I’m not missing anything
November 30th, 2007I don’t own a t.v. I gave ours away to a fellow blogger about a year ago.
I’m not missing much. None of the Desperate Housewives look pretty to me and I missed Britney’s big comeback. Big deal.
The only thing I watch anyways are the Packers games. It’s nice watching them at a sports bar so I don’t have to hear the sound. I’m tired of hearing about erectile dysfunction, the most recent gas guzzling model that’s causing American car makers to fall further behind the Japanese, and the new wonder drug that allows you to run through the fields and pick flowers but might give you liver disease and anal leakage.
The commercial I really hate is that dumb cholesterol commercial that has the slowly spinning people. That annoys me to no end. Or toenail fungus. If I were running the show, all drug ads, especially toenail fungus, would be off the air. Politicians keep screaming “say no to drugs,” yet how much of America is on some drug that they don’t really need?
One of my co-workers has a serious shopping problem. She gets depressed, then she goes out and spends several hundred dollars on clothes. Then the next day, she gets more depressed because she realizes that’s money she should be using on her retirement. You know why? It’s because television ads do their job. They brainwash the masses into thinking you NEED something that you really don’t.
The news is no better than regular t.v. In fact, it’s worse. You can read a 60-minute news broadcast in five minutes without all the commercials. The news is horribly slanted too. One thing Michael Moore understands is that it really is a safe country we live in, it’s just the sensationalist news has us convinced that it’s dangerous. This sensationalist media is keeping neighbors from trusting other neighbors and further bringing us apart, when we should be together.
I remember when I was younger, we never locked the doors. We had neighbors over all the time, and we were at their houses all the time. Now everyone’s scared of their neighbors. Have neighbors all turned evil within the last thirty years? No, but if you watch too much news, you might think so.
So I’m not missing anything. If I really want to watch a movie, I’ll bring it over to someone’s house with some popcorn. The Packers play at the sports bar. And other than that, well, I’ll pass.
I was ten years old when we got our television. The day I turned the corner and saw men putting up a TV Antenna was the most exciting day of my life. I ran down the hill, plopped in front of our new TV and I’ve pretty much been watching religiously since. I’m ashamed, but that’s just the way it goes. The miracle of television…AhhhhhhhhhhhhhOoooooooooo
so that means you also have no xbox or other such gaming thingy. which is cool. i managed to keep our house free of them until last year when mr lime insisted on getting a wii. i relented since you had to make real throwing motions etc to play the sports games. i regret relenting though, because a lot of games you really can sit down to play….ugh.
btw, if i were a dung beetle i’d be offended by the comparison too…..maybe slime mold?
Granny - My wife is a t.v. junkie. So we do go to the movies a lot.
Lime - I’m all about the Wii. I’d love to have one of those thingies.
Dung beetles are pretty dumb. You can decapitate them and they’ll still walk around for an hour or so, not realizing they lost their head. So I don’t worry too much about offending them.
Talking about packers you should have seen how they had that split up for Televised Tv on Thursday here. If you werent in the yellow you werent seeing it at home. You either had to go to someones house or a bar and watch it. But thankfully GB was in the yellow. I think they fought nicely on thursday. It was a close game after they got Rogers in there. Jeff made a few good points on the game last night. Some peopel said that a couple of the Ref calls werent good. but hey its there call. And they cant take them back a week later.. LOL.. Sorry ranting about the game.
Tweety - Packer talk is always welcome here.
I think the refs blew a few calls. Al Harris obviously stripped the ball from T.O., but they said he didn’t. That one got me really mad.
I’m a tv addict too, Zombieslayer, but it doesn’t mean I like those idiotic commercials. Some of them are great, but more of them are just stupid. Especially the drug ones. What are you supposed to do, march en masse to doctors demanding brand name whatevers?
I understand your colleague’s impulse buys. I have worked myself into serious debt that way. I didn’t know at the time that it’s a symptom of compulsive behaviour (that’s linked to depression/bipolarism). Hope she gets help before it gets too bad. You’re right, it’s part of society’s ‘you’re never good enough’ slogan, usually aimed at women.
Over the years, we’ve perfected our TV watching habits. If there’s nothing on, we turn the damned thing off!
We rarely sit and watch TV, unless we’ve rented movies. We usually listen to a program while we’re doing something else around the house. It makes the work go faster.
My brain always switches to other thoughts during commercials. This drives Z NUTS!
“Mom, did you just see that STUPID commercial?”
Nope.
“But you were sitting right there watching it!”
I didn’t hear a THING.
Beach - Yes, it is mostly aimed at women. Marketing makes a grip of money playing on women’s insecurities. It really is sad, and it is exploiting people like my colleague, who is an otherwise very intelligent woman. She is compulsive though, and it’s a shame they’re so effective at exploiting her insecurities.
I’m not trying to be holier than thou about t.v. watching. There is plenty I’m missing. It’s just commercials drive me crazy, and the news sucks.
Tshsmom - My son does the same thing. It drives him nuts. The marketers not only exploit women, they exploit kids as well. They have it down to a science. I notice my son can’t watch t.v., but as soon as a commercial comes on, he’ll watch the commercial intently. It’s actually pretty disturbing to watch.
Or the boner drug that might give you a boner for over four hours and give you a heart attack and die.
lol, point taken on the dung beetles
i rescind my former objection
TV is only good for sports and a few select shows. I always mute the commercials since most of them are annoying as hell, and the only good ones are the ones with monkeys.
Kate - Good example. That’s another commercial I hate.
Lime -
Skeletorsambora - Monkeys make everything better.
The commercials the drug companies put out are down right creepy with how sunny and bright they can be yet the quickly slide in that you might die from their new wonder drug. And I don’t know whether to laugh or puke over the “Viva Viagra” commercials on the airwaves now. But yeah, TV is a vast wasteland but I continue to good to great stuff, for me, on Discover, Science, and the History channel.
Oh, no argument that Discover, Science, and the History Channel are good channels. If I had a t.v. and cable, I’d watch those channels and mute the commercials.
And yes, those commercials are downright creepy.
Believe me, after spending this weekend channel surfing, you truly aren’t missing anything by not having a TV. The only thing I’ve been looking forward to, and finally arrived last night, was Planet Earth on Discovery channel. I am anticipating the rest of the series on the next few Sundays.
Notta - Planet Earth does look pretty cool. That is one thing I’m missing by not having a t.v.