Hi, my name is Ken and I’m a vidiot. Maybe. I dunno. But tell you what, my Beautiful Girlfriend and I sure have been doing some binge watching lately. It seems there’s this new (old) HBO series called “Game Of Thrones;” and we were just recently sucked straight into it.

It’s a total cliffhanger series that, in my warped mind, warrants a nice run-on sentence because it has lots of lords and ladies and kings and queens and swashbuckling and stabbing and naked people doing naked things and explosions and dragons and all kinds of cool things that probably could never happen but the shows sure make it seem like they’re real even though you know they’re not but HOLY MACKEREL they’ve been forcing us to go to the video store multiple times so we can support our local merchant!!

NOT for kids!!

If you’ve ever read this silly blog thing of mine, you may know that when it comes to TV, my Lovely Bride and I were “cord cutters” way before it was cool. In other words, we’ve always been too doggoned cheap to get cable or satellite TV. Our antenna system has always provided us with plenty of good reception, so we saw no need to subscribe to a service. Good thing too… my suspicions have been verified: if we actually paid for TV we’d watch way too much of it. We’d rationalize it all by saying to ourselves, “we gotta get our money’s worth.”

Game of Thrones has proven this to be all too true. There are two episodes per disk, with 5 disks per season. There are 5 seasons on disk so far; the previous 4 came in sets of 5 disks; now the latest has to be rented one at a time. We just finished disk #2. Each disk has just short of 2 hours worth of program material. So the sequence goes thusly: we pop in the disk, and what feels like 12 minutes later both episodes are done!! At this point we both utter a large, simultaneous groan, “AWWWW MAAannn!!!” Then it’s back to the video store the next day. It’s still way cheaper for us to rent these than it would be to pay for cable or satellite TV.

Then you have that other nasty, wicked, wonderful series on the History Channel: Vikings. Now that one is even more insidious because we can watch it for free on our Roku. For those who don’t know, a Roku is a cool device that grabs content off the interwebs and spits it out on your TV. Sure, Vikings comes with a few ads, but because we’ve had free TV for many moons we’re pretty accustomed to that monkey business. And again, we start the “unlocked episode,” and 13 minutes later (add a minute because of the ads) we’re crying “AWWWW MAAannn!!!” That is, of course after I’ve said, “poor Floki” about 18 times during the show.

That one is ALSO not for kids. Not as much nakedness, although it’s definitely implied. Lots of clunking and stabbing and arrows in the nostrils and stuff though. You know, the cool stuff boys like. Well, maybe girls too, because my Beautiful Girlfriend is right there with me when it’s on. Although unspoken, we both know full well it’s basically a crime for either of us to watch Vikings or Game of Thrones without the other.

Yes, I confess, I’m a vidiot. Sometimes… not all the time. I don’t care about sports; and yes I know that’s un-American but I don’t care. So there, nyaa nyaa na boo boo. Several of my friends tell me they must have cable to get their sports. But I hear what their bills are for a month and I’m very grateful this cliffhanger clingonitis we’ve developed has not evolved in a pay TV subscription… yet. No. I must be strong!! Antennas rule!! Long live the video store!! Long live the dinosaurs and cavemen like me!!

Garden season is coming. The TV will basically gather dust until late fall. Sure, we’ll still watch a few things but not like right now. I guess I could try to blame it on my Lovely Wife for being homebound due to her knee replacement surgery and forcing me (yeah, right) to sit with her through all these godawful programs.

Or, I could thank her!!

We’ve been watching much more than normal lately but we’ll try not to be like this lady…