Ditching Cable: Part 1

It been about 3 weeks since I officially got ride of cable television and became part of the growing trend toward online entertainment. I'm not going to bore you with the reasons why and how because there have been plenty of better article written on the subject by much better writers. However I did want to give you an honest glimpse into what life has been like since I cut the cord.

 What I've learned so far:

Netflix is donkey shit.
Netflix has blazed the trail in the internet television conversion with their growing catalog of streaming content. The key word there is growing... as in not matured and full yet. I've had Netflix in the past and my subscription always ends the same way. After a couple weeks I've watched everything I wanted to watch and feel no need to continue paying $8 a month. It's been several years since the last time I was a member and I assumed they had beefed up their streaming content especially since that is the clear path of the future. Does anyone actually still get DVDs in the mail from them? I searched for older television sitcoms figuring that would be an obvious successful hit. I looked for The Golden Girls: No. Designing Women: No. Murphy Brown: No. Absolutely Fabulous: No. After watching almost every episode of 30 Rock and Arrested Development and discovering that not even Will & Grace was available for streaming I gave up. I haven't logged onto Netfllix since week one. If Hulu or some other company would get their act together, Netflix is the easiest competitor to beat.

GO HBO GO!
Thanks to a shared password, I've been able to log onto HBO GO and watch their streaming content. This has been a much better option for replacing daily television watching. First I watched the final two episodes of J'aime before diving face first into Girls. I won't go into too much about my feelings toward Lena Dunham and Girls because it's worthy of it's own post but I can say that it has kept me entertained. I'm in the middle of season two and once I'm totally caught up I'll start on Game of Thrones. My advice to HBO, start letting people sign up for HBO GO independently of their cable subscription because I'd have no problem paying $10 a month.

Wendy Williams saved the day.
The Wendy Williams Show is probably my number one favorite show. It was one of the ones I was most worried about missing until I discovered there are episodes on Youtube. She is one of a growing number of shows that are voluntarily putting full episodes online. Rupaul's Drag Race also provides full episodes on Logotv.com. Both ladies have made the transition much easier. Now if Bravo and E! would get moving and put full episodes of Fashion Queens and Fashion Police online my life would be complete.

I miss commercial breaks.
This was the biggest surprise. Watching commercial free streaming content all day is nice but it also makes me feel like I'm cut off from society in a weird way. Not seeing what new movies are coming out or what the lead news stories are is a small detail I still miss. I laugh to myself thinking that the country could be getting bombed and I wouldn't know because I was too busy watching Lena Dunham in another ugly jumper. Obviously it's not an insurmountable problem but an it's an adjustment all the same.

As you probably noticed, I titled this post Part 1 because I realized I am still very early into a much longer process. (The earliest I will get cable back is probably October 2014) I still consider this my cable detox period complete with withdrawal symptoms. I am going to try and provide on going updates as the months go by and my outlook shifts.