Notes From the Movie Room September 27, 2025

 

🎬 Three very interesting things happened in my life recently. First, I received a box from Comcast/Xfinity, my longtime cable TV provider, filled with shiny new equipment which is meant to replace the old equipment scheduled to become obsolete on October 31. Secondly, I decided on the spur of the moment to buy a new 43" TV at my local Wal-Mart. That was yesterday. And thirdly, as of today, I am seriously considering abandoning cable altogether and just using television to indulge my addiction to movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Now, I must be honest and say this isn't just an intellectual decision reflecting some kind of sudden spiritual insight. It also has to do with my aversion to technology and the chaos that it inevitably brings to one's life. Without going into boring details, hooking up and setting up machinery just isn't my favorite way to spend an afternoon. Especially when all the effort ends up with nothing working. Questions like: "What the f**k do I need this for?" start coming to mind.

This is how my peaceful living room looked until a few days ago when I decided I had to turn it into something resembling an episode of Hoarders.

Having come into this world in 1951, I was part of the first generation of television addicts. It was a normal, enjoyable part of daily life, one that we all took for granted. I loved that TV culture of the 1950s and 60s. In our house, it was all in Black & White, at least until 1968 when my father decided to take that big leap into color. By that time, I was seventeen, and my TV addiction was about to undergo radical therapy. When I entered into the working world, I had to work nights, meaning those relaxing evenings staring at the tube had mostly come to an end. As my working years went on, I preferred that night shift way of life for a lot of reasons, so I was no longer able to mainline that prime-time video drug like I did while growing up. The spell was broken. During part of the 1970s, I didn't even have a TV and managed quite well without it. Then came the home video era of the 1980s, and I was back in the groove, at least somewhat. I had one of those cable package deals with way-too-many channels for a while, and I did my share of recording on VHS, mostly movies and baseball games. But for the last thirty years, I've been surviving with basic cable, which I felt was necessary in order to be connected to the community. Still no prime time programs, however. Now that I'm retired and finally get to be home in the evening, I never even think about watching what's playing on TV. I usually watch one or two movies from my collection, but sometimes I just listen to music or sit quietly and read. My second-floor movie room has been a marvelous retreat all these years, but lately I've been thinking about replacing my sturdy old Sony Trinitron in the living room with a modern flatscreen and maybe having a place to watch movies with friends. Hence, all the ensuing chaos. Be careful what you wish for. And stay the hell away from Wal-Mart.

So, perhaps it's time to finally cut that cord and save the money I've been giving to Comcast all of these years for very little use. I can use that extra cash to buy more Blu-rays! Local news is available online and in our city newspaper. Yes, that's right. We still have a daily newspaper where I live. It's not doing very well these days, but at least it's hanging on. 

In the meantime, I may be packing up all of my Comcast boxes and returning them to our local store. We'll see how it goes. New insights could occur at any moment.