Watching Outside the Box

A couple years ago our beautiful old tube TV died. It was sad for a few reasons. First and foremost, it had been a wedding present. Several friends chipped in together and got us a huge 42 inch Sony that weighed a ton and a half. See back in the olden days, big screens needed big tubes. This thing weighed about 230 pounds and, conveniently, had no handles. It stayed where we first put it and we arranged the furniture around it.

It was also sad because I was unemployed at the time and we couldn't really afford a new TV.

So we cut off our satellite and saved our pennies.

And started watching TV on the internet.

Then we got some christmas money and we went out and bought a new TV. We got a little one - you know - only 42 inches.

But we didn't turn on the dish or get cable. We just connected our computers to the TV and kept watching stuff on the internet. My mother in law watched to watch the news so I went to radio shack and got the new rabbit ears.

When she saw the quality of the digital broadcast she said, "Oh, did you get cable?"

"No, that's broadcast TV."

"But who's paying for it?"

"Nobody, it's free."

"Since when?"

"It's always been free."

"Then why would people pay for cable TV?"

Good question.

I am really surprised that people still do. I describe what we do to people and they don't really believe me. That's part of the reason I started this blog.

The other reason is to talk about the stuff I like.

So look to this space for simple info on getting video without cable or dish, and for my favorite stuff on Hulu, Netflix and YouTube.

I also hope to build a little audience/community that can recommend good stuff.