You may have heard about some of those “strange” people out there that have decided to unplug themselves from the world and disconnect their TV from the satellite cable. But in case you didn’t know, we are indeed one of those “strange” families that doesn’t have their TV hooked up. That doesn’t mean that we’ve gotten rid of our TV. It still sits prominently in the middle of our living room. But instead of having it on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with absolutely nothing relative to add to life, we turn the TV on when we actually want to watch something and the rest of the time it’s just a big dust magnet.
We watch a few select American TV shows that we can’t resist and lots of DVD’s, but there’s no mindless hours of reality TV that sucks you in and turns your brain to mush. The TV doesn’t just run in the background for noise and I think we’re a lot more productive because of that. It’s hard enough for us to draw ourselves away from the Internet—we definitely don’t need further distractions of the TV. I can’t tell you how many afternoons were sat just watching some dumb show on MTV about finding Bret Michaels or Tilla Tequila a date. I mean really, who cares? Am I learning anything? Definitely not. Except that maybe the future of the world is doomed if we assume that the people you see on these shows are something similar to the average American population. That thought actually terrifies me…despite the fact that I know that many of these shows are now completely fake and scripted.
Sorry. Another rant for another day…
Because of one very special event, we have plugged our television back in: the Olympic Games of 2010 in Vancouver. I mean we’re talking about history being made here, incredible athletes breaking world records and even some being injured or killed in their attempt to get the Gold. Unfortunately the latter has already occurred and I had the grim fate of coming across photos of the crash and the victim before he left for the hospital. Why these images needed to be released by Huffington Post, I don’t know. I did NOT go looking for gruesome images of the crash…in fact I was trying to find a lineup of the opening ceremony performers. The curiosity about what really happened just overcame me. I can only hope that the victim’s family and friends do not have to find themselves on that website viewing that media. Shame on the HP for posting that. Just one more reason for me to never find my way back to their website.
Do you have a favorite winter games event? How do you pick just one? I’m not much of a winter sports participant, myself. I don’t really know how to ski or snowboard or any of those things. One of the downfalls of living in the South most of my life. Not that I feel I’ve missed out. I’d much rather vacation on a sunny, warm beach than a mountain hut surrounded by snow any day. 😉 I like ice skating but don’t know any of the skaters anymore. The snowboarders are always awesome. I guess the one event that really gets me interested, though, is curling. I mean those people are SO intense about sweeping the ice and lining up the, um, what the heck is that thing even called that they push across the ice? It’s fantastic and hopefully won’t be on at 4am our time!
The German commentating this year is pretty poor. Sometimes you wonder if they’re even watching the same events. And they started doing profiles of the athletes like they do in America, but by the time I finish watching the profile I’m just wondering how such a dorky person could have made it to the Olympics. Could they make these athletes seem any more lame? I’m sure it’s an attempt to motivate kids to go for Gold even if they come from average backgrounds but yeesh.
How’s your Olympic Games viewing going? Or are you not watching them at all?
I actually just got my satellite dish up and for the first time in my life, I have digital satellite tv. Well, it’s mainly because we could only receive 3 tv stations and 1 radio statio via analog using an antenna in the first place. These stations are being phased out over the next few years and they are substituted by free satellite stations. So now I have 6 tv stations and 5 radio. Mainly I wanted the radio. Actually we don’t really even have a TV, we have a TV tuner on the computer.
So, I did tune in for the opening ceremony of the olympics – but already I’m sick of it and I haven’t had it on since. I mean, is watching others compete in a winter ‘sport’ ( come on, is shooting on skis really a sport?) any better than reality tv? Not to mention that the ‘winter’ olympics are on here when it is summer here in the real ‘south’. Nah, the TV is staying off and being turned on only for the occasional movie and news.
This is the first time our TV is on with the actual live cable stuff in about 2 years and I definitely didn’t miss it. Watching hour upon hour of cross country skiing gets old so fast and the stuff I would want to see is on at about 4 am here…so for the most part the TV will continue to be off. I’m definitely much more productive without the silly thing on. Stayed up until almost 12:30 last night just watching the snowboard cross. Oye.
LOL…One thing I have to say about living in Germany is that I definitely don’t miss TV. I didn’t even watch it in America. But, like you, the Olympics makes me turn it on.
That makes me disappointed that HP would publish those photos – is there nothing sacred or private anymore? Plus it seems really disrespectful to the guy who died (and to his family).
.-= Jen´s last blog ..Lost in Translation =-.
It’s not even been two full weeks since we hooked the cable back up and we’re already sick of it. The TV gets turned on just to see what is on…but lucky for us, the cable we’ve run is less than stable so at the moment we can’t watch any more TV anyway. Can’t say that I’m all that sad about it. And at least we didn’t have to fight ourselves about getting rid of it again. To be honest, I think if it hadn’t been for Stefan’s dad coming to visit (who I think might really have a slight TV addiction), we probably wouldn’t have even hooked up the cable for this long.
As for the video and photos on the HP, I know that gore sells and we are humans seem propelled towards all things graphic, but how does it help any of us to display that kind of thing? We’re not making this a better world by doing so, even if someone else is probably going to do it anyway. They should have used their power for good in this case.