Thinking ahead to the weekend, it dawned on me that I won't be watching college football this Saturday. With the exception of upcoming bowl games, most of which I can ignore, that season is over. And when it comes to college basketball, I simply don't care. Couple those harsh realities with the fact the Hollywood writers' strike has no end in sight and I foresee a serious lack of entertainment on the boob tube over the next few months.Despite our having hundreds of channels on cable, our TiVo has already almost been squeezed dry of its content. The dramas we watch on a weekly basis are in reruns and hiatus. Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart are dark. Meanwhile, baseball is but a memory and a hope, and even the BBC America shows have seen their seasons come to an end.
That leaves us with a few options:
1. Find new shows to watch, either new or in syndication, via USA, Bravo, etc.
2. Proactively seek out movies playing on Encore and other networks and record them.
3. Look at Apple's embarrassing lack of video on iTunes and pay for it.
4. Go to movies this winter in the theater.
5. Wrestle away the Netflix account from my wife and get it going again.
6. Leverage BitTorrent to fill our video gap.
Of these, #1 and #6 are the most likely. Maybe I can find an edgy drama we've never had time for to date. Maybe the combination of "free" movies and a wider selection than Apple will make BitTorrent a viable alternative. But I have zero faith that the writers and all of Hollywood will come together and start producing new shows again to keep us busy.
How many more days is it again until Spring Training starts?