"Without TV, it is hard to know when one day ends and another begins." -Homer Simpson

Let me be the first to proclaim that I love tv.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading, sports, high culture, et. al., but at the end of a cold winter day, I love cozying up to the telly most of all.  So, you can imagine how happy I was to have the first official fixture of our home be a television set.
Region by region, every television in the country of Australia is going digital.  I was told I would have until December.  This leaves the viewer with two options: Buy a digital-ready tv or get a set-top box in order to still watch your non-digital-ready tv.  We went with the latter.  Here's the really cool thing about television in Australia: You get a ton of channels! We get about twenty channels, which is pretty awesome.  We don't have "cable" (or what they call "pay tv") either and there are plenty of things to watch.  Below, I've made a list of interesting thoughts about Aussie television, within the context of how it is different from American television.
1.  You plug your set-top box into the cable outlet and the cable outlet is connected to an antennae (or "aerial") on the roof.  This is not always the case in the U.S.A.
2.  Control-wise, the set-top box works like Tivo or a Comcast cable box.  You can view the channels, their programs, and descriptions.  The best part is that you can DVR programs and not have to pay for the "privilege" of doing that.
3.  I get the impression that the syndication rights of American shows are sold to individual television channels here.  In other words, you could be watching an NBC show that's directly followed up by a CBS show on the same channel.
4.  Australian reality show contestants are typically so supportive and kind of one another's endeavors, even though they are competing against each other.  I don't watch American reality tv (save for Tabatha's Salon Takeover and RHW!) but of the clips I've seen on The Soup or articles I've read in gossip rags, the American contestants tend to seem so nasty and somewhat downright cruel towards one another.  Australian reality television is actually feel-good television!
5.  There are American shows here that you can only get on cable television back in the United States, that are played on regular tv here, such as Weeds.
6.  After 9:00pm, swearing is permitted on television.  It still startles me a little bit every time I hear the f-bomb dropped on broadcast television.  Ah, my culturally puritanical roots are surfacing!
7.  Some popular current American tv shows here are CSI, The Big Bang Theory, Family Guy, and Two and A Half Men.  They also play a lot of old reruns of other American shows.  These shows that come to mind include: Murder She Wrote, The Love Boat, Seinfeld, Friends, Just Shoot Me, and my personal favorite... 7th Heaven!
8.  Regarding commercials:  There are some commercials here (voiceover/animation type commercials) that use Australian voices, but the script is still the same.  Most notable are the commercials for the iPhone.  ("If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have an iPhone.")

As lovely as the tv is, I am looking outside and the sun is just now coming out after a week of rain!  Time to click off and go play outside.  Later!