Back in 2001, I made a discovery. The little cable wire in my apartment was actually spitting out scrambled channels--all of them, for free. I don't know where it was coming from or who was paying for it, but it was obvious that all it needed was a descrambler. Two hundred bucks later, I had all the channels I wanted for free. Nice.
After about a year or so of DSL, I gave up on Verizon's crappy DSL service and thought about moving to cable internet. The only issue was whether I was going to lose my cable stations if I had someone come and setup my internet. I decided to chance it. I got my cable setup, and after the guy left, in goes the splitter and the box, and voila... free cable secured.
When I moved to Brooklyn, I needed internet turned on from scratch... and lo and behold, getting the cable company to give you internet without sending scrambled channels down the line is like trying to give someone hot water without giving them cold. So, I pay my $44 a month for internet and continued to get free cable with my trusty box, whose cost amortized out to about $2.38. Given the quality of the TV I was watching, I figured that to be a pretty fair price.
Well, Time Warner seems to have closed that loophole finally, because now I'm not getting anything besides single digit boring old regular TV. No scrambled, no nothing.
Was it unfair that I was getting the free cable? Illegal, perhaps, but to be honest, I hardly watch any TV at all. I'm never home. I don't care about half the stations. If I could just get ESPN, SportsNet New York, Comedy Central and SpikeTV, I think I'd be all set, but you can't buy that way. The cable company forces these bundles of crap on me. Even if I just wanted basic, it would cost me $57 a month. TV should not cost more than the internet. I get way more value out of the internet than I do out of TV. If I watch 10 hours of television a month, that's a lot for me.
So what should I do now? I need to get my Met games... and ESPN, maybe a bit of Comedy Central. I can't even go all internet, because MLB.tv doesn't allow me to watch local games... Only my cable provider can get me access to local games... web video from local teams is blacked out.
I'm thinking of putting a Slingbox at my parents house.... seems like the only viable option without breaking the bank. Thoughts?