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There have been numerous articles on why consumers dislike cable companies more than any other industry. It doesn't surprise me.

I cut the cable cord a few months ago. I'm done paying a small fortune for the few channels I watched among countless reruns of "Two and a Half Men" and bad Vince Vaughn comedies.

An example of cable company ineptitude was when of my favorite shows, "The League" on FX, was moved to a new unnecessary channel called FXX. Now if you have the most basic of cable, more than likely you'll have FX. But when the brainstems at the network came up with FXX, I discovered I'd have to purchase an upgrade in order to receive the channel.

Other channels would just "disappear" from my subscription. Like Fox News (although some may call that a good thing).

After I got rid of cable, I purchased a good antenna for the basic local channels. These aren't your grandfather's antennas. They're smaller, don't need to go on a roof and many of them you can install yourself.

The next step was to purchase a streaming device. I went with Roku (various models available from $39 to $125). Then I signed up for a free month of Sling TV, which gave me a few decent networks like AMC. I mainly got it to watch the Cubs playoff games on TBS.