Audible and kicking the TV habit

This past summer I joined audible.com, mainly because of a Hulu ad that would give me an extra credit for signing up. Since then I've been having my iPod, and later my laptop (when my iPod died) read to me while I embroider. It's much more satisfying than watching TV, because with the TV you have to stop and look up from time to time. Not with an audio book.

So far I've been read The Help (which, if I do say so myself, was an excellent choice. The story is told 1st person, from three different perspectives. They used three different actresses to record it.), Wicked, Pride and Prejudice (twice), Waiter Rant (most of it), and The Secret Language of Bees. Today I started The Fountainhead. I've never read anything by Ayn Rand, and all I really know about her is that our politics probably don't agree. Haven't gotten too far into the story, but so far I'm liking it. Though a little voice in the back of my head keeps saying, "That man has Asperger's Syndrome" when the main character is described as not reacting to things the way most people do. I know he doesn't. It wasn't even an acknowledged disease when this was written, and really, at this point the action's taking place more often with people who aren't Howard Roark. I haven't had much of an opportunity to see into his head.

I've been subscribing to Audible as part of an ongoing effort to get myself weaned off the TV. I pay way too much money to the cable company for something that I've noticed in recent years that I'm not using very much--except for when I catch a cold and camp out on the sofa, that is. Except for the aberration in usage last week, I've found that I get along just fine with a combination of Hulu, network webpages, and Netflix. Last month I dropped down to a lower tier on the cable subscription, eliminating the big movie channels (HBO, Showtime). The next step is to drop all the extended channels that I'm not watching, like BBC America, TV Food Network, and HGTV, along with all of the music channels I forget are there. The plan is to eventually work my way back down to basic cable. I'd get rid of that, too, but I want to keep my local channels. If I ever get an HD antenna or a new TV, I probably won't need the cable at all any more.

I've been resisting this next step. I don't watch them very much any more, but I like knowing that I could. The last, irrational reason I was using for hanging onto them was that the Rose Parade only gets broadcast on HGTV, but guess what! I found a Pasadena TV station that streams the parade, so there goes that excuse.

We'll see how it goes. I'm not going to drop it until after Thanksgiving. Probably not until the new year. See? There's that resistance. I started this post thinking, "end of November." Now? "How about February?" Pathetic.