I’ve been without a television for the better part of a month now. I can’t remember how long exactly as the first few days were a blur. It got water logged (don’t ask) and I decided not to spend money fixing it or buying a new one as there are plans afoot that would prevent me from realizing a return on my investment.

Being without television, which has been a steady companion my entire life, has been difficult to say the least. It has however forced me to seek out other methods of entertainment and expand my thus far limited horizon in terms media consumption.

Top of the list is of course Internet media. I’m a long time YouTuber (and a fan of many non-social streaming services before it) and have always been pleased with what it provides. A reactive source of moving pictures. Reactive in the sense that I have to tell it what i want, unlike a television that pushes content at me in a more proactive way. Sure I can view what others are viewing, see related media and some services will even give recommendations based on what I’ve watched in the past, all great stuff, but it’s not what I’ve gotten used to from years spent in front of the idiot box.

I’m not inclined to say that one paradigm is superior to the other, I will simply say that I’ve grown accustomed to one thing and while I can appreciate this new way of doing things,  it hasn’t managed to completely sway me into changing the way I expect to get my media.

Online media providers have failed to appease this crucial aspect of television watching habits. Sometimes people just want to get lost in what’s coming at them. Empowering me to control all aspects of what I absorb doesn’t really help me when I’m just in the frame of mind to watch whatever is on. In the same breath, people are varied in what they may choose to watch. My recommendations can’t be based solely on what I’ve watched and/or what my peers are watching. In the old way of doing things many times discoveries are stumbled upon from simple channel surfing, not complex algorithms. People need to have a choice and media companies need to not assume that new automatically equates to improved. At times it may simply be different.

P.S.

Television studios need to completely embrace the Internet as an avenue to distribute their content. I wanted to watch the Grammys tonight but there were no live streaming sources to be found. The technology is there and so are successful revenue models, so what’s the holdup?

Driving without it gets you a day in court, falling ill without it puts you at the mercy of bottom tier health care and dying without it means you get buried in a cardboard box.

All those reasons make it seem like having it is a swell idea, and to a tiny few it is. For the rest of us however, it’s the biggest scam you’ll ever fall prey to, and the whole thing is government backed.

Who else can legally take your money with the promise to pay you back when shit hits the fan, only to load you with half cocked lines about not being able to pay up when said fecal matter goes skyward? They remind me of a damn coke fiend. The only difference being one of the two can get busted to pound-me-in-the-ass prison. While being a coke fiend isn’t itself illegal, there are quite a few illegal steps involved in getting there. The insurance company, on the other hand, probably gets a tax break.

If they have your money why can’t they just hand it over when you say so? It’s bad enough that you can’t go back to them unless you’re laid up in a hospital or had your car written off (or both if you have bad karma), but when you do it’s as if they have a random excuse generator for not paying you that doubles as material for their lunch time comedy hour. The alignment of the planets during the last epoch has no bearing on you paying out, for Christ’s sake.

I’m griping because I had a situation recently play out, and I’m sure you can guess that I wasn’t pleased with the outcome. All I can do about it at this point is take my business elsewhere. That’s it. Not one refund or credit note in sight.

I’ve always been a well insured guy and with my particular flavour of luck will probably always be, but damn it if I haven’t had it up to here (hand below chin) with these damn, dirty apes…I mean insurance companies.

This is the obligatory fist post with the sole purpose of familiarizing you with the musings to follow.

Describing this blog will really come down to your point of view. In my mind this is just an avenue to complain about the daily doses of idiocy that I’m faced with, some being my own, while to others it may be a fountain of truth from which flows the meaning of life with a slightly PG-13 edge.

No matter what brought you here and what you may think…stay for the booze. There will be plenty.