All of this DSL stuff will probably mean we are getting rid of cable, which means, to all intents and purposes, we are getting rid of TV. I confidently assured Andy that we could get bunny ear antennae for the TV and still get Arrested Development and so forth. But we all know that that might or might not be true. I had a TV with bunny ears for a while, and using it involved turning the TV itself as well as the bunny ears this way and that depending on what channel you were trying to get and what kind of weather we were having. It’s a challenge, and it keeps you from taking TV for granted–you get a workout while watching as you continuously adjust the television, your chair, and your position within the room.
The only other time I’ve lived in a place where I had regular access to cable television was my senior year in college, when the lounge TV was controlled by a cabal of females instead of the usual beer-drinking sports-watching males. (The lounge was actually habitable by persons in their normal states of consciousness because it was a substance-free dorm (meaning no drinking or smoking, obviously, not that we were ethereal. The folks in the Bill were the ethereal ones, having stolen actual ether from the bio department for…well, you know what for. Their particular brand of licentiousness was shut down shortly thereafter when the administration changed their dorm to all-female. I shouldn’t be telling this story), hence the upholstery had not been soaked with beer and even less pleasant semi-liquid matter which I don’t want to think about any more, thanks).
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, cable. Our feminine cabal didn’t make particularly good use of it; I remember watching a good bit of a Tammy marathon one Saturday afternoon, for example. But though I’ve watched more than my share of TV over the years, I’ve hardly watched it at all here, for whatever reason. When I turn on the TV now, I can hardly stand the commercials–so many of them, and all so annoying. And the TV shows are not much better. I was reading on a blog the other day about how TV show writers have to “please the red-stater,” meaning they have to dumb down their content so that those mouth-breathing morons in the middle of the country won’t get mad becaue they’re too stupid to understand TV. Too stupid to understand TV…what a sad thought. And as a red-stater, I guess I should hold myself responsible for this unfunny waste of a gazillion dollars a year that would be of more use absolutely anywhere else. But I don’t, of course.
Hang on, how did this turn into a rant? I was talking about TV. I think. What was I talking about? Maybe watching too much TV really does have an affect on one’s attention…span…thingy…hey, a shiny thing!
p.s. Horrors, it looks like I linked you to the wrong “Tammy” earlier. Good thing I took plenty of time to click links on my own blog this afternoon, instead of working on my dissertation proposal that’s due next week. This grievous oversight has now been remedied.
We’re getting rid of cable as well once the baby arrives (although we may spring for the basic package so we can avoid the fiasco with the bunny ears). Considering every show we watch is eventually released on dvd, I can’t see it being much of a change in our lives – except, of course, the benefit of losing commercials.
And what’s up with bashing the tv habits of the red-stater? Television has always been 95% inane, even before the pundits and the media decided that we’re all so divided. Gems like Gilligan’s Island and America’s Funniest Home Videos long pre-dated the so-called Red State/Blue State phenomenon. Stupid tv is an American pastime not limited by geographic and cultural boundaries.