I’ll Miss You, Over-the-Air TV

In the next few days, Canadian broadcasters will switch their signals from analog to digital. Although we’ve been told for two years that this is going to happen, and that if we get our television through cable we won’t be affected, but that if we use an antenna or rabbit ears we risk losing stations unless we purchase a digital converter (for less than $100!), it’s been entirely less clear why this is being done at all. But that’s not important right now. I’ve decided to try living without television, since I have an old, non-digital TV and use rabbit ears, and don’t feel like spending $100 on programming that I’ve largely become bored or frustrated by. I’ll miss The Office, and Parks and Recreation, and CBC News, and TVO’s Steve Paikin, nature shows, and Saturday Night at the Movies, and I enjoyed watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (although I realized that I knew much more about American Politics than Canadian, which started to worry me), and I’ll get used to not turning on Breakfast Television while I get ready for work in the morning, but there are a few things I won’t miss at all:

1) Denis Leary’s pseudo-macho truck-commercial narration. Dude, you recorded “I’m an Asshole” and now you really are one.

2) Warnings to “Stay Clear, Stay Safe” of water near hydro dams. If we spent half as much money warning about the dangers of other harmful things we’d all be immortal.

3) All Ford commercials. They’ve gotten pretty uppity since they survived the Recession.

4) The entire CTV Canada AM crew. Seamus O’Regan, I loathe you, you smarmy bastard. Weatherman, just shut up. Beverly Thomson, I actually respect you but you’re wasted on this show, and I can literally see your soul dying every time I watch you.

5) The Big Bang Theory. Yes, I suppose it’s a “smart” show in that many jokes show a firm grasp of science, but it’s a dumb show in that it delights in making smart people look like idiots. No matter how much Middle America wants to believe that salt-of-the-earth types are better than science geeks, the geeks will always be smarter, richer, and more successful than you.

6) Viagra, Canesten, and Cialis. Canada, there is a crisis raging in our naughty bits, and Dr. Pharma has just the pill for you.