robin meade

robin meade
My company decided earlier this year that it would be better off with a week of my pay than I would, and when it decided to gank a second week this spring, I took drastic measures
did away with cable television.
This is the first time since Jack Brickhouse was calling Cubs games on WGN-TV and "Chiller" showed scary movies on Channel 50 from Detroit that I've been cut off from that alternate universe delivered by coaxial cable to the back of my television set.
Whoa.
No Robin Meade to wake up to on Headline News. SportsCenter? Gone. Jeff Dunham and Jose Jalapeno on Comedy Central? Nope -- on a stick.
The upside of the move is that the rantings of Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly -- and especially that nut job Glenn Beck -- just go out into the ether, with me blithely oblivious to it all.
I don't miss the Shamwow guy. Or Billy Mays, either.
I've taken to some pretty wacky behavior to fill the hours formerly spent on the couch, sweating the outcome of a midseason NBA game or awaiting live video from the scene of the latest natural disaster on CNN.
I'm doing nutty things like reading books, listening to the radio and -- no, really -- working in the yard.
My lawn is almost as short as my hair these days. About as lush as the top of my head, too, owing to years of homeowner indifference. That doesn't mean that the backyard bushes aren't overgrown and the dandelions aren't taking over the front yard, but at least I'm pulling out the mower and running it over the weeds once a week.
Perhaps even more painfully, the high-speed Internet connection that flowed through that round black cable also is gone.
So my morning cruise of newspaper Web sites has been circumvented. Now I watch a little local TV news for its bizarrely skewed-to-visuals take on what's what before I get to work.
My Facebook friends wonder why I've deserted them. I'm unplugged, people!
Now I'm no Luddite, but there's a peace in that disconnection. For a few hours a day, I'm awake and alert to my surroundings, instead of feeling like I need another fix of now-now-now news, sports and weather in my veins.
And it makes me a better, more discerning consumer of facts.
A news story on a printed page is savored at this pace, rather than gobbled as quickly as possible on the way to the next one. Reflection? Check. Overload? Nope -- not here.
And if I miss frantic, there's always the 100-e-mails-a-day, torn-four-ways-at-once workday ahead. Not to mention a commute on a freeway torn asunder, with drivers trying to make up for detour time by jostling for advantage at 75 mph.
For now, I'll take the long way home.