That settles it: no television for me – and good riddance

No one wants to hear someone else complain about how bad the cable company is, since it’s a fact we’re all well aware of. But the fact that a certain cable company sucks in an unusually obtuse manner has led me to make an interesting decision. Essentially, Time Warner is continuing to refuse to install cable television in my new apartment (it’s been nearly a month after I moved in) due to the fact that my apartment’s previous tenant never closed out their account or paid up what they owed.

Nevermind that I’m a new tenant with a new lease and no connection to whoever lived here before. Time Warner just flat-out refused to schedule an appointment unless I was able to bring a copy of an electric bill down to their offices with my name on it, which apparently represented some kind of “proof” to them that I’m not actually the previous tenant attempting to re-activate service under a phony name. Except that when you’re a new tenant, you don’t receive an electric bill until you’ve been living there a month and actually owe them money. Attempts to get the power company to send me something with my name on it failed, and when I finally found out that this particular power company doesn’t bill you until you’ve been living there for two months, it dawned on me that the Time Warner thing was simply never going to happen so long as I live in this apartment. And since I’m not moving any time soon, it was time to go in a different direction one way or the other that didn’t involve Time Warner (or any kind of cable television).

Here’s the funny thing, though. I bought myself a nice HDTV the day after I moved in, and it’s been sitting here ever since with nothing hooked up to it. And in the month that it’s been that way, you know how many times I’ve missed watching television? Zero. Not once. Now granted, it’s the off-season as far as network television series, and it’s also the football off-season. But you know what? The last time I was living out here I never kept up with the series shows anyway, and they don’t even show my favorite team’s games out here on the west coast. When I want to see the occasional landmark new episode of a series I used to watch regularly, I download it from iTunes. When I want to watch the Dolphins game, I head down to the sports bar on Cahuenga. And I’d be doing it precisely that way even if I did have cable television.

Actually, that’s not true. I suspect if I’d had cable TV for the past month I’d have been plopping down in front of it way too often for my own good, settling for watching some crap I don’t care about instead of cranking out the next feature story or going out somewhere interesting. So I think it’s been a benefit overall – to the point that as much of a headache the whole Time Warner thing has been, I’m kinda glad it played out the way it did.

And as such, I went ahead and made a long-term decision today as far as my high-speed internet, one that replaces the short-term work-around I’d been clinging to in the hopes that the Time Warner thing would resolve itself so I could go with cable internet. It’s a done deal now. The hardware is being delivered, and I will not end up being a Time Warner customer while I live in this apartment. And since I suspect you’re not allowed to have satellite television dishes here in this building, that means I won’t be having television at all. And I’m starting to really like that idea.

So what of this nice HDTV that’s been sitting here all this time? I don’t think I’ll get rid of it. Instead, I’ll finally go get that Apple TV box I’ve been hemming and hawing about for the past six months, and when I do want to watch something, I’ll go that route. This is the future, after all – and cable television represents the fast-fading past. As I was preparing to move back out here to Los Angeles I was on the fence about whether to even own a television because out here there’s so much going on that you really don’t need one. And while it’s unfortunate that my decision was so unduly influenced by the incompetent and possibly fraudulent actions of an illegally abusive monopoly, I’d like to think that this is the decision I’d have ultimately made in the end anyway. And what’s that old saying about not being able to get what you think you want sometimes being the best thing that ever happened to you?