New York TV broadcasts originally came from the Empire State Building, but since it got attacked by a giant gorilla, the antennas were looking to move. When the World Trade Center got built, it was a gorilla-free havens for broadcasts. Every network's signal got moved to the antennae constructed on the WTC roofs. (Then that giant gorilla attacked there, too. They need to stop making antennas out of bananas.)
My apartment in Jersey City had a great view of the World Trade Center, provided I walked three blocks to where I could see them. Jersey City's right across from lower Manhattan, so I was only a mile or two from the signals. TV came in loud and clear on my set, except for Fox, which was sketchy and hard to follow - the signal, not the quality of the programming. There are a few X-Files episodes I've "seen" that my only knowledge of involves hearing something slimy crawling, three gunshots, and then Mulder talking about unchecked corners of evolution.
I still watched much more TV than my Recommended Daily Allowance (3 hours, or zero hours, depending on who you ask). I had CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, UPN, WB, and PBS to watch, so that was seven chances at entertainment at any given time. It was a dozen once you add in PAX and the Spanish channels and the shopping networks, but even a TV junkie like me has his limits. Billy Ray Cyrus pretending to be a doctor does not make my cut.
With my meager channel selection, I was regularly catching Buffy, Angel, Voyager, the West Wing, Seven Days, Survivor, Friends, ER, Conan, Futurama, the Simpsons, King of the Hill, Malcolm in the Middle, X-Files, and the Practice. And these are just the shows I remember watching. There's a lot of stumbling on a Stargate episode Sunday afternoon and saying "Why not?" I was definitely making do with what I had.
(One of the reasons why I watch so much TV is I'm a completionist. Once I find a show I like, I want to see every one of them. What little bit of a life I had in the 90s can only be credited to me never watching a single Babylon 5 episode. I'm intentionally staying away from CSI, Law & Order, and their metastasizing spinoffs. I'm sure they're good shows, and so long as I don't know what I'm missing, I'm OK never watching them. I don't want my tombstone to read SEAN RYAN: WATCHED A LOT OF CSI.)
Life without cable was not unpleasant - usually. When I used to take the PATH trains to work, though, I'd see advertisements for cable-only programs on TNT or HBO. These were cruel teases, especially that frozen mammoth being chiseled out of Siberian tundra ad. Despite me able to go to my dad's fridge to see meat frozen since the Stone Age any time I wanted, I really wanted to see that mammoth.
When I visited my brother, I'd watch MTV and Comedy Central and HBO from his cable until my eyes couldn't focus. Once I turned 23, it became just Comedy Central and HBO. (MTV putrefied to utter crap the moment I turned 23, which is part of its programming genius.)
Then September 11th happened. No need for details; but suffice to say, the antennas were destroyed, along with over 3,000 people. I think I'm one of the few people whose memories of that day don't involve watching a lot of TV. (Those are my memories for just about every other day, though.)
Getting the TV back on the air was about 47th on the list at Ground Zero, and I can't argue with those priorities. 46th was to halt reruns of that Simpsons episode where Homer's car is parked in between the Twin Towers.
I had nothing but a fuzzy CBS to watch, which had a backup transmitter on the Empire State Building. In between news reports, I was forced to watch Big Brother, a show that's literally about people sitting around bored out of their minds because there's no TV. I saw the King of Queens and the Amazing Race, neither of which was on my viewing schedule, but both of which turned out to be pretty good. God help me, I had two more shows to watch now. And I was being deprived of everything else!
The new TV season was starting up. A new Star Trek spinoff was starting up. All the cliffhangers from the previous season were being resolved. Buffy was coming back from the dead, and I couldn't see any of it! If I didn't see all my shows and go back to my pre 9/11 viewing habits ... then the terrorists would win.
I drove to my Dad's place to watch a West Wing. I went to my brother's to see the Simpsons. I took the Light Rail to friggin' Bayonne to get to a TV set showing Buffy. These were just stopgaps. I finally had my excuse to get cable. Hell, I had a legitimate reason to do so.
Now I had to choose a cable network - just kidding. I had no choice. It was Comcast or nothing. I hate monopolies.
I called Comcast, and had them send a cable guy over one weekday the next week. I was expecting a ridiculous degree of runaround with the cable guy. The cable guy's reliability is of that legendary status as of the DMV's speediness and the high school guidance counselor's usefulness. As much as I wanted a quick, eventless hookup, I wanted my cable guy to utterly screw me over. Boy howdy, did he.
A friend of mine - when he was getting basic cable installed a few years ago on a Friday afternoon - offered a beer to the cable guy, who accepted it. They sat back after the connection, drank a little bit, maybe watched a few minutes of Sportscenter, and then the cable guy left. My friend then took out the descrambler box he had hidden. He was going to install it and get all the pay channels for free, when he realized he didn't need to. He already had every channel. The cable guy hooked him up for free, just for sharing a beer.
Not coincidentally, I stashed a six pack of Sam Adams in the fridge, and requested no pay channels. HBO alone was an extra $21a month, and I might be able to get around it. Bribing the cable guy was immoral, but cracking the cable guy favor system was another thing. He was scheduled to come between 8 and 1. I was hoping to have it be on the later side, so it'd be more socially acceptable to accept the beer. I don't drink, so hell, he could have the whole six.
8:00 came and went, and soon afterward followed 1:00. I was hoping to spend the afternoon pigging out on cable, but the cable guy was taking his time, and my time. Well, the beer scenario had a better chance of working now. I called Comcast, and the dispatch woman said he'd be there soon. 3:00 came and went. I called again, and the dispatch woman said did I need him to come back? I said he was never here. The dispatch woman said she recorded that he stopped by already.
That dirty rotten liar. I was stuck in an apartment with no TV all day, and he played hooky. I was going to get my revenge. I was going to - take another day off of work to wait for him. Monopolies suck.
As it happened, there was a busy patch at work, so I couldn't make it that day. I called the day before to cancel. I'd like to have the guy knock on an empty house, but maybe I probably wouldn't be screwing over the exact guy who screwed me over. I called the day of to confirm it, and the dispatch woman didn't have a record of it. I told her again. I came back from work that day, and there was a note on my door, from a cable guy. How stupid was this? I want him to come, he doesn't. I tell him twice not to come and he does? Was every day Opposite Day at Comcast?
The third time he actually came. He showed up at 10:00 A.M., very professional, and politely declined my subtle offer of a beer. He brought his jumbo toolbox into my apartment, drilled a small hole in my apartment wall, strung a cable down around the edge of the room, and fed it into the jumbo toolbox. Wait, that was the cable box.
The box was over a foot wide, six inches long and two inches thick. I could hear my TV groaning under its weight. There were about 25 buttons on it, all in a corner. Most of the huge box was smooth plastic you could play an air hockey game on. The cable box my family had fifteen years ago was half this size. You can fit 4000 songs onto an iPod the size of a deck of cards, but Comcast gave me WOPR.
I took a cursory flip through my channels. I immediately found - and stuck on - one of the worst films ever made, Escape to Athena. An all-"star" 70s cast (Elliot Gould, Richard Roundtree, Telly Savales, and Sonny Bono) were running around a Mediterranean island trying to kill each other, steal gold, be each other's friend, and get the girl - all at the same time. What network was I on, the Crap Movie Channel? (Since renamed AMC, which shows Smoky and the Bandit II and Halloween III at least once a week each.)
Ten minutes went by, and no commercial break came. Seriously, what network was I on? Most networks had the bugs in the lower right hand corner to tell me what network I was watching. There weren't a lot of questions about which network had the 30-year-old Tic-Tac-Dough reruns, but if you stumbled across a gloriously bad movie, you'd like to know what channel was serving it. Twenty minutes, and no break. Half an hour, forty minutes, an hour without a commercial. Someone managed to kill Telly Salaves, so the movie was finally over. The HBO guy began talking over the credits.
I had HBO. And Showtime. And The Movie Channel, and Cinemax. Oh happy day! Every movie channel was free! I didn't have any of the porn channels, but Cinemax covered that base.
For that first weekend I stuffed myself with all of them. I regretfully had to leave the house for part of the weekend, but I'd be fixing that in the future. I was happily planning a life where all I'd do is watch clear broadcasts of recent movies.
Around this time it was announced that all the networks would start transmitting from the Empire State Building. I shrugged. I struck jackpot with cable, so who cared about the circumstances why I got it?
On Monday the pay channels went away. I shrugged again, but with malice aforethought. Must have been a preview they do for new subscribers. I still had glorious reception of 80 channels, and I'd find something to watch.
The first thing I did was to waste several months of my life with trying to see every Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. FX showed two episodes in a row five days a week, so it only took a few months of my life. Later, I tried to catch every West Wing episode when Bravo showed them. Another few months happily down the crapper. Then all the Band of Brothers episodes when the History Channel reran them.
I squeezed every last movie I could out of Turner Classic Movies. It was the only channel that gave me unedited movies with no commercials. Most of the movies were from 1933, before cursing and sex were invented, but I took what was offered. I even ventured into AMC territory. I hadn't seen Smokey and the Bandit II before, give me a break.
Most of my non-movie viewing was on channel 70, Comedy Central. The Daily Show became my news outlet of choice. I caught up on most of the South Park episodes I missed since college. I was there with Chappelle's Show from the very beginning.
At 9:25 every night, my giant cable box would switch over to channel 2. I'd turn on the TV after a rare night of not watching it, and it's be on 2. I'd be watching a TV show on another channel, and the cable box would switch to 2 (usually during a good part). I actually used this to my advantage when I was away once, programming my VCR to tape Buffy Tuesday night, and after the cable box hiccup, tape Survivor on channel 2 on Thursday. But most of the time it was a pain.
After a few weeks of cable, Comcast raised their rates, from $39.52 a month to $40.63. Just a buck. OK.
For the better part of a year the broadcast channels came in horribly. I called Comcast, which said it was not a problem with the individual cable box, it was being dealt with, they would not send someone to my house to deal with it, and then they hung up.
Then they raised the rate again, to $41.49. Then again, to $44.03.
I spent another full day at home for a new cable guy to come and investigate my hiccuping box. He barely looked at the box: just unscrewed it and stuck a new box in. The random switching stopped. This new box didn't even have the number pad. It was still the size of the Rosetta Stone, only it had a paltry three buttons on it.
Unrelatedly, Comcast rose rates again, to $47.79. This was a big increase for one year, and it was coming with a huge amount of crummy service. Next I was expecting was a three dollar charge to sneeze on the bills before they were mailed out.
About the second or third of these rate hikes, I began muttering how I was going to quit cable. I thoroughly enjoyed my Daily Shows and South Parks, but I loved fifty dollar bills, too, and that was rapidly what it was costing me per month.
I called Comcast after getting one of these inflated bills and said I wanted to quit. I picked the end of my billing cycle, and said I wanted that day to have the cable guy unplug me. She said that couldn't be done. They only recorded reservations a few days in advance, and that was two or three weeks in advance. I'd have to keep on paying, and thank you for choosing Comcast.
"I didn't choose Comcast, you've got a monopoly. Boy, you guys really are retarded," I said. First time I called anyone retarded since third grade.
"I am not retarded, sir."
"No, not you, your company."
It took me until this past October to finally cancel. My life got progressively more busy, to the point where I didn't have the time to watch the seven hours of TV I used to love so. I finally cleared a Friday from work to take off.
I watched my last day of cable, thinking "Maybe this WON'T be my last day of cable." Every cable box receives all the movie channels and pay per views. The box just filters out the stuff you don't pay for. When I gave back the box, I'd still have the cable right next to my TV. I could try my luck sticking it right in the TV and seeing what channels it piped in without the box. At the worst I'd have a great antennae to get my Empire State Building broadcasts from.
My appointment was for the Comcast guy to stop by 'at some point during the day'. I assumed that by "day" Comcast meant 9-5. Or 9-6. Nope: the day at Comcast goes until midnight. I waited by the door all business day like a good little boy, and nobody came a' knockin'. I had a party to go to at 8:00 P.M. that night, and it was 45 minutes away. 6:00 came. No cable guy. 7:00. 7:15. Nothing. I gave him ten more minutes. Nothing. Five more minutes. Zip. I cut bait at 7:45 and left. I was a sucker for thinking he'd make any appearance after 4:59.
I came back from the party, and I didn't have cable any more. That bastard cable guy cut my line from the outside, in the middle of the night. My gravestone cable box was a eunuch. I'd have to drop off the box another day. No more antennae, and no shot at free everything.
So what did I watch on my final day? Utter crap. Maybe one Powerpuff Girls episode, but for the most part, I couldn't find anything. Five minutes of bass fishing, five minutes of a game show, five minutes of CNN, five minutes of VH1. Two in the afternoon is a dead zone no matter how many channels you have.
I'm back to rabbit ears now. I'm fifty bucks a month richer, but Fox is back to being fuzzy. There aren't any more X-Files to watch: I have to make do just with the paltry amount of programming I can find on the networks. King of the Hill, the Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, 24, Smallville, Lost, Alias, the West Wing, Survivor and ER. Plus Stargate now and then. If I don't watch all these ... then the terrorists win.