A sort of disconnected ramble.

[alexandraerin]

A friend of mine is preparing to cut the umbilical cord of cable TV and go all internet, something that I did quite a while ago when I felt like my TV-consuming life was becoming unmanageable. I suppose it helps that I've never been the sort of person who needs (or necessarily wants) for something to be on "in the background" or just to provide movement and noise at the periphery of my consciousness (my consciousness takes care of that for me, happily).

At the same time, on yuki_onna's meditation on why she doesn't watch the Academy Awards (which is insightful in its own right), I stumbled across this gem of a quote from her in a discussion within the comments:

life is short--too short to force myself to watch things on TV that I don't find pleasant

I don't really have much to add to that, except that sometimes it seems like more people could stand to learn this. I'm not talking specifically about people who watch "so bad it's good amusing" fare, but people who watch things that frustrate and disappoint them. Some of the things that I do watch (The Cape) I have pretty low expectations of, but I wouldn't watch it if I didn't enjoy it.

Comments

[katalopolis.livejournal.com]

I agree with this.
Part of why I cut cable out a little while ago was that I realized most of what I used it for when I wasn't blankly watching stuff I didn't really like was for background noise. I function best at home if there is somesort of background noise, talking is best, that I can vaguely pay attention to if I want but ignore and leave in the background if I don't. So I realized that what instilled this need in me is the solution and now I have a cheap radio constantly playing CBC radio 1 at me for free. Works awesome, I am not frustrated by bad TV and I get more done because I am not fixed to one spot.