I threw out the TV
For years I watched very little TV. I watched Saturday morning cartoons and the occasional TV movie, but as a teenager I spent most of my time in my room, listening to music and reading books on philosopy and musicology. My parents would get angry at my disdain for their favorite TV series and demand I that I would sit in the living room and look at what I described as the "idiot box".
I was almost totally indifferent during my college years. My fraternity brothers would grow disturbed at my apathy. They'd ask me what I wanted to watch and I would reply that I didn't care, it was all the same to me, though of course I do fondly remember John Belushi on Saturday Night Live. Does anyone remember the Cone Heads?
Through most of my adult life I didn't even have a TV, and when I did, it was hooked up to VCR so I could watch my favorite action and horror films. When I did have cable I would watch MTV and that was about it.
But since I moved in with my better half, Barbara, about 10 years ago, that has changed. She had three TVs, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one in the bedroom. I naturally began to watch more cable.
But I had this thing about watching too much TV news. I always felt it was too negative. Being a visual medium, they had to hone in on the most spectacular aspects of a story. I really preferred getting my facts from a newspaper, and told Barbara I would prefer not to see more than 15 minutes a day of CNN (Channel of Nasty Negativity).
But our love affair with television began to blossom when we got a 36 inch Sony Trinitron Wega for the living room. Affectionately dubbed "Mr Wega", we began to spend large portions of each evening watching the Travel Channel and Discover. Not too bad a choice, since these are educational programs with a positve slant.
But of course I also like to watch the fights on TV, the UFC, the kickboxing and occasional straight boxing match. And things started to get out of hand when Mr Bravia came into our home.
Barbara wanted a machine that would turn old home videos into DVDs. Not a bad idea, The 19 inch TV in the kitchen, however, was not going to cut it. It was on the way out and really didn't have the proper connections for the DVD recorder.
So for her birthday I dutifully trudged to Circuit City and bought a 32 inch Sony Bravia LCD for the kitchen. And of course I had to get the high definition cables for the recorder and the cable box, plus the HD cable service. It got to be an obsession, setting everything up and adjusting it all for the maximum picture quality.
Now, when you watch standard TV progams on an HD set, they don't tend to look quite right. The picture's a bit blurry because the HD TV requires a high quality signal. The aforementioned Channel of Nasty Negativity didn't look that good, so I wasn't really inclined to watch it, though Barbara was inclined to look at it in the morning anyways.
Then Comcast dropped a bombshell. They started offering that infernal channel in HD. Suddenly I was entranced. I could spend a half hour to an hour in front of Mr Bravia every morning, enjoying the vivid colors and crystal clear pictures (especially from inside their studio).
And found myself starting off the day angry. Watching the senseless idiocy and violence in this country, and for that matter, around the world, is not the most positve way to start the day. I found that anger and frustration permeating more and more of my day as I would continue thinking about the things I'd seen and heard that morning.
So the other day I had an epiphany. I turned on the TV that morning at Barbara's request. She likes to hear it as she walks on the treadmill. I had been watching something on Channel 6 the night before. I found myself watching the Today Show.
Here was a beautiful HD picture without people rioting, politicians acting ignorant, bloodshed, child abuse, or any of that garbage. There were interviews with authors, cooking, outdoor scenes of Manhatten. It was so uplifting. It cast a whole different light on the day.
So did I really threw out the TV? I must confess I couldn't do that. The love of my life would be very upset if I did anything to Mr Bravia or Mr Wega. And I grown to be affectionate of these two myself. But I'm learning to keep more control over what comes on. While she was on the treadmill this morning I had the Today Show on until she finished and came into the kitchen to join me for breakfast. She wanted CNN and she got it. I'm just going to be more judicious in what I choose to watch, which is what I could have done all along. It's not a matter of the television, it's all in the programming. How do I want to program myself today?
I was almost totally indifferent during my college years. My fraternity brothers would grow disturbed at my apathy. They'd ask me what I wanted to watch and I would reply that I didn't care, it was all the same to me, though of course I do fondly remember John Belushi on Saturday Night Live. Does anyone remember the Cone Heads?
Through most of my adult life I didn't even have a TV, and when I did, it was hooked up to VCR so I could watch my favorite action and horror films. When I did have cable I would watch MTV and that was about it.
But since I moved in with my better half, Barbara, about 10 years ago, that has changed. She had three TVs, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one in the bedroom. I naturally began to watch more cable.
But I had this thing about watching too much TV news. I always felt it was too negative. Being a visual medium, they had to hone in on the most spectacular aspects of a story. I really preferred getting my facts from a newspaper, and told Barbara I would prefer not to see more than 15 minutes a day of CNN (Channel of Nasty Negativity).
But our love affair with television began to blossom when we got a 36 inch Sony Trinitron Wega for the living room. Affectionately dubbed "Mr Wega", we began to spend large portions of each evening watching the Travel Channel and Discover. Not too bad a choice, since these are educational programs with a positve slant.
But of course I also like to watch the fights on TV, the UFC, the kickboxing and occasional straight boxing match. And things started to get out of hand when Mr Bravia came into our home.
Barbara wanted a machine that would turn old home videos into DVDs. Not a bad idea, The 19 inch TV in the kitchen, however, was not going to cut it. It was on the way out and really didn't have the proper connections for the DVD recorder.
So for her birthday I dutifully trudged to Circuit City and bought a 32 inch Sony Bravia LCD for the kitchen. And of course I had to get the high definition cables for the recorder and the cable box, plus the HD cable service. It got to be an obsession, setting everything up and adjusting it all for the maximum picture quality.
Now, when you watch standard TV progams on an HD set, they don't tend to look quite right. The picture's a bit blurry because the HD TV requires a high quality signal. The aforementioned Channel of Nasty Negativity didn't look that good, so I wasn't really inclined to watch it, though Barbara was inclined to look at it in the morning anyways.
Then Comcast dropped a bombshell. They started offering that infernal channel in HD. Suddenly I was entranced. I could spend a half hour to an hour in front of Mr Bravia every morning, enjoying the vivid colors and crystal clear pictures (especially from inside their studio).
And found myself starting off the day angry. Watching the senseless idiocy and violence in this country, and for that matter, around the world, is not the most positve way to start the day. I found that anger and frustration permeating more and more of my day as I would continue thinking about the things I'd seen and heard that morning.
So the other day I had an epiphany. I turned on the TV that morning at Barbara's request. She likes to hear it as she walks on the treadmill. I had been watching something on Channel 6 the night before. I found myself watching the Today Show.
Here was a beautiful HD picture without people rioting, politicians acting ignorant, bloodshed, child abuse, or any of that garbage. There were interviews with authors, cooking, outdoor scenes of Manhatten. It was so uplifting. It cast a whole different light on the day.
So did I really threw out the TV? I must confess I couldn't do that. The love of my life would be very upset if I did anything to Mr Bravia or Mr Wega. And I grown to be affectionate of these two myself. But I'm learning to keep more control over what comes on. While she was on the treadmill this morning I had the Today Show on until she finished and came into the kitchen to join me for breakfast. She wanted CNN and she got it. I'm just going to be more judicious in what I choose to watch, which is what I could have done all along. It's not a matter of the television, it's all in the programming. How do I want to program myself today?
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