jeviathon

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=theespsho-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B001FA1NK0&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrI finally pulled the plug yesterday. I dropped all of my cable TV services and was left with just internet. I’m pretty excited about the change really and since most everything I watch is on Hulu, Netflix or streamed on some site, I should be set.

One of the other reasons I decided to get rid of cable is more about productivity. When my wife and I first got married, we had no cable TV for 6 months or so and during that time, we went hiking more, exercised more and just generally got out of the house more. A friend of mine from Wisconsin, who also recently dropped his TV service, said that once he did it, he analyzed what shows were more important to him and just stuck to watching though. Not everything is available through streaming out there. There are some stubborn cable TV networks who don’t offer it, so if one good turn deserves another and they don’t seem to care about us, we just won’t care about them.

While my Wisconsin buddy had a point, I’ll make another. If you are just sitting there and you are bored, mundane TV can be pretty tempting. For example, you may just be channel surfing and land on an old episode of something you have seen before or a movie that you may have seen 100 times, but you know what….you still watch it. Due to boredom, last year, my wife and I picked up over 5 shows from cable TV that aren’t necessarily that good, we just landed on them and got interested including Pit Boss, American Chopper, American Pickers and a few other odds and ends. I know what you are saying, if they aren’t that good, just turn off the TV…have you actually tried doing that?

So let’s look at a rundown of our favorite shows and how we will watch them before and after dropping the cable TV.

Before

• House
• Lie to Me
• Two and a Half Men
• Pawn Stars
• American Pickers
• NCIS
• NCIS Los Angeles
• Stargate Universe
• Bones
• CSI
• !@#$ my Dad says
• Big Bang Theory
• Smallville
• CSI New York
• Blue Bloods
• Pit Boss
• The Walking Dead
• Sarah Palin’s Alaska
• American Chopper
• Dirty Jobs

After

• House (FOX: Love it, will catch on Hulu)

• Lie to Me (FOX: My wife loves it, will catch on Hulu)

• Two and a Half Men (CBS: have to to to their site to watch, so we may drop it)

• Pawn Stars (HIST…dunno how or if we will watch this one)

• American Pickers (HIST: We’ll prob be dropping this one unless we pick it up from Netflix)

• NCIS (CBS: We love the show, but CBS needs to get on Hulu)

• NCIS Los Angeles (CBS: We like the show, but CBS needs to get on Hulu)

• Stargate Universe (Syfy: No episodes on Hulu yet, so we may drop)

• Bones (FOX: We’ll watch on Hulu, we like the show, only because of Booth, Angela and Hodges)

• CSI (CBS: We’ll drop this crap…it insults my intelligence. All CSIs need to be cancelled.)

• !@#$ my Dad says (CBS: We like it, we want it, CBS needs to get on the ball)

• Big Bang Theory (CBS: We like it, we want it, CBS needs to get on the ball)

• Smallville (CW: Dunno how we will watch, but we will find a way…last season anyway.)

• CSI New York (CBS: Another one we will prob drop, it is the better of the CSI shows)

• Blue Bloods (CBS: We don’t know if we will continue watching, but I love Tom Selleck)

• Pit Boss (Animal Planet: We’ll be dropping this one)

• The Walking Dead (AMC: The season is over until next year. We’ll watch this if we have to go to a bar.)

• Sarah Palin’s Alaska (TLC: We will prob drop the show until it comes to Netflix or Hulu.)

• American Chopper (DSC: We’ll be dropping this one)

So as you can see, the lists leans toward a few conclusions.

• We prioritized what is important and what is really good and what is available via streaming
• Most everything is available via streaming through a Roku, Boxee, Apple TV or some media box
• CBS sucks…