Let's cut right to the point, shall we? My roommate is stealing cable.

When I "interviewed" with him when I first came to meet him and see the apartment, I specifically asked about cable -- I'm a media junkie, plus now that I'm working for an entertainment publication, there are certain things on cable that I need to see. He told me that as a courtesy to his roommates (his exact words), he "takes care" of the bill. I thought that was awfully generous.

Then I move in, and a few days later when I asked him about getting HBO and possibly upgrading to digital cable, he confessed that he's been getting cable for free for 2 1/2 years in this apartment and didn't want to do anything to upset that. Of course, he followed that statement up by saying that if I wanted to look around at somewhere else -- to which I thought, "if he wants me to move out because he's not going to get me HBO, there's some problems." He said he can't afford cable so he doesn't want to make it legit, which I have some problems with because he's throwing around cash by eating out often and shopping at expensive upscale grocery stores. Either way, he called someone he knows who knows someone who works for our cable company to see about hooking us up with HBO. The guy told him that because they were doing work on the network in our area -- in order to upgrade the system to digital -- the free cable might get cut off. Two days later, I saw the flyer the cable company left in our building entrance saying they were going to be working in our area over the next few weeks so please excuse the possible service interruptions.

I'm a little uncomfortable with stealing the cable, which some might consider hypocritical based on my MP3 downloading. However, the legal issue of whether or not downloading MP3s is an offense is still being debated, while stealing cable is actively being prosecuted as an illegal act and a federal offense. So I came up with the idea that since he's leaving on Monday for two weeks, I'd call the cable company and order cable for real. When he comes back, I'd tell him that the cable company came to our door and said that while they were doing work in the area, they had discovered we were getting free cable and offered us the option to either sign up for paid cable or risk prosecution -- something that it does say on the cable company's website. In the end, I'd get my cable and when the digital upgrade is available, I could get it along with the cable modem so I can completely drop my phone line and DSL which'll save me some cash in the end. However, I worry about the roommate's reaction when he comes back. I figure this is the easiest way to do it without bringing down too much of the thunder.

Opinions? Discussions? Other more feasible ideas?

In other news, one of our neighbors has a car horn that plays "La Cucaracha," and someone just called my cell phone and insisted that no, they weren't calling the wrong number and I should know the person they were asking for.