My dad's dad owned a gas station, so my father grew up working on cars. For him though, cars are not a hobby; he did not keep a clunker in the driveway to tinker on, nor did he drain his own oil. While he is a DIY kind of guy in many other respects, anything beyond a wiper blade replacement went to the shop. And thus, I didn't grow up under the hood of a car. I once expressed regret to my father that I didn't have that experience, to which he said that cars had evolved so much, it probably wouldn't make a difference. The only piece of instruction I ever got from my dad regarding my automobile was to take it into Jiffy Lube every 3,000 to 4,000 miles and join AAA.
Despite my lack of understanding about how my car functions, I thoroughly enjoy Car Talk, a nationally syndicated radio show on NPR hosted by "Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers," also known as Tom and Ray Magliozzi. The zeal with which these brothers diagnose obscure automotive behavior (or sometimes the behavior of the opposite sex) is infectious and I love to listen to them troubleshoot with a series of questions; kids could learn a lot about the scientific method just by listening to these two question their callers.
Tom and Ray are constantly expressing amazement that two blue collar guys could share the same airwaves with other hallowed NPR personalities (a typical station identification break: "And even though Susan Stamberg throws her radio out the window whenever she hears us say it, this is NPR, National Public Radio."). However, these aren't your everyday greasemonkeys.
Both brothers went to MIT. Before joining his older brother in opening a do-it-yourself car shop in Cambridge Massachusetts, Ray had majored in Humanities and Science, volunteered with VISTA (aka AmeriCorps) organizing GED programs, and taught science to kids. Tom got his degree in Chemical Engineering, did some technology consulting, taught at the university level and got an MBA then a Doctorate in Marketing from Boston University. Tom was invited to do a call in show with local mechanics, he invited his brother Ray, one thing led to another, and they had their own show. Car Talk is the most listen went on to win a Peabody in 1992.
While the show is humorous and entertaining, you can tell the guys are smart and want to educate their listeners, especially when it comes to environmentalism. Thus, it was not a surprise to see them in a guest spot with science correspondent Robert Krulwich on PBS's science program NOVA demonstrating the behavior of molecules in fuel cells back in 2005.
The boys make their another "appearance" on PBS this summer, this time in animated form and going purely for yuks with Click and Clack: As the Wrench Turns. I'll be honest, I'm doubtful it will be as successful as, say The Simpsons, or their radio show for that matter, but I wish them the best of luck. Still, I bet it is funnier than CBS's 1995 The George Wendt Show, which was pretty much based on their radio show and lives, but over which they had little to no creative control.
Knowing Ray's background and having seen them on Nova, what I really think these guys should do is a kid's show, like Mr. Wizard or Bill Nye, The Science Guy. We need more evangelizers of science who can present it in a fun and entertaining way and I think they'd be perfect. Robert Krulwich, go team up with them again! Toss in Tod Rosenberg and you've got a hit!
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tv. Show all posts
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
Knowing is Half the Battle
In the late '80s, cartoons were based on toys like Transformers and Thundercats. At about the same time, public service announcement segments starring the characters were tacked on to the end of many shows, such as G.I. Joe (here's an example) and He-Man, warning them not to call 911 as a prank or hide in abandoned refridgerators. It was as if these shows needed to preemptively counteract arguments that it, was inspiring violent play among boys by doing some social good, but the segment had little to do with the story itself
These days, you'll find that that children's cartoons are usually completely devoid of even these tacked-on lessons. They are either arty cartoons on Cartoon Network, or anime based on a card-trading games in which the only virtue being extolled is persistence to become, say, a Pokemon Master and "catch them all" (i.e. the persistence needed to pester your parents for money to buy the latest card deck for your collection).
However, the cartoons put out by Disney are completely geared around lessons. At least, this is what I gather. I was at the gym on a Saturday morning and happened to catch two Disney cartoons on the TVs in front of the treadmill, The Emperor's New School and The Replacements, and both featured a moral.
In The Emperor's New School , boy emperor Kuzco steals a robot to cheat on his science project, but it promptly goes on a rampage. His friend convinces him he has to take responsibility and build a better robot to stop the one he let loose. Moral of the story: don't cheat, take responsibility.
In The Replacements, tomboy Riley wants to be popular and liked by a cute boy so she gets glammed in a full makeover, but only gets attention from the class bully and is pushed into a fountain by the popular girls. The dunk ruins her hair and makeup, but it turns out, the cute boy likes her better without all that. Moral of the story: just be yourself.
The hipster in me thinks this is hopelessly square, but really, I'm glad that there are cartoons that teach lessons in an entertaining way without being completely preachy. While I would personally prefer to watch cartoons with more sophisticated storylines, I say this because I recently read a New York Magazine article by Po Bronson called "Learning to Lie."
This article highlights several studies about how kids learn to fib. In one, kids are given the opportunity to lie in order to get a prize; some do, some don't. Another set of kids are presented with the same scenario but are read one of two stories: The Boy Who Cried Wolf (in which the boy who lies gets eaten by a wolf) or George and the Cherry Tree (the apocryphal story of George Washington confessing to cutting down his father's cherry tree).
Surprisingly, although 75% of people surveyed thought The Boy Who Cried Wolf would be more effective in deterring cheating, in reality, that story increased the rate of lying. On the other hand, the story about George Washington reduced lying by 43 percent. Why? The researchers speculate that kids already know lying can evoke personal punishment, but don't really think about how lying affects their relationships with others, a fact the Washington story highlights. In fact, kids who are threatened with punishment tend to lie better and at an earlier age.
So if kids are watching TV rather than reading Bill Bennett's The Book of Virtues or getting socialized by Mom and Dad at the dinner table, I'm glad they are getting a dose of morals from somewhere. In fact, I hope that the writers of these cartoons are keeping up on the latest in child psychology so they can do it even more effectively. Children's networks like the Disney Channel has a sacred trust with society --we let them keep hawking food and toys during the commercial breaks if they will teach our kids wholesome, white-bread values (though woe to the cartoon on PBS that dares to go beyond white-bread).
Cartoon lessons are even keeping up with the times. In another episode of The Replacements, Riley's brother Todd is addicted to keeping up his social network on "Fleemster", so his parents confiscate his computer. He lies about needing to go to the library to play shuffleboard but instead logs onto the public computers to get his fix. Nothing will convince him to give up his online activities until he stumbles upon a pale, oily figure in the library basement--the mysterious, friendless founder of Fleemster. Moral: turn of the computer.
And on that note--
These days, you'll find that that children's cartoons are usually completely devoid of even these tacked-on lessons. They are either arty cartoons on Cartoon Network, or anime based on a card-trading games in which the only virtue being extolled is persistence to become, say, a Pokemon Master and "catch them all" (i.e. the persistence needed to pester your parents for money to buy the latest card deck for your collection).
However, the cartoons put out by Disney are completely geared around lessons. At least, this is what I gather. I was at the gym on a Saturday morning and happened to catch two Disney cartoons on the TVs in front of the treadmill, The Emperor's New School and The Replacements, and both featured a moral.
In The Emperor's New School , boy emperor Kuzco steals a robot to cheat on his science project, but it promptly goes on a rampage. His friend convinces him he has to take responsibility and build a better robot to stop the one he let loose. Moral of the story: don't cheat, take responsibility.
In The Replacements, tomboy Riley wants to be popular and liked by a cute boy so she gets glammed in a full makeover, but only gets attention from the class bully and is pushed into a fountain by the popular girls. The dunk ruins her hair and makeup, but it turns out, the cute boy likes her better without all that. Moral of the story: just be yourself.
The hipster in me thinks this is hopelessly square, but really, I'm glad that there are cartoons that teach lessons in an entertaining way without being completely preachy. While I would personally prefer to watch cartoons with more sophisticated storylines, I say this because I recently read a New York Magazine article by Po Bronson called "Learning to Lie."
This article highlights several studies about how kids learn to fib. In one, kids are given the opportunity to lie in order to get a prize; some do, some don't. Another set of kids are presented with the same scenario but are read one of two stories: The Boy Who Cried Wolf (in which the boy who lies gets eaten by a wolf) or George and the Cherry Tree (the apocryphal story of George Washington confessing to cutting down his father's cherry tree).
Surprisingly, although 75% of people surveyed thought The Boy Who Cried Wolf would be more effective in deterring cheating, in reality, that story increased the rate of lying. On the other hand, the story about George Washington reduced lying by 43 percent. Why? The researchers speculate that kids already know lying can evoke personal punishment, but don't really think about how lying affects their relationships with others, a fact the Washington story highlights. In fact, kids who are threatened with punishment tend to lie better and at an earlier age.
So if kids are watching TV rather than reading Bill Bennett's The Book of Virtues or getting socialized by Mom and Dad at the dinner table, I'm glad they are getting a dose of morals from somewhere. In fact, I hope that the writers of these cartoons are keeping up on the latest in child psychology so they can do it even more effectively. Children's networks like the Disney Channel has a sacred trust with society --we let them keep hawking food and toys during the commercial breaks if they will teach our kids wholesome, white-bread values (though woe to the cartoon on PBS that dares to go beyond white-bread).
Cartoon lessons are even keeping up with the times. In another episode of The Replacements, Riley's brother Todd is addicted to keeping up his social network on "Fleemster", so his parents confiscate his computer. He lies about needing to go to the library to play shuffleboard but instead logs onto the public computers to get his fix. Nothing will convince him to give up his online activities until he stumbles upon a pale, oily figure in the library basement--the mysterious, friendless founder of Fleemster. Moral: turn of the computer.
And on that note--
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Computer as TV
A long time ago, there was a company called WebTV that produced a box that would let you browse the internet from your TV. They never went anywhere--this was before video and broadband got big and people didn't really want to read on their TV.
My husband used to work at a company that tried to make TV more interactive (Like that knife on that cooking show? buy it here now) but it used a cable box, not the internet. Also went nowhere.
But interactive, nearly-on-demand TV is now here, thanks to video sites and the penetrance of broadband. However, based on the design of sites like Hulu and ABC's own site, the networks are thinking of their streaming video sites as a way to help viewers catch up on missed episodes alone at their desk and view clips. They should think about designing it for a viewer who is sitting 5 to 7 feet away on their couch.
Last Thursday, Lost came back for its midseason premiere, and this is exactly what I attempted to do. Last Friday night, my husband and I put our laptop on an end table across from the couch, hooked it up to the speakers, went to ABC Full Episode Player, and hit play. This actually worked pretty well, except that we had to keep hitting a button to advance beyond the commercials that popped up. This got less annoying when I suggested we hook up our wireless mouse so we could do this from the couch, but even so, was sometimes hard to read the text--fortunately, all I needed to do was click on one button in a consistent location.
Then I watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles from the couch on Hulu. Earlier I commented that Hulu seems to have been built more for embedding videos on websites and blogs than for having users to come to the site itself and view videos.
That might have been a little harsh, but now I have another criti--err, suggestion. I realize that I am far from the average user--most people aren't going to use their computer for communal video watching. So I'm sure the current Hulu design is fine for desktop viewing. However, with large flat screen monitors becoming common, more people without TiVos or other DVRs might start to use their computers like a TV. In this case, sites like Hulu will need to address navigation from afar--perhaps icons and text can get larger when moused over, or users can have a setting when they first login that can change layout for distance viewing.
For instance, when I finished watching Terminator, I wanted to browse other clips. Hulu shows several related clips below the main show, but it was hard to see what they were from where I was sitting. Making the experience better for distance viewers would let Hulu user have an experience similar to TiVo or AppleTV owners, without requiring them to pay extra for a special box.
My husband used to work at a company that tried to make TV more interactive (Like that knife on that cooking show? buy it here now) but it used a cable box, not the internet. Also went nowhere.
But interactive, nearly-on-demand TV is now here, thanks to video sites and the penetrance of broadband. However, based on the design of sites like Hulu and ABC's own site, the networks are thinking of their streaming video sites as a way to help viewers catch up on missed episodes alone at their desk and view clips. They should think about designing it for a viewer who is sitting 5 to 7 feet away on their couch.
Last Thursday, Lost came back for its midseason premiere, and this is exactly what I attempted to do. Last Friday night, my husband and I put our laptop on an end table across from the couch, hooked it up to the speakers, went to ABC Full Episode Player, and hit play. This actually worked pretty well, except that we had to keep hitting a button to advance beyond the commercials that popped up. This got less annoying when I suggested we hook up our wireless mouse so we could do this from the couch, but even so, was sometimes hard to read the text--fortunately, all I needed to do was click on one button in a consistent location.
Then I watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles from the couch on Hulu. Earlier I commented that Hulu seems to have been built more for embedding videos on websites and blogs than for having users to come to the site itself and view videos.
That might have been a little harsh, but now I have another criti--err, suggestion. I realize that I am far from the average user--most people aren't going to use their computer for communal video watching. So I'm sure the current Hulu design is fine for desktop viewing. However, with large flat screen monitors becoming common, more people without TiVos or other DVRs might start to use their computers like a TV. In this case, sites like Hulu will need to address navigation from afar--perhaps icons and text can get larger when moused over, or users can have a setting when they first login that can change layout for distance viewing.
For instance, when I finished watching Terminator, I wanted to browse other clips. Hulu shows several related clips below the main show, but it was hard to see what they were from where I was sitting. Making the experience better for distance viewers would let Hulu user have an experience similar to TiVo or AppleTV owners, without requiring them to pay extra for a special box.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Taking a break from all your worries
A friend of mine from college told me he had stage four melanoma and his doctors had given him four months to live. This was about 16 months ago. He had melanoma about 10 years ago and his doctors removed it before it spread. But after finishing law school, getting married, and having two kids, it had come back. The goal with stage four cancer was not cure, but extension of life.
A few years ago, I became more aware of the finite length of my lifetime and that I might be halfway to a third of the way through it; I think this realization must come to everyone in their thirties. I won't say that I radically changed my life at that point and started living it to the fullest. But I did question the use of my time and I suppose TV was one of those things I questioned.
So my friend's news hit me like a Mack truck, and when he called me, I took the rest of the day off and cried. It's one thing to realize you have another 40 to 60 years left on this earth, quite another to realize that at such a young age, you might have months, maybe a year to live. I couldn't imagine what he was going through. Mostly I cried for his wife and kids, because it's not the natural order of things to to have to raise two children on your own or to have a father taken away so soon. And after the tears dried, I did wonder, what I would do if I only had a year left in my life?
A few weeks after my friend shared his news, I heard commentator Leroy Sievers on NPR talking about living with cancer. He keeps a blog at NPR.org called My Cancer. I would look in on Leroy's blog occasionally as a way to relate to what my friend might be going through. Leroy's ups and downs seemed to follow my friend's. While the treatment made them nauseous and tired last summer and fall, they did shrink the tumors. I had a few dinners with my friend and his family last spring and summer. He still had his hair and the treatments were keeping the cancer in check. He even went on an Alaskan cruise with his wife last summer. Things were looking up.
But the tumors have spread recently, in both Leroy and my friend. Leroy continues to unsentimentally document his thought and treatment. I get emails from my friend's wife about once a month--it was in January, just a few weeks ago, when she shared the bad news that the tumors had spread to his brain after some promising results before Christmas.
You watch the movies about people with cancer or terminal illness and the characters are either having passionate affairs (Dying Young, A Walk to Remember, Sweet November) or cramming all the things they've always wanted to do into their last days (The Bucket List). So I have always thought that someone who had been given a few months to live would not want to spend that time watching TV.
But I don't think it's as cut and dried. This last fall I visited my friend while he was undergoing chemo (one week in, two weeks out, repeat). When I walked into his room, he was watching the news or some random daytime TV. He had shaved his head because it had started to get patchy and was shirtless because the drugs were messing with his body's ability to regulate his temperature. He said it got lonely during chemo. While his family he been flying into town as much as they could, he didn't have visitors or family around all the time. His kids couldn't visit the ward he was in and his wife had to watch them and frankly, he wouldn't want them seeing him like this anyway. He couldn't read books because one of his drugs made him lose his memory and he would lose his place. I suppose in those circumstances, TV was perfect for his attention span, a non-judgmental companion that could keep him company and distract him from the impending chills and sickness that came every night.
Thinking back on that visit, I shouldn't have been surprised to read in Leroy's blog on Wednesday that even cancer patients could really use some quality television, especially when he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep. With the writer's strike, he refuses to watch American Gladiators and was totally psyched to watch the mid-season premiere of Lost last night (which I watched online last night).
So I guess this is why I'm not totally giving up on TV shows, even though I'm giving up TV. There are shows that are basically engineered as commercial delivery systems, completely addictive with little nutritional value. But there are also shows where you feel like the writers have something interesting to say, shows that make you forget your worries, get you out of your head, and totally transport you, if only for a while. And everyone needs to take a break from their life now and then, even those that have less of that life to live.
A few years ago, I became more aware of the finite length of my lifetime and that I might be halfway to a third of the way through it; I think this realization must come to everyone in their thirties. I won't say that I radically changed my life at that point and started living it to the fullest. But I did question the use of my time and I suppose TV was one of those things I questioned.
So my friend's news hit me like a Mack truck, and when he called me, I took the rest of the day off and cried. It's one thing to realize you have another 40 to 60 years left on this earth, quite another to realize that at such a young age, you might have months, maybe a year to live. I couldn't imagine what he was going through. Mostly I cried for his wife and kids, because it's not the natural order of things to to have to raise two children on your own or to have a father taken away so soon. And after the tears dried, I did wonder, what I would do if I only had a year left in my life?
A few weeks after my friend shared his news, I heard commentator Leroy Sievers on NPR talking about living with cancer. He keeps a blog at NPR.org called My Cancer. I would look in on Leroy's blog occasionally as a way to relate to what my friend might be going through. Leroy's ups and downs seemed to follow my friend's. While the treatment made them nauseous and tired last summer and fall, they did shrink the tumors. I had a few dinners with my friend and his family last spring and summer. He still had his hair and the treatments were keeping the cancer in check. He even went on an Alaskan cruise with his wife last summer. Things were looking up.
But the tumors have spread recently, in both Leroy and my friend. Leroy continues to unsentimentally document his thought and treatment. I get emails from my friend's wife about once a month--it was in January, just a few weeks ago, when she shared the bad news that the tumors had spread to his brain after some promising results before Christmas.
You watch the movies about people with cancer or terminal illness and the characters are either having passionate affairs (Dying Young, A Walk to Remember, Sweet November) or cramming all the things they've always wanted to do into their last days (The Bucket List). So I have always thought that someone who had been given a few months to live would not want to spend that time watching TV.
But I don't think it's as cut and dried. This last fall I visited my friend while he was undergoing chemo (one week in, two weeks out, repeat). When I walked into his room, he was watching the news or some random daytime TV. He had shaved his head because it had started to get patchy and was shirtless because the drugs were messing with his body's ability to regulate his temperature. He said it got lonely during chemo. While his family he been flying into town as much as they could, he didn't have visitors or family around all the time. His kids couldn't visit the ward he was in and his wife had to watch them and frankly, he wouldn't want them seeing him like this anyway. He couldn't read books because one of his drugs made him lose his memory and he would lose his place. I suppose in those circumstances, TV was perfect for his attention span, a non-judgmental companion that could keep him company and distract him from the impending chills and sickness that came every night.
Thinking back on that visit, I shouldn't have been surprised to read in Leroy's blog on Wednesday that even cancer patients could really use some quality television, especially when he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't sleep. With the writer's strike, he refuses to watch American Gladiators and was totally psyched to watch the mid-season premiere of Lost last night (which I watched online last night).
So I guess this is why I'm not totally giving up on TV shows, even though I'm giving up TV. There are shows that are basically engineered as commercial delivery systems, completely addictive with little nutritional value. But there are also shows where you feel like the writers have something interesting to say, shows that make you forget your worries, get you out of your head, and totally transport you, if only for a while. And everyone needs to take a break from their life now and then, even those that have less of that life to live.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
TV Withdrawl Kicking In
I want to watch TV. I have been working and feel I need to continue to do so tonight, but I need a break. This is the first real craving this week that wasn't merely tied to simply something to do while eating dinner. For 30+ years, my relaxation routine was to come home after work or school and completely veg out for 30 minutes to two hours, then maybe go back to work. Aah, sweet, sweet mind-numbing TV!
I am wondering if I can train myself to relax without TV. Yesterday, for instance, I went to the gym at night for the first time in a year. I don't know that I'll do that on a regular basis--I prefer to go in the morning because I have to wash and dry my hair anyway--but it may be one alternative.
Reading is another. I grew up an avid reader. Stopped reading novels in college, when all the required reading stomped that out. For all the flack I give my husband about reading the internet all the time, he does also read novels and non-fiction books, which somehow feels more like whole-grain and less like candy. He has a pile going by the bed of about four books simultaneously. I tend to read magazines, but the three to four books I read in a year (that sounds sad to me) are hand me downs--I just have to fish down by the side of the bed and pick something up.
But I am reading something now he didn't buy--Eat, Pray, Love. It was left here by his visiting sister and it is definitely a chick book, but more weighty than chick-lit. The premise: successful but recently divorced playwright Elizabeth Gilbert feels empty and depressed despite outward appearance of having it all and decides to live abroad for a year in Italy, India, and Indonesia. Italy is where she wants to "Eat," both in the literal as well as the broader sense of experiencing pure, sensual pleasure and enjoyment.
She wrote something that spoke to me when I read it last night--I shared it with my husband and now I share it with you, because it relates to this feeling I'm having:
I am wondering if I can train myself to relax without TV. Yesterday, for instance, I went to the gym at night for the first time in a year. I don't know that I'll do that on a regular basis--I prefer to go in the morning because I have to wash and dry my hair anyway--but it may be one alternative.
Reading is another. I grew up an avid reader. Stopped reading novels in college, when all the required reading stomped that out. For all the flack I give my husband about reading the internet all the time, he does also read novels and non-fiction books, which somehow feels more like whole-grain and less like candy. He has a pile going by the bed of about four books simultaneously. I tend to read magazines, but the three to four books I read in a year (that sounds sad to me) are hand me downs--I just have to fish down by the side of the bed and pick something up.
But I am reading something now he didn't buy--Eat, Pray, Love. It was left here by his visiting sister and it is definitely a chick book, but more weighty than chick-lit. The premise: successful but recently divorced playwright Elizabeth Gilbert feels empty and depressed despite outward appearance of having it all and decides to live abroad for a year in Italy, India, and Indonesia. Italy is where she wants to "Eat," both in the literal as well as the broader sense of experiencing pure, sensual pleasure and enjoyment.
She wrote something that spoke to me when I read it last night--I shared it with my husband and now I share it with you, because it relates to this feeling I'm having:
Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that's not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today...many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes. Of course we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure). Americans don't really know how to do nothing.There is a lot to think about there, and I'd love to unpack why that resonated with me (the nature of leisure, the inability to just be) in a future post. But frankly, I am tired. While this blog keeps me occupied, it doesn't help me escape from my own thoughts, which is, to be honest, what I really want at this moment. YouTube, here I come!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
No More Nights on the Couch Together?
My husband and I used to watch TV together. We had our shows. There was Survivor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Sopranos, Sex in the City, Battlestar Galactica, Grey's Anatomy. There were a few he watched on his own, like The Wire or Rescue Me.
My husband no longer watches TV. There were two turning points for him.
1) He just got too busy with school in 2007. First, he started prioritizing his shows. Eventually, even his favorites fell away--he didn't even have time to catch up on Battlestar Galactica, Lost or Heroes when they were recorded on TiVo. I would call out and say I was watching it and he'd say go on without me. Then, he just fell too behind to catch up and I'd either fill him in, or pause it when he walked in the room so he could enjoy it on DVD if he chose to catch up later. At most, he'd watch The Colbert Report, My Name is Earl, or The Office--nothing with a long story arc.
2) He started using Google Reader to review any and every blog and RSS feed in the world (morning ritual) and found an abundance of online games (nighttime ritual--I can hear him now). The Internet is his god now.
He would often put down my TV habit, because the internet was so much more active and engaging. Perhaps, but I would say, no less addictive. He cannot go a day without it.
He has more time now that school is over, but we will not be watching TV shows together in the forseeable future--he has no interest in anything but the internet, and I have forsworn TV. The best we might do is, per my new rules, rent or buy shows for our computers or DVD. More likely, though, on any given night we will be sitting at our mutual laptops, typing away. At least we can bring our laptops into the same room.
Speaking of Google Reader, I learned this morning that my husband now subscribes to my blog. So honey, I am thinking we ought to establish one internet-free night a week, what do you say?
My husband no longer watches TV. There were two turning points for him.
1) He just got too busy with school in 2007. First, he started prioritizing his shows. Eventually, even his favorites fell away--he didn't even have time to catch up on Battlestar Galactica, Lost or Heroes when they were recorded on TiVo. I would call out and say I was watching it and he'd say go on without me. Then, he just fell too behind to catch up and I'd either fill him in, or pause it when he walked in the room so he could enjoy it on DVD if he chose to catch up later. At most, he'd watch The Colbert Report, My Name is Earl, or The Office--nothing with a long story arc.
2) He started using Google Reader to review any and every blog and RSS feed in the world (morning ritual) and found an abundance of online games (nighttime ritual--I can hear him now). The Internet is his god now.
He would often put down my TV habit, because the internet was so much more active and engaging. Perhaps, but I would say, no less addictive. He cannot go a day without it.
He has more time now that school is over, but we will not be watching TV shows together in the forseeable future--he has no interest in anything but the internet, and I have forsworn TV. The best we might do is, per my new rules, rent or buy shows for our computers or DVD. More likely, though, on any given night we will be sitting at our mutual laptops, typing away. At least we can bring our laptops into the same room.
Speaking of Google Reader, I learned this morning that my husband now subscribes to my blog. So honey, I am thinking we ought to establish one internet-free night a week, what do you say?
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Breakthroughs
It took three nights but for the first time since quitting TV, I did not go for the remote upon sitting down for dinner. I ate and read a magazine. Granted, that magazine was Entertainment Weekly, but it's progress, right?
Why did this issue make it into the shopping cart today among the chicken and yogurt? Because it was all about the mid-season premieres of some of my favorite shows...that I will not be able to watch on TV anymore. Does that mean I can't watch the shows? Hopefully not. I'll be looking for ways to watch Lost and Battlestar Galactica online--legally. Thank goodness for iTunes and the upcoming Hulu, assuming they are going to be carrying these shows--I've got some research to do before January 31.
About that writers strike, I thought this article on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's return to the air without writers from Salon was an interesting take on how shows will fair without writers (hint: the host with the improv background did a lot better).
Why did this issue make it into the shopping cart today among the chicken and yogurt? Because it was all about the mid-season premieres of some of my favorite shows...that I will not be able to watch on TV anymore. Does that mean I can't watch the shows? Hopefully not. I'll be looking for ways to watch Lost and Battlestar Galactica online--legally. Thank goodness for iTunes and the upcoming Hulu, assuming they are going to be carrying these shows--I've got some research to do before January 31.
About that writers strike, I thought this article on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's return to the air without writers from Salon was an interesting take on how shows will fair without writers (hint: the host with the improv background did a lot better).
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Other ways of procrastinating
I’ve always wanted to start a blog, but didn’t know what I should write about. My more lofty ideas (writing on education, new media, the environment, etc.) seemed like they’d just be a lot of work.
I’ve also wanted to quit TV but never had the guts to pull the trigger on that resolution. There was always some good reason to keep the cable hooked up (Buffy, Battlestar Galactica).
But in the midst of the writer’s strike, I found myself looking forward to the new American Gladiators. Big red flag.
So hey, I didn’t intend to disavow TV and start a blog as a New Year’s resolution —it’s just a coincidence! My blog is called "stead of" because maybe this is what I’ll do instead of watching TV. Also, I couldn’t think of just one thing to write about, and “things that are not TV” is a pretty broad category, so I'm not limited in the number of topics I could write about.
Ironically, I may find myself writing about my relationship to TV, watching YouTube as a substitute for TV, or spending as much time procrastinating online as I ever did watching TV. Cut me some slack, I’m a life-long addict!
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