When we moved into the new house, we didn’t bother to get television service right away. We had been with DISH at the old place, and we were going to resume our business relationship with them as soon as we got settled.
The guy who installed the satellite Internet service had to borrow the 300-foot cable that ran out to the TV dish out in front of the property, so we wouldn’t have to pay for a new custom cable installation. The new Hughesnet dish is now a few feet from the old TV dish. To get a new satellite TV hookup, we’d probably have a whole new cable run out there (to the tune of yet another few hundred bucks), so we decided that it’s not worth the expense.
We’re at the base of a hill, so there’s no antenna reception. We’ve been without TV since we moved in on December 5th. And you know what? I find that I don’t miss it one bit.
Robin keeps making noises about wanting local news again (the bandwidth restrictions on the Internet account mean that streaming video is not an option), but truth be told, I don’t think it’s worth the fifty or so bucks a month for the basic satellite package with local channels.
Local news…pshaw. If I think back on how often i wanted to reach through the TV and throttle those clueless hairspray heads when we still tuned in to the local news in K-town, I think I’d rather not pay for the privilege of once again getting insulted with the ten-second Dick-and-Jane version of world events.
8 Comments
January 25, 2008 at 10:40 pm
You’re not missing anything on the local news. Channel 9 out of Manchester is owned by Channel 5 (Hearst Argyle) out of Boston and is even more liberal in their coverage than the Bay State media (not to mention staffed by 4th string blithering idiots). The local stations in Burlington, VT and Plattsburg, NY are pretty far left. If your local package has the Portland, ME stations, they’re not to bad.
Off topic, how is Hughesnet working for you? I’m being forced to work from a home office or commute to VT in 5 months and my only broadband choices are Sat or EvDO. I’ve heard not so good reviews on Hughes net. If you have a second, can you drop me a line about how it works at this latitude?
January 26, 2008 at 1:01 am
Seriously, for the best local news, get a cheap police scanner. You’ll know all about what’s going on in your local community, and 99.9% of it never makes the TV news. Over the past 3 months or so, there’ve been 5-10 forcible rapes in my area, a slew of robberies (both strong-arm and armed), and a ton of other assorted assaults, and nary a one has even made the regional newspaper, leading my anti-gun neighbor to declare it’s safe enough in our city, so why should I want to carry?
If the MSM decides it’s not newsworthy, chances are damn good average Joe and Mrs Joe won’t know about it, even if it happens on the next block. And nothing seems to be newsworthy anymore unless it’s the Hil-and-Obama ‘feud’.
January 26, 2008 at 2:07 am
Marko, I agree with Steve. You aren’t missing anything. WMUR has a long history of being a joke in broadcasting. And I say this as a viewer, the real judges of media. For entertainment you should watch Tom Griffith host the 6:00 or 11:00 news, flubbing his lines and slurring his words and making foolish small talk with the blonde perkmeister sitting next to him. Or even better try watching ‘Chronicle’, their daily evening magazine show if you want a real laugh and can stand it for a half hour.
January 26, 2008 at 3:45 am
What is this “Tee Vee” of which you speak?
January 26, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I gave up on TV completely a couple of years ago, only reason I still have one is in case I want to play videogames on it(even that a rare occurance) or have someone over and we want to watch a movie, since I have a DVD player hooked to it too.
I get my news online(where I can at least use multiple sources to get different takes on a situation, even if it’s only spin-left or spin-right), and I usually watch movies on the computer as well.
The only downside is I miss out on current music. I don’t really care for 99% of the mainsteam music(I listen mostly to rock/metal and use online reviews/samples to know what to look up in case I like it), but it can be a slight social handicap sometimes to not know the currently popular artists except perhaps by name(when they’ve done something scandalous and end up on the news).
January 27, 2008 at 1:07 am
Tell her to sign up at the local Curves and go every morning. She’ll get much, much more local news than she would ever want. My wife does.
January 27, 2008 at 6:34 am
CRTs make great reaction targets … almost as much fun as shooting Twinkies with 7.62 Tokarev.
January 29, 2008 at 6:42 pm
But surely we want Marko to experience Al Kaprelian???