The Black Box

My parents purchased me an incredible Flat Panel LCD television as a gift last year. Apparently, there was an irresistible deal at Target for a 19" LCD TV with a DVD player built in. Despite some shortcomings (including the fact that the DVD player features a blue bubble thing that persistently sticks out of the side of the television), the TV features some miraculous abilities.
Most notably, the television can not only receive HD signals, but it can seemingly extract them from unauthorized sources. That is, I have never purchased the HD package my cable company offers, but consistently receive all of the local stations in HD (in case I ever want to see the Ft. Wayne anchor's facial creases), as well as some other random HD stations. And I do actually mean random.
I initially set up my television at my parents house in Detroit's outlying suburbia. Much to my surprise I could watch the Tigers in HD on Fox Sports Net Detroit HD. I also could tune in to some miscellaneous movies on the higher channels. The television downstairs had no such access to these channels; I reasoned it was because it lacked the HD tuner.
At my downtown Detroit residence, I likewise installed the television, along with my roommates TV (a 42" flat panel his brother loaned him while he was out of the country, yeah, I know ridiculous, right?). Now I was able to get ESPN HD but my Fox Sports Net HD did not have sound, and seemed to be on different channels every night. My roommates much more expensive TV still could not receive any of these channels despite its HD capability.
Finally, I was lounging at my desk one day watching a movie on one of the random channels I had and it started rewinding on me. The movie then went in fast motion before pausing, restarting, and finally disappearing. Weird, I know. The mystery was confounded over the next few weeks when I had similar experiences with various movies (all recently released on DVD) that would be seemingly controlled from another venue.
And I believe they were. My hypothesis that I was watching whatever my neighbor's were watching "on demand" seemed to be confirmed by the commercial-less sit-com episodes I occasionally could tune into and the random . . . ahem . . . "inappropriate" videos that would grace my screen when I was looking for a good flick to watch.
Granted, this phenomena is very cool. Here in Indiana, I have seen Semi-Pro, Knocked Up, Be Kind Rewind, and a host of other movies which I never learned the titles to (not those movies). I have dialed through (okay, and maybe watched a little of) My Super Sweet 16, Rock of Love 2, Entourage, and various other cable series that I am embarrassed to have watched.
However, the ability to watch what other people are watching is like some weird invasion of privacy. For example, when I cross my neighbor's path in the morning, I have to wonder, is that the dude who watched My Super Sweet 16 last night? Or was he the guy rewinding the explosion in Starship Troopers like fifty times? Does someone in my complex have kids? Or do they just really enjoy the shows Noggin has to offer? Is it the same guy watching Knocked Up every night? Or is that movie really just super popular? And of course . . . who is the lonely guy ordering up the "interesting" movies?
Alas, I am not going to complain and I have no idea how my TV gets these channels or when it will stop. All I know is that in every location I have had this TV, I get random movies and stations that other TV's don't. Just hope I don't move into your neighborhood if you have a thing for "A Shot of Love with Tila Tequilla" or something.