Toodles, Time Warner

Once a year, Fred and I go absolutely coo-coo bananas and get cable for about a month. This is because I love hockey, and when the Canucks are playing in the playoffs, I MUST watch. And this year, we had the nice little Stanley Cup followed by World Cup thing, so the cable hung out for almost TWO months! This actually was just the second year doing it, and it was pretty weird to have all those choices after 9 years of just watching local channels.

We decided back in 2001 that we needed to get serious about paying off our debt, so cable was the first luxury to go. Even once we became debt-free, we never turned it back on. And honestly? I can't say that I've missed it all that much.

When I turned on the "guide" option, I was amazed that we had over 900 channels. Except when you saw that a lot of them were either duplicate channels, HD versions of the SD channel, something called "On Demand" (still don't get, or care, what that is), and channels which played nothing but music (NOT MTV or VH1, on which you'd be hard-pressed to find music of any kind... weird).

And let's not forget the "dirty" channels. Screens of them, displaying names of shows that would make you blush just by reading them (special note: these were NOT included in our package, just in case you were wondering).

All told, we probably got around 200 channels. But after 2 months of flipping through the guide, it's true what The Boss says... "57 channels and nothing on".

Seriously, I don't care about Kathy Griffin's D-list life, or that what I wear is "What Not to Wear". I don't want to "Flip my House", or bust any myths, either. And I believe that The Real Housewives of (fill in the blank) are about as real as Heidi Montag's face (I am so amazed that I typed that sentence and know what it means).

So, with the end of the World Cup, came the end of the cable for another year. Although if I'm being honest, I am totally going through Law & Order marathon withdrawal.

Dun Dun!