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On the media
Feb. 4th, 2007 11:02 pmWhen we first moved to Philadelphia, the first thing we did was program the three public radio stations into our car radio. They are, respectively, NPR news programming, folk/indie rock/eclectic and classical. It's just about perfect. But one thing kept niggling at me for a while: the call sign for the NPR station was so familiar. Where could I have heard it before?
Then it came to me: WHYY in Philadelphia. The station that produces Fresh Air.
Now I'm having little NPR fangirl fantasies about running into Terry Gross at some cool downtown bookstore. For some reason, it's things like this (instead of, say, the population density or the tall buildings) that brings it home to me that I'm living in a big city now.
***
We decided to not get cable after we moved, mostly due to the cost which made me hyperventilate a little. Well, not merely the outrageous cost of cable and the even more outrageous cost of getting a dvr with the cable, but the car insurance bill which made me black out a little. I know this will shock you as much as it did me, but as it turns out, living in a large city on the East Coast is a little more expensive than central Indiana. Rent and food prices aren't much worse here, but some of the peripherals like insurance are just hideous. One paycheck only goes so far, and I prefer to prioritize the luxury of food and a roof over our head to having 220 channels, at least until I've found a job.
And actually, between Netflix and the Internet, I don't miss it too much. We get all of the broadcast networks through a basic set of rabbit-ears, and almost everything we watch is now broadcast legally on the Internet, so we can watch anything we missed that way. And for the shows that aren't available that way, there are, er, other methods.
The two things I really miss are Food Network and having Sesame Street on the dvr. It was just so convenient to be able to turn on Sesame Street regardless of when it actually aired. The times of day that it's helpful to be able to distract a toddler with tv don't necessarily always coincide with good toddler-friendly shows. For instance, five o'clock, when we're both tired and I'm trying to make dinner and Daddy isn't home yet and the local PBS station has helpfully switched from children's programming to a droning news analysis program. For some reason, despite my best efforts, K finds it less than fascinating. So I'm trying to beef up our collection of Sesame Street videos (current number of videos: 1).
So I think we'll stick with this for a while, at least until I find a job and we have more spare income.
Then it came to me: WHYY in Philadelphia. The station that produces Fresh Air.
Now I'm having little NPR fangirl fantasies about running into Terry Gross at some cool downtown bookstore. For some reason, it's things like this (instead of, say, the population density or the tall buildings) that brings it home to me that I'm living in a big city now.
***
We decided to not get cable after we moved, mostly due to the cost which made me hyperventilate a little. Well, not merely the outrageous cost of cable and the even more outrageous cost of getting a dvr with the cable, but the car insurance bill which made me black out a little. I know this will shock you as much as it did me, but as it turns out, living in a large city on the East Coast is a little more expensive than central Indiana. Rent and food prices aren't much worse here, but some of the peripherals like insurance are just hideous. One paycheck only goes so far, and I prefer to prioritize the luxury of food and a roof over our head to having 220 channels, at least until I've found a job.
And actually, between Netflix and the Internet, I don't miss it too much. We get all of the broadcast networks through a basic set of rabbit-ears, and almost everything we watch is now broadcast legally on the Internet, so we can watch anything we missed that way. And for the shows that aren't available that way, there are, er, other methods.
The two things I really miss are Food Network and having Sesame Street on the dvr. It was just so convenient to be able to turn on Sesame Street regardless of when it actually aired. The times of day that it's helpful to be able to distract a toddler with tv don't necessarily always coincide with good toddler-friendly shows. For instance, five o'clock, when we're both tired and I'm trying to make dinner and Daddy isn't home yet and the local PBS station has helpfully switched from children's programming to a droning news analysis program. For some reason, despite my best efforts, K finds it less than fascinating. So I'm trying to beef up our collection of Sesame Street videos (current number of videos: 1).
So I think we'll stick with this for a while, at least until I find a job and we have more spare income.
