Fed up with the satellite company, and fully aware of the fact that with 200 or more channels I still had frightfully little to watch and enjoy, I unplugged.

I cancelled my subscription around New Year's, and decided that I'd simply rent videos and watch occasional fuzz vision, whatever I could pull in through the urban airwaves.

This is my report, approximately one quarter after taking the free fall into non-HBO land.

In a word, it has been great, what else can I say?

I feel that I've regressed to that Norman Rockwell time in my youth, up in the wilds of Michigan, when we'd only be able to get three or four channels a night on the tube.

Wow, did we ever appreciate what flowed through that humble appliance!

Now, I'm lucky to get a PBS station and three Los Angeles channels, along with some Spanish and Korean language fare.

And really, with the rental videos that I cherry pick, I don't need anything else.

I save a lot of time by not channel surfing, and this enables me to do other things that I enjoy, such as writing articles.

Also, I'm reading a lot of newspapers on the web and doing research, so I'm busy enough.

And I'm saving about a hundred bucks a month, and not feeling that I have to watch something just to recoup my out of pocket.

Is there anything I miss? Maybe sports, but the big events are on the three channels I do get, and I can always subscribe again to Major League Baseball's web channel, and catch my White Sox, there.

You should try unplugging and see how it changes your life. You may find that you start having meaningful conversations with those who used to huddle around the tube with you!