Life Without Television - is it Possible?

As a Survivor of a television-less household, I am here to say that yes, it is possible to live, breathe, and go about your normal daily functions without watching television! In fact, for the last three months since my husband and I have stopped watching television, we have not suffered the severe withdrawal symptoms we thought we would for making such a drastic change. In fact, we both wholeheartedly agree that our quality of life and overall satisfaction has increased in volumes.

We didn't mean to function without television. It just kind of happened. It was a step-down process that had begun earlier in the year when my husband disconnected the TiVo in favor of using Windows Media Center instead. Turns out, the Windows operating system comes with its very own built-in digital recording device via Windows Media Center. It performs all the functions as a TiVo, but without the monthly subscription cost. Voila! Here we thought we were being fiscally smart! Now, the Windows Media Center is not without its flaws, as we discovered over the months. It had its problems, and by the time we went on vacation three months ago, we were thoroughly sick of dealing with its problems. Its biggest problem is that it is a Microsoft product (anyone who works in corporate knows exactly what I mean by this).

Instead of turning the TiVo service back on or fighting with Windows Media Center when we returned from vacation, we decided that now would be an ideal time to catch up on television series that we'd missed. We began buying series by the season, and it became a ritual after dinner to watch the next episode of whatever series we happened to be watching at the time. It was wonderful, because we got to watch our shows uninterrupted by commercials, and we got to watch them on our own timetable.