Farewell, old friend
This whole ‘no more teevee‘ thing is becoming realer and realer by the day: the box in which I will bury — err, ship back my satellite receiver to its legal owners (Dish, Inc.) arrived today. And sometime later this week, I will be physically removing the large black plastic-and-glass cubic companion that his been with me since 1998.
I remember shopping for that teevee: reading the ads in the newspapers for a few months, looking for a deal; visiting the Good Guys and Circuit City stores in Emeryville, checking out the features and pictures and sizes. In the end, I bought a relatively nice 27-inch JVC with PIP and other neat features. It was a floor model, so I got a nice discount on the unit. It was quite the bonanza.
Almost exactly ten years (!) after I first brought her home, I will be moving the 100-lb box one last time. I hope to find a good cause to which I can donate my old companion. Soon thereafter, I will be reorganizing my living room, possibly also removing the piece of furniture that has seated ye olde tube of boob for the past 5 years.
Truth be told, this moment has been long in the coming. It may have been last Spring when I first started thinking about getting rid of that thing, reconfiguring my apartment as more of a studio than a living room, and ending the wasted hours of mostly mindless consumption. Though still in withdrawal, I can already sense my teevee-induced twitches dimming. Sure, I still miss it a little, but I know that I will never for a moment regret boxing up that satellite receiver, or donating my old plastic-and-glass friend.
Organic Mutant - » money can buy you a new best friend, but money can’t buy my love Says:
[...] My bro & co-poster Rick has kicked-off a new phase of life wherein he has decided to eschew tell-lie-vision for a more involved life, more social connections, more experiences. I wholeheartedly support his efforts. Wade and I moved in together in 1998 about one year before we got married. Neither one of us owned a television. In both of our previous living situations we had roommates who had owned televisions, so neither one of us had ever had need to purchase the dreaded appliance. At the time, we were used to having cable with full access to 100+ channels. When we moved in together (still in the glow of first attraction & Luhv {sigh}) we decided that we wanted to leave room for creation (Wade wanted to write, I wanted to paint) and excised teevee from our lives. I have always been more of a reader than a television person, but with ready access to broadcast opium I could find myself stretched out on the sofa for hours watching mind-numbing stuff just on the momentum alone. We found many ways to entertain ourselves, but that decision to surgically remove commercial broadcasts from our lives cemented our love of engaging in long-winded discussions, riffing on each other’s preposterous political ideas and sharing our humorous, scatalogical, and childish jokes. [...]
Posted on April 14th, 2007 at 1:46 pm