Here's my 2 cents on FIOS and cable.

I use Charter ONLY for Internet access. I don't pay for TV service. That's about $500/year savings. The aerial is on my roof and there's a coax wire that comes down to my TV set.

Earlier this year I bought one of those newfangled sets with the big screen. I believe it's called HDTV. When I set it up all I did was unplug the wire from the old TV and plugged it into the new one and you just would not believe what a gorgeous picture I got! Channel 5 news is widescreen high def. I can see the crow's feet on Ed Harding's face.

I'm writing this because alot of folks think they have to buy Charter cable TV or Verizon FIOS in order to get high def reception. You don't! It's free! No clumsy expensive boxes sitting on top of the set, no monthly fees, no taxes, no nothin'.

Of course, you do need Charter or Verizon or the Dish if you want 100+ channels and movie packages. But we do Netflix [1] . I don't have to go to the store to get the movie, and I don't have to go to the store to return it. I can watch it anytime I want, as many times as I want. I can even loan it to a friend. No late fee, either. (They also have free DVDs to borrow at the library! Best deal in town!)

I also bought one of those newfangled upconverting DVD players and it does a great job -- I don't see any reason to buy one of those HD DVD or Blue Ray players. Even if I had one where would I get the movies? I don't believe they can be rented yet, and I'm sure not buying them at these high prices. Imagine paying $35 or more for a movie! Besides, we don't buy movies anyway. We just rent. (Well, all right, I admit I DID buy Christmas Vacation. It's so funny and we watch it every Christmas - our VHS tape version of that movie just plumb wore out because we watched it so much. Top Gun is also awesome. So are Old Yeller, The Howdy Doody Show, The Lone Ranger and all of Elvis' flicks. But other than those I see no reason to purchase movies.

And what's all this about paying for security against viruses? Sounds like the ol' protection racket to me. Did Norton join the mafia? We have Macintoshes in our family and none of us has ever had a virus. On the Mac browser I just check off Block Popups and that solves the adware problem too. Talk to anyone you know who has a Mac. They're great. (By the way, Apple's stock price hit an all-time high yesterday. There must be a good reason for that.)

I pay Charter $29.99/month for Internet only. That includes taxes. I have a Verizon landline, but we're not on a party line so we have it all to ourselves. I suspect that one of these days we'll be stopping that, too. It seems all our friends and family call us on our mobile and the nuisances call the wall phone. So I pay for a phone so all these folks can contact me to sell me stuff or play a recorded political message telling me how to vote. It's convenient for them, not for me. Guess I'm not too smart. It's gotta go.

Of course, I have to think twice about getting rid of the wall phone. I might not do it until they build that new mobile phone tower in Dunstable. I forget where they're putting it up... Personally, I think they should put it in the church steeple and let the church get the income from it. (*) We really do need a tower in town soon. I hope it never happens, but the way things stand right now, there could be an emergency and if someone needs to use a mobile phone to call the ambulance or the police, they might not have a signal. The way things stand right now, that's a life threatening situation that could easily be fixed.

So, that's the way things are over here.

Of course, I might change my view on the movie thing when I can get on the World Wide Web and download a movie that's the same quality as the DVDs we borrow from Netflix. Then for sure I'll want a higher speed Internet service, and right now it appears that FIOS can do that. I guess Verizon is thinking along those lines, too. It must certainly be costing them a pretty penny to put in all those fiber optic cables and support all those cool trucks and run all those commercials with that cute boy on television.

So that's my thinking on cable and FIOS and Internet service. Hope it helps. It would be interesting to hear what others think.

Did you know HDTV was free? Are you using it? How about viruses? Do you use a Mac? Any viruses? Do you have The Howdy Doody Show on DVD? Isn't Top Gun the best? (Especially the sound!)

--Dave Price