Reducing our consumer footprint

This morning Mike and I cancelled cable TV.  Yes, we cancelled TV.  It has been something we've been thinking about, but not too seriously, for the past year.  Our main motivation has been to cut our monthly expenses, but what made our decision not so difficult has been the endless parade of Snooki and other such meaningless characters taking over reality programs.  Reality TV went from an interesting quirky idea to complete madness!  I used to like TLC for example.  I found it on some level educational and entertaining.  I started to wonder, recently, however, why I was paying to watch people have 19 kids, and overweight mental cases hoarding garbage in their homes.  "Bipolar and Pregnant?"  Really??  Looking back, most nights of TV watching involved pressing the channel changer button on the remote every 30-60 seconds to see if there was something more enlightening or entertaining to watch.

Believe me, the thought has crossed my mind that having a 52 inch HD flat screen hanging on our living room wall and no TV service might be moronic.  But as a fellow passenger on a bus last weekend pointed out, I got that big pixel rich screen for the movies and to watch blue ray, not to watch the big heads of pundits speculating the future.  I do feel better when I think of that. 

I do wonder if I will miss cable news, but then I question how twenty four hour TV news coverage is adding to my life.  It might acutally be making me hysterical.  The constant bombardment of unpleasant images, soundbites, and sensationalism is unhealthy.  I look back at the BP oil spill for example.  News coverage was constant, although nothing "news worthy" was happening on a minute to minute or even day to day basis!  The same stories were covered over and over again with that real time image in the corner of the screen of the well spewing its oil.  I can become more informed by chosing what I want to read, when I want to read it.  In otherwords I can be just as informed if not more without cable news. 

Of course there are a few shows I enjoyed. I lived vicariously through the contestants on "Dancing with the Stars", enjoyed some Wendesday night sitcoms, and looked foward to "What not to wear" during my lunch break.  The point is, I can survive without these things.  Afterall, "What not to wear" episodes are really all the same.  A guest somewhere on the fat specturm with low self-esteem gets a make-over and feels like a new person ready to take on the world.  Instead of watching "Dancing with the Stars", maybe I could get off the couch and take some ballroom dance classes, and those Wednesday night sitcoms, well, I can live without them.

By the way, I have not watched TV in 1 week, and I am doing fine.