DIY, Guide to survive a cable outage
By Matt Burns 
posted Feb 17th 2006 9:50AM
posted Feb 17th 2006 9:50AM
My cable went out last night just before primetime thanks to a bad ice storm. It was terrible I tell you, but
alas, I survived to tell the story. Here is a glimpse of what to do as the clock ticks by and you have no TV to
watch.1. Have an HDTV antenna building contest. Mine: an elaborate contraption of wires and solder that caused two burns and wasted a bunch of wire. My fiance's: a coat hanger and a bunch of tin foil. This took up about 35 minutes of our time, but which one worked better? Nether one could pull in a stable digital signal, but hers did work a tad bit better; let's keep that between you and me though. What the heck are ya suppose to do with no TV?
- DVR! There has to be something on the DVR to watch, but nope. There was nothing. It was filled of shows that I watched live and really didn't want to watch it again. We turned on a American Idol rerun just for background but it was frustrating to know that CSI was just one ATSC signal away, but we just could not watch it.
- Clean the house. This didn't last to long and 5 mins later we were back watching Simon and Paula fight back and forth.
- Play a boardgame. After a big sigh was released, we walked over to the boardgame closet and pulled out Yahtzee. I have to admit that it was fun. Maybe not as enjoyable as watching Without a Trace that a lot of you were enjoying by that time of night. American Idol had run out by this time and the TV was just displaying a black screen when it suddenly shot on a glimpse of the local news!
What DVR do you use? We've had similar outages, but TiVo's Suggestions is usually populated with something related to shows I regularly record... home improvement or travel stuff in there when there really is *nothing* on. There's also the occasional sporting event, but who wants to watch that after the fact?
Some other options... if you have a laptop, rent a flick from MovieLink or subscribe to Vongo and connect it to your TV for PPV. Flicks from MovieLink can be streamed once you get a several minute buffer, so you don't have to wait for a download. I forget how Vongo handles it.
Some other suggestions-
Nobody cares about your insignificant little life, so stop wasting our time with inane posts. If it's a slow news day, then so be it. We don't want to hear about the zit you popped last night.
You need a better choice of games sir. Head over to http:\www.boardgamegeek.com, and you can find some great games you'll want to play the next time this happens. In fact many are so good, you may just turn off the TV occasionally, just to play games. You'll have fun, and you and your girlfriend will have more to talk about than Paula and Randy.