TV

I'm sitting here at the computer watching game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals on CBC Sports online. That's hockey for those not in the know. It's around this time every year where I get a bit of a hankering for TV. In fact it is kind of ironic that I now miss TV for the sake of hockey, because when I was a young kid I actually quit minor hockey at about the age of 7 because I was so addicted to TV that I did not want to miss my Saturday morning cartoons, and that is when hockey practice was. And I went through pretty much most of the rest of my life majorly addicted to the Tube - watching it for the sake of watching it.

Until we had our first kid. Actually it was a bit by accident how we decided to turn of the Tube for good. Most of you in North America at least will recall the massive east-coast blackout we had in 2003. Our youngest son was about 15 or 16 months old at the time, and we'd already been discussing the possibility of just cancelling our dish and getting rid of TV because we did not like the idea of our kids being exposed to all that advertising, not to mention the addiction. When we were forced to go a day or so without TV because of the blackout, we realised and were actually very surprised how easy it was to do. So without any 2nd thoughts we called and cancelled, and sold the dish. And have not looked back.