TV and cable too!

Sol and I were sure we didn't want a television. We weren't going to buy one, and we certainly weren't going to have cable. Timmy is entertained by playing with common household items, and I'm entertained watching him and reading online.

My mother-in-law arrived last week though, and a few weeks before that we had to buckle down to getting a TV. We won an auction on a 29" TV on (where else) TradeMe. We also bid on and won a TV cabinet for it.

We definitely weren't going to get cable because the website says installation costs NZ$600. That's almost half a month's rent right there :-).

And then two days ago I got a call from skytv. They have a promo, free installation and 3 months of free premium channels. Since my mother-in-law is here, and *she* won't be entertained by the internet when I find a job, well, we grabbed the deal :-).

We're very happy with the TV and cable now, even though it'll cost $45 a month :-). That's about NZ$140 a month for landline, broadband and cable. But I think we've stabilized our costs now (unless we buy a car, but that's going to be either never or after two paychecks, once I've got a job :-).

There are several cooking channels, there's Discovery, National Geographic and News, and the free NZ channels are much clearer now (for a week we were using the antenna on the roof). We won't be watching much in the way of sports, movies or entertainment news, although Sol will want a tivo when the French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Australian Open come around (very soon now). I haven't found a tivo on TradeMe yet though, and I don't have the necessary A/V jacks on either of our laptops to record shows using MythTV. She's thinking she'll be absent a lot for the French Open :-). I hope not.