable for several weeks now.  Several looooong weeks.  It’s been years since I watched regular network programming.  Between living overseas and having cable for syndicated shows, I couldn’t tell you when was the last time I watched CBS or ABC.  I have no clue what shows they even have any more.  I lamented this to Sugar Daddy and suggested that we buy a TV Guide.  A freakin’ TV Guide, people!  He forbade me to do it, saying he wasn’t going to “live in the 70’s again.”

So we now have 25 channels (only 20 in English) and still no clue what’s on.  But it goes so much faster to flip through the worthless stuff.  You’d think since we have a digital converter box and digital antennae, everything would be peachy.  Not so much.  Yes, the picture is clear—when it comes in and isn’t all square-ish and silent.  But apparently BabyGirl has come to accept that Sesame Street has regular frozen silences between short bursts of activity.  The kids are OK with it–they still get to watch The Simpsons.  The TV in the basement that was for the kids now picks up nothing, since it doesn’t even have a digital converter box.  But they’re OK with just playing Rock Band and their new PS2 games down there.

Our new project is to figure out how to hook the laptop up to the TV so that we can watch TV shows off the internet, but still get the TV watching experience.  (Stop snickering, it will TOO work.)  So if you hear a bunch of general cussing and throwing of TV/computer peripherals from this area, you’ll know we’re well on our way to a day full of Andy Griffith rerun.  Um, yay?