Tuning Out

I haven't had cable TV in nearly two years, and to be fair, when I lived with my cousin before getting married, it wasn't cable TV that was pumped into the living room, it was satellite TV. But who's counting, right? Anyway, we don't have cable and barely even have rabbit ears. What we do have, though, is a subscription to Netflix, which is how we have watched all seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and The West Wing. We are halfway through 24 as well.

Not that we are some kind of TV junkies...far from it. But over the span of several years, watching an episode of something or other every now and then, well, it tends to just sort of add up.

Anyway, the other day I was talking with some guys at my work, and they were saying that in the recent storms their HDTV signals went out. "Yeah, my cousin's satellite did that a few times during storms," I said.

"But I don't have satellite," one of them responded, slightly puzzled.

"Yeah, but all I have is one of those shifty antennas that sits on top of our entertainment center," I responded, trying to figure out where the communication breakdown was occurring.

"Yeah, but you can get HD broadcasts over the airwaves," another guy said to me, as the rest were smiling. "That's all I have, and I get lots of HD channels."

I'm out of it for a little while, and everyone gets delusions of grandeur, not to mention HD signals from right out of thin air. Turns out the HDTV revolution is passing me by while I'm busy fiddling away with my Nintendo Wii and, you know, not having an HDTV. It's humbling moments like this when I realize that no matter how I try to stay current on tech stuff like this, there still is a whole lot that I just don't know. And I'm OK with that. It's nice to be brought back to reality every now and then.

Not that our Netflix subscription is in danger anytime soon...