200 channels and nothing but cats
The future is here, today! Or a couple days ago, actually, when we ditched our cable tv connection and replaced it with television signals that come into our house in the form of light. We switched to fiber-optic for internet a while ago, but it took Verizon a long time to get their tv business set up in town; now that they did we were happy to complete the Verizon set, more than double our channel set, and halve our tv bill. Plus we get a DVR!
However, the addition of all the new channels does not mean that, at any given time, there is more likely to be something on that we're willing to watch. In fact, it's almost more depressing to not be able to find anything good in 200 channels than it was in 70; the depravity of human existence is all the more stark, I think. I had high hopes of something called "Fox Soccer Channel", but it turns out they mostly show the Sky equivalent of Sports Center and games that were recorded several months ago. Many sports are silly to watch in any form other than live, and soccer is the silliest.
Still, there's the DVR, so at least we can watch our recorded copy of High School Musical when we get really bored. The story is even more embarrassing when you watch the beginning! Our situation brings to mind one of my favorite all-time quotes, which I read on Slashdot many years ago: "TV is still a cultural wasteland, but watching via Tivo is like sailing over the wasteland in a way cool hovercraft!" Of course, we're not quite cool enough for a proper Tivo, but the sentiments are similar.