Every now and then someone tells me they don’t have a television, and it always makes me cringe. It’s always been hard for me to imagine what life is like for people that don’t watch TV. I’ve been obsessed with media since I can remember, and TV has always been a big part of my media diet. Don’t get me wrong – I love to read, and watch movies, and listen to music. I love the internet with an occasionally embarrassing passion. Still, being up to date with the tube is important to me on a cellular level.

So when I first got laid off, I kept my rather extravagant cable package. It took a few months of unemployment for me to realize that it was time to let go.

Yesterday, I canceled the service. From here on out, I’m going to have to get my TV fix from the net. I’ve had a bunch of cool toys that are designed to help with that, but this will be the first time I’m trying to rely entirely on them.

I have an appleTV that allows me to buy/rent TV shows and movies from the iTunes store. It’s also got Boxee installed on it so I can watch online content like Hulu from the comfort of my couch. I still have my account on Netflix, so I can watch Netflix movies on demand through my Xbox. I suppose it’s a good measure of my addiction that even with all this gadgetry I’m still worried about what I’ll miss.

The first night wasn’t so bad. I gave up on Heroes earlier this season, so I don’t really have anything specific I need to watch on Mondays. I watched a Digg video about the world’s strongest four year-old (deeply creepy) and the pilot episode of the Cleveland show, courtesy of Hulu.

Hulu seems to be sneaking more commercials in. They are mercifully short, but Hulu is definitely slouching its way back to broadcast TV levels of interruption. If you add the new adverts to Hulu’s ill-considered plans to put the service behind a pay wall next year, I may not be able to rely on them for content too much longer. I’m not categorically against paying a few bucks for the service, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope that Rupert Murdoch and company won’t kill the service with shortsighted greedy pricing and ever-increasing restrictions.

I’ll be posting here about my experiences giving up cable, and I’m also hoping that anyone who reads this and has suggestions will share them with me in the comments section. I’m very interested in new ways to access content, web-only content I may not know about yet and what experiences you might be having outside the cable ghetto.