Christmas in September

Sunday night, when I was winding down from the weekend, ready to watch a little TV, I couldn’t find anything to watch. Nothing interested me on my favorite channels. MSNBC was showing one of their weekend prison or crime shows (no thanks), Food Network didn’t have anything new (shocker) or appealing on, and regular network programs weren’t grabbing me. So I decided to channel surf. Once I got started, I thought I might get more familiar with my remote.

For the two plus years I have had cable TV (I was a hold out. I don’t know if I’m proud or embarrassed), it has been enough to use info, guide, select, last, volume, and number keys. I look at what’s between channels 2 and 63 (Bravo), and that’s the extent of it. And there I was, using the A, B, and C keys, somewhere in the 900s!

Music?!?! I have cable music channels? I thought that was on a fancier, more expensive plan—if that’s possible without being criminal. Wow! All those times TV shows were just white noise I could have been listening to commercial free music (since I don’t have an ipod and speaker set up. I don’t actually even have an ipod)?! I couldn’t believe it.

Really I couldn’t. I doubted my luck, thought maybe it was a free weekend special. So last night, as I was getting ready to watch the Patriots season opener (go Pats!) and not interested in a third consecutive half hour of local news, I thought I’d double check. Could I find it again? Would it still be there?

Well, not only did I still have music available, but I decided to search the guide again—by category even (go, me!)—and use new buttons on my remote and when I did, I found…[wait for it]…games! Sudoku on my TV screen! And the music was still there. While classic rock continued to play—Jimi Hendrix followed by Aerosmith, then Neil Young—I did a Sudoku puzzle with my remote. How cool is that?

And I found a channel that runs back to back PBS cooking shows—Ming and Lidia and Joanne Weir—and then, thank goodness I set my timer for the game because I would have missed it.