Living Without TV

So we have been living without a TV for about 4 months now. I would usually watch about 15 minutes in the morning before I left for work. I turned on the TV one morning, heard a loud pop, and saw smoke coming out of it while sound still played. WTF? I unplugged it immediately. That was the day our TV died.

So now I am trying to get by without a TV as I save up to either repair or replace the one we had. It was a Samsung 45” big screen TV, the first one we have ever had. We had some good times with it: birthday parties, Christmas parties, Oscar parties, Madonna parties and movie nights too.

I realized I couldn’t keep up with things like I had been with my DVR. Plus I would have to just let go of some shows. Also, some of the shows I watch are not available for free on the net, and I didn’t feel like trying to pay for them on Itunes. I did my best to follow American Idol, one of my favorite shows. I would usually watch the shows the next day or so. Empire I was able to watch all of it too.

Shows I haven’t been able to catch up with yet include: Grey’s Anatomy, Nashville, Scandal, The Amazing Race, and Modern Family. Missed the final episodes of The Fosters for this season, so don’t know what happened to Jude and Connor. Haven’t watched any of the The Real World: Skeletons online. I was a little iffy on this season anyway… maybe I am finally falling out of love with it. Disappointed I missed Mad Men’s last season and the latest season of Bates Motel and Orphan Black too.

Internet watching is a challenge too, streaming that skips, and having to watch all the commercials too. On the DVR, an hour show is 40 minutes. On the web, an hour show is an hour. I find myself losing interest sometimes, and then watching an hour show over a couple of days. All in all, a frustrating experience.

We are still getting discs from Netflix at home, and have hooked up a CD/DVD drive to the iMac. But it sucks to not have a big screen to watch shows on. Good thing that there are not a lot of award shows at this time of year… Sorry, Billboard Music Awards, you aren’t one of my must see award shows.

Haven’t done anything yet as far as finding a place to get the TV fixed. I just did a simple web search, and the first thing to come up was Best Buy Geek Squad. I remember as a kid we used to have someone come to our house to fix our TV… not sure I will find that these days. And is it even going to be worth it to fix? Who knows? Things aren’t made to last these days.

So when exactly am I going to replace the TV? I keep telling my lover, if I go crazy and you come home one day and see a TV, you know I couldn’t take it anymore. I do get sad about it sometimes. I want one by the fall TV season for sure. I know I can get through this. I know I will be fine.

KiltManinSoCal is a Los Angeles-based writer and designer. Be sure to check out the latest T-Shirts for sale here, including Marriage Equality and Real Men Wear Kilts lines. They make great gifts for friends, family and loved ones.