Digital Converter Deadline

Last night at midnight was the originally deadline for getting a converter box, buying a new TV or hooking up to cable or satellite.  We didn't do any of the above.  The network channels chose to wait until sometime in June to convert to digital, but the "off-brand" channels went ahead with the switch.

Instead of subscribing to cable or satellite service, we decided to get an account with Netflix, and instead of buying the converter box, we decided to apply the money towards a Roku.  If you haven't heard of Roku, it's a device where you can see the "watch instantly" choices from Netflix on your TV set.  As long as you have a Netflix account and DSL, you can watch all you want for no additional charge.  We got it as a gift for each other for Valentine's Day.  Real romantic, huh?  So far it's been a great gadget though.  I figure that having to get on the computer, adding selections to our queue, hooking up the Roku, and waiting for the selection to download will cut down on our mindless TV watching.  I used to cut down on TV watching by sticking our old TV in the closet during warm weather, but now we have this big, old fashioned console TV that weighs a ton.  It would be a bit difficult to stuff in the closet!  I'd love to throw the TV out entirely, but I think my family would disown me if I did.

Anyway ... we used to have seven channels and are now down to four.  We now have ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS.  We don't watch much TV, but this will definitely whittle down our options. Today I realized that I will lose my long-term addiction of Jeopardy!  I have watched that show my entire life.  I remember playing on the rug in our first house in Nashville and watching Jeopardy! with my mom while she ironed.  Back then Art Fleming was the host and the game board was much less high tech.  

I can't watch House or American Idol anymore, and Ben loses Andy Griffith.  House isn't a great loss because I had to quit watching it when it moved to Mondays.  Now it interferes with my yoga class.  I could have started watching it on ABC.com but I didn't bother.  I'd gradually been losing interest in the show anyway.  I've only seen American Idol twice this season, so that's definitely not a major obsession.  I'm going to have to find Andy Griffith for Ben online though. That's the only show he watches consistently.  He's really up to current times, isn't he?

I still have Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice for now.  I enjoy them because Ben doesn't get home from work until after 9:30 on Thursday nights, and so I take two hours of "me" time.  I just find a kids' movie on the Roku for the little guys, then hang out in the sitting room for a little TV, a little wine ... aaahhh.

The only other network show we watch is Brothers and Sisters, but we watch it online since we got hooked on the show a couple of seasons in.  By the time we catch up, we'll probably have lost our last four channels, so we might as well stick to watching it on my handy dandy MacBook.

Ironically we got a call from the Nielsen people yesterday saying we'd been chosen to be a Nielsen family.  I told them we would be losing our reception that evening and they convinced me that all the channels were waiting to switch over.  I said I'd do it.  They then asked how many TV's we had. Stupidly I told them we had three, but I explained that only one had TV reception. One is only hooked up to the Wii and DVD player and the other is only hooked up to the computer.  Now they are going to send us *three* diaries to fill out!  I tried and tried to tell them we only needed one, but I might as well have been talking to a blank wall!