Quitting Cable: Day 31

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts, Quitting Cable

Still not missing cable, and it has become the new normal.  So much so, in fact, that I had to force myself to write this update.  It’s so not a big deal.

The cable company sent us a full bill this month dated Feb 15, so I called them to ensure that they had our cutoff order in the system.  The call center rep confirmed our cutoff date as Feb. 2nd, and said that their ‘system’ has not yet ‘finalized’ the cutoff.  She tried to shorten the time and bring the ‘finalization date’ closer, but her computer would only extend the date, not shorten it.  She told us to not pay this new bill (since we had paid more than the prorated amount already), and she confirmed again that we would receive a refund check for the overage.

So, we continue to watch TV as a family in the evening.  The Olympics currently dominate NBC, with hours and hours of snow sports on the local affiliate.  The kids like watching ‘the pretty girls’ skating with those ‘handsome boys.’  The NBC network aired the Olympic Curling competitions on CNBC, so we did not get to see it.  We will survive somehow.

NBC has our attention after the Olympics, too, with “Parenthood” and “The Marriage Ref” coming up, along with my own personal addiction “30 Rock.”  Fox has “House", and ABC has “Better Off Ted” (if they have enough insight to renew it for another season).  My wife is finding her “Hoarders” fix online, and the kids are watching the heck out of PBS Kids and Harry Potter movies.

Our RedBox rentals continue to outpace Netflix (which has not seen fit to send us more than a couple of new releases since November).  The kids are watching quite a bit of Netflix Streaming, and I wonder when Netflix will start capping the bandwidth.

I’ll try to remember to check in every once in a while.  Feel free to share your “quitting cable” stories/links in the comments.