Downgrade

Today I made the first step towards turning off my cable. I bought a digital antenna. 


I find technology very intimidating. Correction, I find stores that find technology very intimidating. Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc. I always find that when I talk to the salespeople, I inevitably feel either stupid, or pressured to buy something that I don't need to buy. Do you feel that way too? 


I am thankful for one of my coworkers, who is really good with technology. On Friday, he showed me which antenna to buy, one for only $30. I knew that there would be much more expensive options, so I had the product number written down and with me when I headed in to the store. Ignoring all of the staff members, I ended up getting the RCA AC1400. I was in and out in 10 minutes. Wahoo! 


It's not your old fashioned tv antenna. It's basically a white flat box, that I was able to hang from the wall with a Command hook (you can barely see it!). I hooked it up to the tv right away when it got home, and the reception is decent. There are a few channels that come in better than others. Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC and the WB all come in great with the digital signal. PBS has been a little iffy. There are a few other random ones, like HSN, that have quite a bit of fuzz. Oh well, no shopping on tv for me. I haven't officially turned my cable off yet, but I plan to do it on Monday, now that I know I can still get all of the main channels. 


It's really strange to think about not having cable, when I've had it my whole life. I can't imagine how much time that I wasted during middle school and high school watching MTV. Now that I'm and adult and living by myself, I've gotten used to utilizing the tv for background noise, typically Food Network or Bravo unless there are some good movies on TBS or TNT over the weekends. When I think about it though, I don't really watch the cable channels all that often. Most of my main tv watching any more is usually online. And with all that is available on Netflix or Hulu, it just doesn't make sense to pay for something that I don't watch. 


So next week I am going to call to unbundle.