From the EDGE Desk
Cody Boland
Issue date: 9/2/09 Section: The Edge
College is a time of no money, and thus, for many a spoiled modern age student, a time for sacrifice. Cost corners have to be caught, and since they won't be stopped at late night Jimmy John's purchases, they have to be found elsewhere.
Now since most of those in school have very little experience doing this, the end result can be quite amusing. Students will avoid the costly steak in the cafeteria, only to buy three overpriced sodas and a six dollar bowl of grapes.
Ramen is a delicious, low cost treat, and students will slurp it in ecstasy, only to then go out and buy a $65 video game.
For a few thousand grand, a residence hall occupant gets all the luxuries of a white collar criminal: a lousy cable selection, Internet that a tortoise would consider slow, and of course, a little box to sleep in.
Once a student has escaped from the dorms, the cutting costs is even more important. Remember that awesome Internet that mommy and daddy paid for? Yeah, that's $60 a month. Remember digital cable? Yeah, that costs an eternal soul.
So it is with that where I lay in my bed and remember my important college cost cutting technique. I ordered only a standard cable package.
Standard cable is a lot like looking at scrambled pornography. You know there is something good that could be coming through that connection, but all a person's left with are tattered fragments of what could have been.
I tried watching some standard cable recently. Between watching episodes of "Cops" filmed back when "Seinfeld" was still in production and 19 different versions of QVC, I had to check my ID to make sure I wasn't one of my grandparents.
Is there anybody out there that is actually content with standard cable? Someone who wants to watch TV, but only to see a homely looking woman advertise a set of collectible knives shaped like Jay Leno's chin.
I had trouble finding something to watch back when I had digital cable. Nearly 200 channels and I usually found more entertainment reading the movie descriptions than actually sitting through some comedy remake from the past, redone with black people to be more modern.
Well now I have slightly over 20 channels, of which the main benefit they have over digital cable is that it takes me less time to channel through everything and discover that there is indeed nothing to watch.
My theory is that the cable company created the standard cable package to punish me for thinking I could get one over on them.
"What, he doesn't want a hundred dollars a month of premium cable, let's charge him $25 a month filled with nothing but channels of us laughing at him."
So it is with that that I sit in my room, the spoiled college owner of a 40-inch LCD flat screen and a cable package meant for a black and white kitchen TV that doubles as a toaster.
Life is hard. Oh well, time to order Jimmy John's and play my new Xbox game.
Now since most of those in school have very little experience doing this, the end result can be quite amusing. Students will avoid the costly steak in the cafeteria, only to buy three overpriced sodas and a six dollar bowl of grapes.
Ramen is a delicious, low cost treat, and students will slurp it in ecstasy, only to then go out and buy a $65 video game.
For a few thousand grand, a residence hall occupant gets all the luxuries of a white collar criminal: a lousy cable selection, Internet that a tortoise would consider slow, and of course, a little box to sleep in.
Once a student has escaped from the dorms, the cutting costs is even more important. Remember that awesome Internet that mommy and daddy paid for? Yeah, that's $60 a month. Remember digital cable? Yeah, that costs an eternal soul.
So it is with that where I lay in my bed and remember my important college cost cutting technique. I ordered only a standard cable package.
Standard cable is a lot like looking at scrambled pornography. You know there is something good that could be coming through that connection, but all a person's left with are tattered fragments of what could have been.
I tried watching some standard cable recently. Between watching episodes of "Cops" filmed back when "Seinfeld" was still in production and 19 different versions of QVC, I had to check my ID to make sure I wasn't one of my grandparents.
Is there anybody out there that is actually content with standard cable? Someone who wants to watch TV, but only to see a homely looking woman advertise a set of collectible knives shaped like Jay Leno's chin.
I had trouble finding something to watch back when I had digital cable. Nearly 200 channels and I usually found more entertainment reading the movie descriptions than actually sitting through some comedy remake from the past, redone with black people to be more modern.
Well now I have slightly over 20 channels, of which the main benefit they have over digital cable is that it takes me less time to channel through everything and discover that there is indeed nothing to watch.
My theory is that the cable company created the standard cable package to punish me for thinking I could get one over on them.
"What, he doesn't want a hundred dollars a month of premium cable, let's charge him $25 a month filled with nothing but channels of us laughing at him."
So it is with that that I sit in my room, the spoiled college owner of a 40-inch LCD flat screen and a cable package meant for a black and white kitchen TV that doubles as a toaster.
Life is hard. Oh well, time to order Jimmy John's and play my new Xbox game.
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