a pre-emptive gambit, as i likely won’t have a chance to post one tomorrow.

on a conf. call for new UHG managers. the topic? how to effectively manage using our intranet system. it, possibly, is one of the most incredibly idiotic things i’ve ever endured. it’s taking two hours to cover the most basic.. simple… common sense topics in excruciating detail. however, that’s not to say there haven’t been some entertaining highlights.

+ at one point, the facilitator says “human crapital.” there was a long pause and you could really tell that she was weighing whether to acknowledge what she said or not. she didn’t.

+ “please refer to slide seven on how to access news articles if you do not have internet access.” this is a webex presentation. delivered by… the, um, internet.

+ a participant asked if the slide deck would be available to participants after the session. the answer? no. that’s acceptable– it’s HR-related, and you wouldn’t want outdated copies floating around. additionally, if participants knew they could get the deck afterwards, some may not pay as much attention. so that’s ok. however, the answer this person received? “we can’t send these out because of a size limitation in our e-mail system.” ahem… LIES!! it’s a 35-slide deck. all static, no embedded multimedia. that’s– what– 300kb? 400? even lotus notes can handle that. it’s rather disturbing when someone within HR fibs so blatantly, especially when it’s such an obvious fib.

i’m not in a bad mood, really. in fact, i’m nearly completely checked out, mentally, as i’m out tomorrow and all of next week. just a little frustrated that these types of things need to be dumbed down to the least-common denominator and i need to spend three hours of my afternoon listening to it. at least i’m an excellent multitasker.

So I’ve been thinking about giving up cable TV lately.

I know, I know. You’re saying: That’s crazy talk! There’s no way you’ll be able to give that up. At least one of you has already said that to me verbatim. But bear with me, and listen to the rationale, and we’ll see if I can convince myself, if not you.

What do I watch on TV? Sports. I probably watch the following channels 95% of the time: ESPN, ESPN2, Vs., and Fox Sports North. The other 5% ends up going to random viewings of The Daily Show, or Countdown, and watching the local morning news.

And for the privilege of watching all of this (much of it in beautiful High Definition), plus having high speed internet, I pay (drum roll please): $130 a month. It’s almost completely insane for me to be paying that much money for what I use it for.

Consider, I could get high speed internet through a local phone provider who shall remain nameless, because I hate them, for about $30 a month. It doesn’t take a math major to figure out that’s a savings of $1200 per year. I could take a nice vacation on that, couldn’t I? I could spend a small fraction (about 1/12) of that money, and use the high speed internet to watch baseball games via MLB.tv, which would help alleviate some of the DTs I’d be facing from TV withdrawl. Most football is on free TV, and I could use an antenna (kids, ask your parents what that is) and pull that in. I’ll admit it, I’d miss hockey. Well, I’d miss the playoffs. But I think I’d live.

Also consider… I could watch more movies. I could watch TV shows via Netflix (without commercials). I could do more creative projects. I could exercise. The list of things I could do with increased free time goes on and on…

Between the fiscal and free time arguments, I could almost convince myself. This is something I’m seriously considering. What do you all think? Is this something you’d consider for yourself?