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There are many things that have changed ion my life since the introduction of Little Man to the family. One of which is my TV viewership. Prior to Little Man I watched TV all the time. There were shows that were “must sees.” I would schedule life around these shows. I could schedule life around these shows. I knew everything about them. I followed them like the good fanboi that I was. There was nothing about these shows that I could not engage in a lengthy discourse on their minutia. I was that kind of TV viewer. It was my hay-day for TV. VCR’s had just become obsolete, and TIVO was still in its infancy. HDTV was around the corner, and I was all about it. We had gotten rid of our VCR and still have not gotten TIVO or DVR. If we couldn’t watch it live, we didn’t watch it. Ergo my scheduling of the life around the TV.
Enter Little Man. I re-prioritized the life. I changed things up. I basically gave up TV for dead. I steeled myself so that I could endure years of Baby Einstein, Noggin, Playhouse Disney, and the Wiggles. I gave up on primetime TV for the ritual of getting my kid to sleep (he is a sleep fighter. It pretty much took all of primetime TV for him to relinquish his purchase on consciousness. Only recently has he determined that going to sleep might not be a bad thing. Operative word there is “might.” He still needs convincing nightly about the wonder that is sleep.) Anyway… I gave up on any TV that any kind of storyline, much less a story arc that spanned multiple episodes. I just did not have the time to follow a story through. Luckily most shows in the past 3 + years have focused almost entirely on Reality TV. I have not gotten into any of them, and I find the very thought of them repulsive.
I subsisted on TV consumption surrounding house remodels and 30 minutes cooking shows. I would occasionally catch an Inside the Actor’s Studio, NOVA, or something on the History Channel if I had an hour to spend watching TV. Child duty and house cleanup due to trying to sell the house limited those hour blocks, but I got by. HGTV and The Food Network became my nightly TV morphine. I had given up on Discovery Channel due to its constant neo-bluecollarism. TLC had let me down with it’s supstandard programming as well. The digital channels have not really helped out much either. TechTV went away and was replaced with g4tv. All the tech information was replaced with digital game information. The Discovery Time Channel became the 911 channel. The Science Channel forgot that science is more than building things really big or astronomy. My only saving grace has been Fox Soccer Channel (much to Wifey’s chagrin).
All the while I have resisted the temptation to get some kind of DVR for the TV. I find the very thought of being able to watch shows when I want to watch them absolutely mesmerizing. There are too many shows out there that I could actually get into. Getting a DVR for me would be like moving in next door to a bar for an alcoholic. It is a slippery slope that I would be treading before I was DVR-ing everything and staying up until 3am every night to catch whatever the Hell I thought I should be watching. I would end up DVR-ing Simpsons and Family Guy and watching the 17 various syndicated versions being re-run on all the myriad of Ted Turner stations.
I saw Heros on Monday night and now I am starting to figure out ways to make sure I am home at 9pm Monday evenings. It was followed by Studio 60 which could end up making Monday night a sit in front if the TV for 2 hours kind of night. Great, just what I needed. I reason to make sure I am home on Monday nights.
To Recap:
I am too lazy to link today
No idea what we are doing for dinner tonight
I need to cancel a gym membership this evening
I need to get a membership to a different gym tomorrow
Wifey and I have figured out an exercise schedule that we can both work with
It involves the potential of me not being home Monday nights at 9
But Heroes is on TV Monday nights at 9…
What to do, what to do…
Have a great weekend
Enter Little Man. I re-prioritized the life. I changed things up. I basically gave up TV for dead. I steeled myself so that I could endure years of Baby Einstein, Noggin, Playhouse Disney, and the Wiggles. I gave up on primetime TV for the ritual of getting my kid to sleep (he is a sleep fighter. It pretty much took all of primetime TV for him to relinquish his purchase on consciousness. Only recently has he determined that going to sleep might not be a bad thing. Operative word there is “might.” He still needs convincing nightly about the wonder that is sleep.) Anyway… I gave up on any TV that any kind of storyline, much less a story arc that spanned multiple episodes. I just did not have the time to follow a story through. Luckily most shows in the past 3 + years have focused almost entirely on Reality TV. I have not gotten into any of them, and I find the very thought of them repulsive.
I subsisted on TV consumption surrounding house remodels and 30 minutes cooking shows. I would occasionally catch an Inside the Actor’s Studio, NOVA, or something on the History Channel if I had an hour to spend watching TV. Child duty and house cleanup due to trying to sell the house limited those hour blocks, but I got by. HGTV and The Food Network became my nightly TV morphine. I had given up on Discovery Channel due to its constant neo-bluecollarism. TLC had let me down with it’s supstandard programming as well. The digital channels have not really helped out much either. TechTV went away and was replaced with g4tv. All the tech information was replaced with digital game information. The Discovery Time Channel became the 911 channel. The Science Channel forgot that science is more than building things really big or astronomy. My only saving grace has been Fox Soccer Channel (much to Wifey’s chagrin).
All the while I have resisted the temptation to get some kind of DVR for the TV. I find the very thought of being able to watch shows when I want to watch them absolutely mesmerizing. There are too many shows out there that I could actually get into. Getting a DVR for me would be like moving in next door to a bar for an alcoholic. It is a slippery slope that I would be treading before I was DVR-ing everything and staying up until 3am every night to catch whatever the Hell I thought I should be watching. I would end up DVR-ing Simpsons and Family Guy and watching the 17 various syndicated versions being re-run on all the myriad of Ted Turner stations.
I saw Heros on Monday night and now I am starting to figure out ways to make sure I am home at 9pm Monday evenings. It was followed by Studio 60 which could end up making Monday night a sit in front if the TV for 2 hours kind of night. Great, just what I needed. I reason to make sure I am home on Monday nights.
To Recap:
I am too lazy to link today
No idea what we are doing for dinner tonight
I need to cancel a gym membership this evening
I need to get a membership to a different gym tomorrow
Wifey and I have figured out an exercise schedule that we can both work with
It involves the potential of me not being home Monday nights at 9
But Heroes is on TV Monday nights at 9…
What to do, what to do…
Have a great weekend
Labels: mad ramblings
6 Comments:
Hey, can we get a DV-R? All our friends are doing it?
You're not the boss of me.... oh wait... nevremind
Hold up... VCRs are obsolete?!
Don't tell my wife. Actually, yeah, tell her and maybe I can finally get the DVR.
tv is the opium of the people!!!
tread carefully, my friend
we have just go a VCR but only because its cheaper than a DVDR
themikestand:
With the advent of digital cable, our poor vcr saw the last of its days. that and we only get DVD's now.
jude:
religion is the opiate of the masses, but since I do not go to mass, I believe you are correct.
peachy:
Nothing against VCR's, and it is relatively cheap to lease a DVR from our cable provider, sooo... it looks like I am attempting to traverse that slippery slope.
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