Video didn't kill the radio star

I can remember, when I was a little kid, waiting every week for the new issue of TV Guide to come to the house. I'd get it and put it on the end table near the couch, under the current issue, and not let anyone look at it until that week was over.

I loved TV Guide. Mind you, I'm talking about the old digest-sized TV Guide, not this new magazine-sized imposter. I would read it from cover to cover, every week, even if I didn't understand what all the articles meant. Even did the crossword puzzle in the back of the book most weeks.

I'd wait for the new Fall Preview Issue. Oh, that was a special one, one that would be kept for a few weeks (every other issue was tossed into the garbage Saturday morning). It was so cool, seeing the listings for all the new shows coming, wanting to see the cool ones and forgetting about those dull, boring dramas.

TV Guide meant to me there was another week coming. As a kid, I figured that if we didn't get a new issue of TV Guide, well, the world was going to come to an end. No TV Guide...no more life.

Yeah, I was a warped little kid.

We stopped getting TV Guide years ago, around the time so many new cable stations started to appear. There were so many options, guides on the TV and on this new, marvellous invention called the internet, why did we need this little book? After so long, we ended the subscription and just decided to "wing it". Whatever was on, we watched.

As a kid, I watched a lot of TV. The older I got, I watched less and less, with fewer and fewer shows coming out to hold my interest. I can count on probably one hand (maybe adding an extra finger or two) TV shows that have captured my interest to the point that I had to see them. Otherwise, it was background noise, something to fill the void in an empty home.

Some night, I wouldn't even turn the TV on. A shocking concept, to be sure, but I was content to listen to a record, read (Heavens forbid!), or just surf the web.

About two years ago, I dropped cable and switched to a satellite. We got cable in the house back in 1981, when cable was in its infancy and MTV actually showed music videos. Mind you, I love the dish, and I won't switch back to cable. There's more choices, a better signal, and my rates don't go up every time some VP at the cable company farts.

But yesterday, to go along with the changes in my life, I did something that, as a child, would have seemed impossible.

I stopped the TV service.

Well, not stopped, but more like put on a six-month "hold". I haven't been here to watch the TV, and since I'm looking more toward moving to DeKalb, I really don't have time to watch the boob tube anymore. A phone call later, and my dish service is "paused".

Last night, when I'd normally be going into the living room and flip on the television, I popped in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Paused it a couple times when Julie called, but that was it. No TV shows for me to stay up late and watch. No annoying commercials. No flipping through 500 channels and not finding one damn thing worth watching.

It was an amazing experience, one that still, today, seems somehow surreal (and I can't even watch The Surreal Life).

Yes, I'm aware I can watch most of the shows on the Internet, but I'm not comfortable doing that. Places like Youtube and their ilk are good for short clips, but to sit and watch a whole show on the computer? I'm a geek, but I'm not ready to go there.

In six months time, I don't know if I'll restart the dish service. I may. I may not. Yes, it's nice to have the shows, the diversions, the entertainment. But I prefer my music, and I still have my XM radio. I've got DVDs out the yin-yang. Sure, it'd be cool to have Julie over to watch the race in high-def (even though she doesn't see a difference, she might sing a different tune when she sees Dale Jr. in crystal-clear high definition...and then have her forget her loving boyfriend again...sigh), but I don't know, right now, if I want the TV back.

Another day, another change. Interesting where life takes you, isn't it...and I don't even have a copy of TV Guide to tell me what's on anymore.