When I was a pathetically shy 17-year-old, just before I started to develop something of a life, I had a sad, embarrassing, time-passing habit. I would sit in a boring English or Chemistry class and, with ruler and pencil, I'd make a grid on a piece of school paper. I would then, from memory, fill in the entire primetime schedules of all three (at the time) TV networks. I never left a blank space, never had to think too hard. In those lost days, TV was about all I had in my existence. Well, that and monster movies. I've always had the monsters to keep me company.

Sometimes I'd just start filling in the grid from early Monday evening and work straight through the week. Channel 3 (NBC) at the right side of the page, Channel 11 (CBS) down the middle, and Channel 32 (ABC) out there on the right. Sometimes I'd start with favorite shows and fill in around them. At least once I tried to start from the most recent show I'd watched and work my way back.

Pitiful, I know. You don't have to tell me.

I thought of this tonight for the first time in ages. You see, tonight I tuned into Fox to watch the Yankees game. I had almost forgotten how to access actual TV on my, uhh, TV. And I realized that the last time I'd watched broadcast TV was...the Super Bowl. Four months ago. 

I'd watched a lot of YouTube, some streaming, a few Blu-rays, but no Real TV.  

As far back as I can remember, back to when I was maybe three years old, we always had a TV set. We always watched that TV set. Certainly there has never been a time in my life when I was away from broadcast television for as long as four months.

I've read and heard, of course, of the imminent death of standard broadcast TV. Maybe that prediction is wrong, but you couldn't prove it by me.

Presented as my personal testament to the looming extinction of the Peacock, the Eye, and whatever ABC and FOX pass themselves off as.

RIP TV.