Thursday, May 3, 2018

why I don't watch television, part 3




When I was a kid, life was pretty simple when it came to watching television. There were only 3 channels to choose from, our black and white television had to be turned on manually, and we had rabbit ears attached to the back of the set for better reception.

Naturally, life has gotten a lot more complicated than that, and I have published a couple of articles in the past that discuss that journey into a land that would absolutely befuddle our parents.




When we lived in Flagstaff, our television came courtesy of DIRECTTV, which came bundled with our CenturyLink internet service. When we moved to Tucson, the shows that Sharon liked to watch were not available in the Tucson area on DIRECTTV, so we switched to Comcast.

That changed last weekend.

When was on the phone with CenturyLink about a week ago with a question about our bill, the rep that I was talking to mentioned that specials that they were running on DIRECTTV. After consultation with the TV expert in our household, we made the switch, and the rep came to our house last Saturday to complete the installation.

If you went to the DIRECTTV website, you’ll note that there are 5 separate packages available, ranging from the Select package, which costs $35 a month and provides at least 155 channels, up to the Premier package, which costs $110 a month and provides a mind boggling 330 channels.

Now that I have lived for 70 years, I have learned that life is a lot simpler if you just learn how to adjust to changes, rather than trying to fight them.

After a lot of turmoil trying to get Windows 10 to work on my home computer, I gave up and ELIMINATED my home computer entirely, except for the old laptop Brian gave to us for my spreadsheet work. If I need to use a computer, the local library is only 3 miles away, and I also frequently have access to a computer at all of the local high schools where I work. My cell phone also satisfies most of my computer needs, but the size of the screen makes it difficult to type just about anything without producing a lot of typos.

The new car that I bought a year ago has the latest technology package, which gives me hands free dialing for my phone, as well as a USB port, which allows me to plug in my Galaxy S6 so that I can have navigation, YouTube and Pandora.
TSharon quickly figured out how to program all of her favorite channels on DIRECTTV, but her favorite feature is the one that allows her to record programs and watch them later WITHOUG HAVING TO WATCH ALL THE COMMERCiALS.



  

I’m still not going to watch a lot of television, but at least I’ve overcome my terror of trying to make it all work.








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