Thursday, July 17, 2008

Bereft and Directionless without Satellite

I like to claim that I don't watch TV that much. I pretend like it's all Keith's fault that we have a big flat panel TV and fancy satellite dish. Although I will admit that even I cannot live without DVR anymore. You know, for when I want to record the Jane Austen series on Masterpiece Theatre.

But apparently, all of my posturing about not needing to watch TV is a pack of lies. Because our satellite is not currently hooked up, and I'm in a corner, twitching.

To take off the old roof and put on the new roof, the roofers had to remove and reinstall the satellite dish. Fair enough. But they don't actually reposition it properly—we have to call the satellite TV service to take care of that.

The satellite TV service wants to charge us a $50 service call to reposition the satellite. We're not big fans of that. So Keith wants to try repositioning it himself first. Being "fiscally responsible" (aka stingy), I approve of this plan.

Except. I'm home all the time now. And I don't have a whole lot of energy. All I really want to do is flip on the TV and watch other people do things while I knit a baby blanket for my sister or fall asleep on the couch. But Keith won't be able to try and reposition the satellite until probably the weekend, at the earliest.

I'm a little surprised how disconnected I feel without the TV. I know part of it is KNOWING that I can't turn the TV on, even if I wanted to. Well, I could watch a DVD, but I can't watch actual television programs.

I'm listening to NPR, which I often listen to all day at work, and it's surprisingly dissatisfying. I miss the moving pictures! Maybe I'm just going through the withdrawal, and by tomorrow the need for TV will be lessened. Maybe this will bring on labor, because I don't have anything else to amuse me.

2 comments:

Amy said...

Do you not have DVDs of actual television programs, or you just want to watch current television programs, and not the entire run of Buffy or Gilmore Girls in one sitting?

And you have an Internet connection ... you can watch almost anything aired on TV online anyhow, so you could still get the moving picture fix that way.

Anyhow, I barely survived the other week when my power was out for about four hours and I had to read a book by flashlight, so I feel your pain.

Jonathan Beckett said...

The internet has more or less completely replaced television in my life. Sure, I will sometimes sit while eating takeaway food on the couch and watch some terrible TV, but otherwise I never do any more