 January 5, 2001 In my estimation, we were all pretty smug as we watched our free movie channels the past couple of months while Time Warner went about shifting things around with the cable services they offer in Carrboro. Nobody I know rushed to the phone to report that they were receiving channels they weren't paying for and didn't subscribe to. We should've known they were about to put the screws to us. After all these years of living, seems like we'd realize Time Warner wasn't about to give us something for nothing, at least not for long. Fact is, many of us have gotten used to having more TV channels than one person could ever possibly use or need. We find ourselves flipping through channels in a never-ending quest to be entertained, only to find nothing worth watching. We were raised with TV, black and white, then color. It was at first a luxury, then a novelty, and finally became a necessity in our daily lives. Back when I was growing up, it was a status symbol when we got our first color TV, just like the latest big screen, DVD, PIP, or whatever other letters you want to throw in there, is today. Snowy pictures and poor reception were pretty much the norm for the TVs of the 50's and 60's, so I've never been one to complain too loudly about crumby cable reception, for fear of losing it all together. Then I think about the few times I've been deprived of TV. There was the 10 days on Nantucket at Pam & Finn's, where NRP and the waves on the shore were one or the other in the air, but no TV. Another week with my brother Ron in St. Pete with the kids has committed to my memory forever every line spoken in the movie "Casper," after seeing it play in the living room 432 times. Ron and I sat together at his kitchen table, him teaching me how to put together my first computer. I honestly started watching less and less TV after that week, turning instead to the Internet as a source of new knowledge, information, and entertainment. When I called Time Warner after losing the Showtime channel we actually had been paying for late in December, I figure I must've been forced to redial for every day I received free movie channels before I was actually able to get through. Then there was the 10-minute wait to hear a real live voice on the other end of the line. At any rate, I was informed I would have to "rent" a box from them in order to continue to receive this, or any of the movie channels. I pondered this for a moment. Oddly enough, this conversation occurred during the brief blackout on Thursday morning. After the recent blackout that left us without power for 6 hours, I found myself reevaluating how I spend my time. While sitting in the dark isn't a whole heck of a lot of fun, it did present an opportunity, albeit somewhat brief, to actually pick up a real book to read from. I do the majority of my reading these days from a computer screen, so squinting to read the print by candle light was quite a switch. On this day, I thought about the number of times I had flipped to channel 17 to see if Showtime had magically reappeared somehow, not knowing Time Warner had begun scrambling the movie channels, making it impossible to see them without renting a box from them. I didn't particularly find myself missing it much. While I enjoy the show "Beggars and Choosers," they seemed to shoot a limited number of episodes only to rerun them endlessly. Other than that, there's nothing I would particularly miss if I decided not to depart with another $4.50 a month from my grubby little hands for the necessary box to view the channel. After informing the nice lady that I knew if wasn't her fault, but that Time Warner should be sued for this massive rip-off to the Carrboro community, I cancelled Showtime. I haven't yet started to go though Showtime withdrawals, and in fact I think the few shows that I actually enjoy watching on TV could probably be received through a coat hanger with a glob of foil crumpled up on the end and attached somewhere on the back of the TV. The fact that Time Warner can legally take more money from the residents of Carrboro and there's absolutely nothing we can do about, outside of buying a satellite dish or doing as I did and just saying no, is a real shame. Downtown Carrboro Map| Events| Prices| Restaurants| UniqueOrn Website Development 
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