What a Great Time to Unplug Your Television

With so many neighbors who have been complaining about the Alameda Power & Telecom transition to Comcast, I keep wondering why they don't just use this an excuse to just say no, and stop their cable service.

Today, one friend told me that he had just had enough with Comcast, after wasting an hour of his life on the phone trying to deal with them. He decided to just stop with the TV.

He gets my hearty applause and encouragement. It's hard to unplug yourself from the modern-day "opiate of the masses." I've been TV-free for several years now, and although it's hard to picture what it's like, it's like getting off of an addiction to a chemical substance. Painful at first, but then you feel clean and free of a demon.

With the Digital TV transition happening later this month (or not), a move sure to absolutely confuse and confound many TV watchers out there who haven't yet gone shopping for a cryptic converter box or, they hope, a brand-new flat-screen HDTV, I keep thinking that this is another opportunity for some people to kick the TV habit.

If you have been having troubles with the Comcast Transition, or if you haven't bought all the equipment for the big changeover, why not just use this as an excuse to just stop watching TV? Unplug yourself. Sure, let yourself still watch movies from time to time. The only drawback of dropping your cable TV is that you'll have to get your Internet another way (like DSL, which is an OK choice but has its drawbacks).

You will suddenly have an extra few hours per day. What to do with all that extra time from not having a TV consuming you every night? I suggest reading a book, taking a class, getting a board game from the new D20 game store on Santa Clara, or attending a City Council meeting.

Television: The more you watch, the less you know.