About
It Started Out As An Experiment
On July 1, 2008 I started an experiment to see if the internet is ready to replace television as our national pastime. (What? You thought our national pastime was baseball? How 19th century of you!)
We gave up cable, satellite, and even over-the-air TV and went only with what I could find online.
This is the promise I made:
For 52 weeks I will not own a television set, or television tuner. I will not go to a friend’s house and watch their TV. Streaming, Downloads, and DVD-by-Mail will all be put to the test.
I sound like Gandhi going on a hunger strike to free India. My ego knows no bounds.
Why is this such a big deal? Lots of people live without televisions. They even have bumper stickers bragging about it.
Yeah. I’m not that guy. I am a TV Junkie. Every year I eagerly await the new Fall Schedule. I wax nostalgic over ABC’s TGIF and NBC’s Must-See-TV campaigns. I hum TV Themes, I own Box Sets, and I will watch Season 1 of anything. When I was a child, they called me The Walking TV Guide.
I grew up to marry a TV Junkie. She devours box sets even faster than I can and was the chief manager of the TiVo season pass list.
The fear we both experienced when we cut the cable was short-lived. We flew past the six month mark with barely a mention between us. It’s been 18 months and there is no looking back.
I decided to learn by jumping in the deep end. This is where I write about what I’ve learned and how I see the landscape changing.
In February 2010 I will be writing about all my new gear and my new TV watching habits. I would have written about it sooner, but sometimes life happens while you’re busy making other plans.
Poke around, leave a comment. E-mail me at neuroticnomad@gmail.com, or give me a tweet on Twitter.
If you really want to be original, check out my near dead LivingSocial Profile and my sorely-underused Netflix Friends thingee.
Hi,
Since you were kind enough to note Fancast in a previous post about The Colbert Report being on Fancast, we wanted you to be among the very first to know that a new and improved Fancast is launching (later today) – and it’s one we think you and your readers will really enjoy.
[snip]
We are listening to you.
Thanks,
Robin (for Fancast)
http://www.fancast.com
Well, if you liked that link… wait until it gets cold outside.
After the summer re-run season ends and TV kicks back in high gear expect to see dozens of links to your site from here.
While I may have a lot of critical things to say about your corporate parent (Comcast), I think endeavors like Fancast.com are a major step in the right direction. The road to internet-based “television” is going to be an interesting one.
I’ll be keeping an eye on your site.
Heh. Guess I was wrong about that ton of linkage. By the time the cold weather came along, BiTTorrent was my BiTTch and Hulu was my dream of going legit.
How can I hook up my laptop to my television?
The short answer is: Well, it depends on your laptop and your television. A more helpful answer is in the video here: http://replacetelevision.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/time-warner-cable-says-to-replace-cable-with-the-internet/
Where are “Get The Most From Cutting Cable with Online TV Parts 2-5?”
Will you, might you be delving into any other software (as in freeware/open-source) discussions on HTPC like:
XBMC http://xbmc.org/download/
GeexBox http://www.geexbox.org/
Mythbuntu http://www.mythbuntu.org/wiki/introduction
The landscape changed too fast and they were outdated before published – then a personal tragedy put this site on hiatus.
Time to get started re-writing them. Sorry about the long wait.