For the past week, I have had no television. I have one TV, and over several days, I noticed that the picture had been becoming darker and the contrast had been going out. Then last weekend the picture went out altogether.

A TV technician came out midweek and determined that heating element and circuit board needed replacing. Yesterday he returned with the part and replaced returning my TV from inanimate furniture back to full TV-ness.

A week without TV.

TV is not something that I cannot live without. I do not watch much TV anyway. The total sum of my viewing largely consists of:

- No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain (Travel Channel)
- Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern (Travel Channel)
- Torchwood (BBC America)
- Red Dwarf (BBC America)
- USA the Wright Way (Travel Channel)

Occasionally I find a new episode of You Are What You Eat (BBC America). Sometimes I will sit down in front of Good Eats (Food Channel), and occasionally late at night I will recline on one of my futons and be amused by a re-run of MASH.

Overall, in a given week, that’s not a lot of TV viewing. So losing my only TV for a week did not have a huge impact, but it was certainly a noticeable one, as I usually watch TV while eating my dinner. Without TV, the dinner experience was completely changed (I was amused to learn that I could still listen to the TV, just not see it, and after a few comments like “Oooh, I wouldn’t mind seeing that!” I felt a tad pathetic and turned the sound off too).

My TV is back in operation now, $340 later, but the picture is much better and now I can catch up on my shows that have been recording all week.