Sheen, Cryer and Half a Kid

When the Cable That Was Free™ went away¹, we were left with a hole². No longer did we have House Hunters and Designed to Sell to watch nor reruns of Project Runway or Top Chef during the times we ate, but instead were left to regular programming.

It was mildly harder for The Girl™ — having been used to some form of cable throughout her life, whereas I have only had cable sporadically throughout my lifetime and only then, the first time just before I exited my teenage years³. But, cable didn’t have such a hold on us that we’d actually pay for it. A quick rundown of shows we watched revealed that we could either watch them online if they weren’t on regular programming or we could download a show.

We eat at about 6pm — early. I generally start cooking shortly after 5pm. Being homebound helps in that regard and I generally have our dinner ready to go or 3/4 of the way there by the time The Girl™ arrives home. We’re generally sitting at the coffee table at 6pm and we skim the channels trying to find something to watch. Previously, this was the aforementioned House Hunters. Lacking cable, we looked for a replacement.

We found Two and a Half Men. I’d been intrigued by the show for a few years now — the combination of Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer and a kid sounded like some kind of weird Three Men and a Baby twist. However, it’s occurred to me that if a show has had some kind of staying power, then perhaps it does have some legs to it.

And who would have known? The comedy is far more riskier and clever than some of the sitcoms I’ve seen in the past — Friends really?

I’m officially addicted⁴.

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¹ Now that TV is going all digital (have you not seen the numerous February 2009 Doomsday-esque ads for your TV not working!), our cable company that provides the Internet has switched to converter boxes for their actual TV cable and so no more cable pipes in via the standard cable cables. ↩

² Not gaping. ↩

³ I also was sans TV from the years 1998-2001, opting instead for a homemade solution of a big ass speaker, a tiny little audio receiver hooked up to a Discman as well as books, books, books. ↩

⁴ We watch the show twice daily — at 6PM and then again at 10:30PM. ↩