DirecTV is nice around here . . . until it storms. And then it's not-so-nice.

That's a shame. It's such a great service.

I agree. I loved it. I didn't mind when it went out, because it wasn't out for a super long time.

My wife disagreed. Now we have Surewest.

Yea, im thinking of switching over to Direct TV from Uverse, because AT&T keeps jacking up their rates. The intro rates into Direct TV are great.

yeah, I like the intro rates. Its the regular rates that kick in later that keep me from signing up. Oh, and the fact I have to agree to a two year contract with them as well.

Loose the cable TV get an antenna. Get outside, go visit, volunteer, take up serious cooking. do something those mother****ers are robbing you blind. I haven't had any premium channels for five years. The chiefs are on regular tv that is about all I watch. I golf work a lot of overtime I just don't have time for television. My son will Netfix to watch cartoons. We just aren't a big TV family. Never really have been. I like to get outdoors.

Then what do you look at while you masturbate? Trees?

It gives him wood.

My Avatar LoL

I like my bushes to grow wild with minimal trimming

I don't think you can buy season passes for the premium shows (at least not HBO).

How are you even getting a $215 bill? I assume that's your base bill and not like you bought a $49.99 PPV or a bunch of movies through their service. I can only imagine having that kind of bill if I were crazy rich and I was providing DVR/cable boxes for the servants quarters on the grounds of my mansion, the pool, the hottub, etc.

Based on that I'm not sure what to advise you but if you're willing you can normally drop your premium channels for a bit and pick back up the "deal" prices. Right now TW is offering HBO + Cinemax for 6 months at $10/mo. It's cheaper than either of the channels individually.

Everyone is telling you to ditch cable, but you said you didn't want to. So here's what you can do. Call the cable company and just tell them that you are considering ditching cable entirely, because there are a lot of other options out there. But you may be persuaded to keep it if they cut you some slack on the bill. They will do exactly that. At least for about six months.

****'em dude get out from under the Iron Thumb of Oppression. They aren't supplying you anything you can't live without.

Cord cutting is pretty easy these days. I've been without cable for several years now, and I don't miss much.

I use a combination of OTA antenna, and XBMC to satisfy all of my media needs. I run XBMC on an AppleTV. But you can run XBMC on pretty much any device on any platform. And from there, you have XBMC plugins that will get you nearly any media you want. At that point, you're only limited by your own ethics as far as what media content is available to you. There are plenty of options that would allow you to watch any and every TV show or movie you desire. Most of it can be accessed by streaming directly, so you won't need to actually download anything. Or if you'd like to have hard copies, you can setup an automated system that will download all the content you want the instant it becomes available, and organize it for you just like a DVR would do.

The only real drawback to cord cutting such as this is live sports in HD. Mainly what you can't find on normal OTA channels. There are plenty of options available with dependable streams for sporting events. But the quality will vary greatly if you rely on the free solutions. There are premium pirate solutions for sporting events if you wanna pay the money.

Let me know if you'd like more information about any of that. There's always a solution that would work for you....

You could just wait for the season to finish and then rent the DVD of the shows you want to watch on HBO/Showtime through netflix or the like. Then you are not having to pay premium channels.