A couple of years ago, when I tired of dialup and decided to go to broadband, the helpful Time Warner customer service representative asked if I wanted cable as well.

"Sure," I said, "give me just the lowest-tier cable there is." I don't really watch a lot of TV, but when I did watch it, the set-top antenna resulted in a lot of snow. So the cable guy came out, installed RoadRunner and cable, and that was that.

Until tonight, when two representatives of Bright House came to my door and informed me that I was only listed in their computer as having (and paying for) RoadRunner, and I needed to either buy cable or shut it off. And though it would cost me a $60 "installation fee" to have them leave it exactly as it was, plus an additional $15/month to actually watch it, I could get the digital cable installed free, pay $40 for one month at the "special rate", return the cable box and then drop back down to the $15/month "limited basic" package I had been receiving.

They were crack dealers. No, really. They gave us a "free" hit of digital cable in hopes that we'll want to keep it. Yeah, we watched Spongebob Squarepants. We watched "And Now for Something Completely Different". I could watch Stargate SG-1 when the new episodes actually come out, instead of watching them in syndication two years behind, at midnight on Monday morning. It's very tempting indeed. But I don't think it's $65/month worth of tempting, thankyouverymuch.