Life Without T.V.
 

We had some of our stuff shipped to Boston from Monterey about 2 weeks ago. Our friends left for Boston early and took some of our stuff with them. One vital thing that went with them was our television set (the DVD, PS2, VHS went also).

So, I've been without a T.V. for 2 weeks and I'm okay, you know?

It is a little weird to be eating dinner in front of the computer or while listening to NPR on the radio, but it's not that bad! :)

There weren't many T.V. shows that we were attached to, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

I'm not big on T.V. media, so I don't miss that. I do miss parts of PBS.

I've always admired my friends who live in Carmel who have 2 kids (teenagers) and they don't have a T.V. at all. Their kids actually read books and do their homework.

We go to the movies more often and I have started writing again, so there are upsides. Not to mention that I don't feel stressed and innundated by the T.V. news any more.

I can't say that I've been more productive or anything, but I think I like being without.


So, could you be without T.V.?

I'm currently without TV also. Phil leaves for the UK in 4 weeks, and we're currently selling a lot of our stuff. The enormous TV was sold at the weekend. It's fine without it. I'm not home a lot in the evenings, and when I am I listen to music now. Last night was a different story though. On Wednesdays here in NZ the new season of Simpsons, Scrubs and Lost are all on TV. We headed for a friend's place to eat pizza and watch telly - good times:)

Could I? Sure. We've actually gone through long stretches where we barely watch TV. But, especially now that we have a DVR, I think I've gotten to a point where I fit TV watching into my life, rather than planning my life arond TV watching.

The only thing I think I'd really miss is watching sports.

Yes. I seldom watch t.v. anymore- I get my news and entertainment from the computer and reading. Nothing on that really interests me, and if it's a movie I really want to check out, I generally see it in the theaters.

I rarely use the TV for anything beyond DVD viewing. On RARE occasions, I will turn it on and skim through the chanels. There are 3 other occasions where I have the TV on quite a bit - During the Tour de France, and the Winter and (less so) Summer Olympics. I don't watch any regular TV shows any longer and I think the last "mini-series" I watched was "Angels in America". My TV is a glorified screen.

No TV for me either...with AP testing just over and finals just around the corner, I don't have any time. I get all my news from Time and Google News. (I'm probably the only kid in school with a Time subscription :D )

Hmm. I don't know about anybody else but I loves the TV. I do! Law & Order, Arrested Development, Survivor, Columbo re-runs and The Simpsons. All part & parcel for The Good Life.

Uvagirl - Are you moving to the UK?

I definitely use my TV as a glorified screen for my DVDs, I love my old movies. In fact, I do miss TCM and the Fox Movie Channel. I miss 'The Simpsons' and I missed the last 'Everybody Loves Raymond' but not too badly.
It's hard to explain.

Yeah, and sports... uh, hmm... I hear that's fun to watch... ;) :D

There was a time when my family was practicing Orthodox Judaism and we had an electricity-free Sabbath (Fri night through Sat night). No TV, no music even. We played board games, card games, read books, took naps. It's one of those things where when you're involved in a community that does it, it isn't that hard, and you get to enjoy it. Saturdays were always so quiet.

I'd rather do whatever the hell I want though. :D

In any case, I don't watch much TV, and when I do it's on my own terms. As a kid I was a TV junkie. Of course now I'm an internet junkie instead...

Hear Hear! - I grew up in front of a TV set and now I rarely turn ours on. This is my third day in Philly, and I haven't once turned on the TV in the room. On the other hand here I am posting and I haven't even had breakfest yet.

Exactly! In our day and age, (and among a group such as ourselves) a better question would be, can you live without the net?

True that. But I know a lot of people in my generation who were latch-key kids baby sat by Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street and the Electric Company. I know I was. I was also baby sat by Martha Quinn when MTV first started. :D

My TV watching went WAY down after getting Tivo. Since I can now record whatever I want whenever it airs, I find there's just not really that much that I WANT to watch. I may watch an hour or so a day, a little more on the weekends.

we have the most basic of basic cable packages now, and a $2500 TV... something dosent add up here....



but honestly, we dont watch TV, really at all, we watch our netflix, and thats about it. The TV was more of a practical "fit in our space" purchase....

mhrc4,
What movie is that playing on the screen? Nutty Professor 2? A Time to Kill? Color Purple? I don't think it's CP...

Ladykillers?

(I love guessing games)

DOOD, you need carpeting

Ooh, that could be it.

I was also hoping the picture could have been a streaming video instead. You know, me without a TV and all...
:D

:raises hand: latch key kid, right here. I remember coming home every day, calling my mom to let know I was home, wandering thru the cupboard for snacks, fighting with my sister and settling in on the couch for the afternoon cartoon fix. Flinstones and Jetsons anyone? The best days were when Little House on the Prairie came on at 5.

I stopped really paying attention to the telly about a year ago. There are three shows that I try to catch regularly (CSI, Lost and Extreme Makover:Home Edition) but if I miss em it's not a big loss. The internet is now my babysitter. I just moved and won't have the DSL hooked up at home until next week. It's torture!


Edited to add: that chair looks really comfy!

Kels,
Love LHotP! I have Seasons 1-5 on DVD. :)

I think what I need is a Tivo set up. Then I can control when I watch what. I would love that.
:)

Yes, yes you would. DVR is the only way to go.

Two summers ago (the very summer I met EH, actually) I turned the cable off for three months. It was, strictly speaking, the most interesting and productive summer of my life. I spent a lot of time outside and with friends and neighbors. I read. I wrote. It was swell. Then I had company visiting who complained, so I had it turned back on. And I got sucked back into turning it on when I got home. I don't like it quiet if I'm alone.

Once I moved in with a roommate, I went back to TV-as-rarity. It's nice. I seek out Everwood, stumble upon an occasional Simpsons episode, and watch HBO on Demand if I feel inclined. Really, though, I lack the time to watch more than a little bit. If I'm away from work, I'm catching up on the Internet, I'm writing, I'm doing chores or cooking, I'm talking to Audra or Tom or watching movies with them, or I'm sleeping. Or I'm out doing something interesting and participatory. I guess my life has moved more towards the participatory than the voyeuristic in the last year, and that suits me just fine.

I was trying really hard to resist saying that I was being more productive. (I was lambasted on another board for somehow implying that people who watch TV are unproductive and wasting their lives. I have no idea how it got miscontrued...but oh well... Ugh.) But now that I look back on these two weeks, I guess I am more productive. I mean, I haven't written stuff on my own for awhile now and I have been because of the no TV thing. I also have been experimenting with Photoshop just for fun.. I like being w/o.

If I didn't have TV, what would I hook my TiVo up to?

And for me, anyway, I got to say, the Internet kills my productivity way more than TV ever has.

Viva TV!

Good Point. :snap:

No, not at this stage. I'm going to stay here and have some time to myself, see how life treats me, etc etc. Part of me is looking forward to it, part of me is terrified. Derail over - sorry...

I was going to remind everybody that Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed to-nights episode of CSI but apparently nobody on this board watches TV! Howaboutthat. Huh. I'll be damned. Just me, I guess.

Sweet Television. You'll never abandon me, will you, TV?

Shhh, do not answer my love. Of course you will not.

Sweet, precious TV.


Click here to see secret bonus words!

Kels love CSI too. Great episode. Of course I didn't turn on the TV until 9 thinking it would be on at it's regular time. Nope, it started at 8. Doh! Me thinks miss Kelly will be returning in a few years. :snap:

This is me too BIG TIME!

I don't watch as much tv anymore though. I had "my shows" like 5 nights out of 7 last year and this year my only "can't miss" shows are Desperate Housewives and Extreme HomeMakeover(but that's more of a "mom & Kyler thing")

Yeah, me too. The internet kills waaaay more of my time than the TV. I made a rule a few years back that I wouldn't turn the TV on during the day. I used to watch Rosie and Oprah and all that crap. Once I got out of the habit, I don't miss it at all.

When my husband and I travel, we never turn on the TV except for SportsCenter (him) and maybe the Weather Channel (me). When I realize that SportsCenter is on it's third loop, the TV gets turned off.

I do like the TV to put me to sleep at night when I'm at home, though. It works wonders. I also enjoy watching the Food Network and A & E, so I would miss that too.

We don't really "watch" much tv at all. Sometimes, we will keep CNN on in the background while we are on the computers. Really, the only shows that we watch on a regular basis are Survivor, Penn and Teller's Bullsh*t, and Good Eats w/ Alton Brown. Oh, and the occasional baseball or basketball game.

So, I actually turned on my TV last night to kill some time before going to the airport and to avoid housework. I watched The Daily Show then turned the channel to watch Starsky and Hutch (the movie). (Can you see why I don't turn the damn TV on?)

when I was growing up, we were only allowed to watch one show a week. And we weren't allowed to watch the Electric Company, because my mother didn't approve of a show that started out with people yelling at the audience; it must be vulgar. (My mom finally went back to work when I was in high school and exposure to reality fixed her up.)

Now I have the telly on most of the time when I'm awake. It's just there. I'm not good with silence and I don't have a stereo.

I've never understood using the TV as background noise. I can't help but pay attention to it. It distracts me. If it's something good, I end up sitting and watching it - if it's something bad, I can't feel happy until I've turned it off.

Music, on the other hand, I love having on as background, and it helps me do chores. It usually has to be non-radio though because commercials irk me, especially when you listen for extended periods and hear the same ones over and over.

I'm exactly the opposite. Teevee is like white noise to me and music makes me sing along or dance.

TV is definitely white noise to me. If I'm home, the TV is on (I even have it on when I'm asleep at lot.)

LOVE Good Eats!! :D :D :D Alton Brown is da man!

Sounds a little like my house, MBC, except I don't like it when the news is running in the background. Whenever that's been the case, at least one of us is in a sour mood, or sometimes all of us. If it's comedy central, we're all happy, but lazy. To be honest, stuff like having any of those home improvement shows running, or Bravo, or something like that - Keeps us moving around the house.

I pretty much don't watch much any more, and even what I watch isn't being watched, it's sitting in my TiVo.... I like Deadwood, Good Eats & What Not To Wear, though I had to stop recording WNTW, because I couldn't get around to them fast enough, and half the time, if I'm sitting down flipping through the channels, I can catch it. Deadwood I'm backed up on, and Good Eats is easy to watch because it's interesting, but not so interesting that it takes any sort of brainpower to watch. I also loved Enterprise.

Aside from the Home-channels, I like it when History channel or Biography (or anything like that) is on, except that we become trance-like and the day goes by a little too fast.

Life without TV, I could do...

But life without music isn't life at all...