July 20, 2006

• I loved America's Next Top Model!!!...when I had tv.... /happily part of the problem
• I used to have broadcast TV on all the time in the 1980s. Gradually it's been reduced to "not at all", except maybe for a Saturday Night Live show. It was never a decision of "I'm pulling the plug"... it's just that there's been less and less stuff that interests me, and broadcasters seem to have finally mastered "lowest common denominator" programming. American Idol and Survivor interests me as much as watching paint dry. And hell no, I won't be getting any big-screen plasma TV anytime soon. If we really want the cinema experience we just break out the video projector from my office out back and hook up the stereo and have a fun night.
• I am ever more grateful that I never watch television.
• Stop pestering me about statistics. I'm trying to watch Project Runway!
• Is that about an airport?
• No Lost reruns tonight. I'm sick and laid up, and I honestly had no idea what to do with myself until Project Runway came on. I have Kurosawa's Ran out of the library, but I'm not really sure I can concentrate on the subtitles. (I was reading a book earlier and not doing too well with it.) Seriously, ABC's slamming all their regular (rerun) programming in favor of yet another music-based reality series, and letting said reality series take over their entire schedule for days in a row, seems like a bad move to me. You abjure the viewers who have no interest in it. They badly want to draw American Idol viewers and compete with Rock Star, but all the constant introduction of mirror-image reality shows does is saturate the market.
• I think it's about people fleeing from their television. Oh, that's Project Runaway. *puts TV in paper bag on Quid's porch, sets it on fire, rings doorbell, runs
• *opens door* Wow, free outdoor cinema! And they're showing Backdraft.
• And yet my cable company has no trouble charging me an arm and a leg for several hundred channels' worth of unwatchable crap....and I just keep paying the frigging bill!
• We dropped everything above channel 24 sometime around November. Mr Cobalt and I figured, hey, if all we're using the TV for is to watch House and CSI, (and rented movies) we don't need any of those fancy upper level channels. And now that it's summer and everything's in repeat...honestly, I don't know if we've turned on the TV in over a week.
• Thanks, quid! Nice one. My VCR is getting quite a workout these days -- if there's nothing on PBS (which is now deep into reruns, too), or a new Big Brother (yeah yeah) in goes some Hollywood schlock picked up from the bargain bin at the Superstore for two bucks. Ever since my local cheapie cinema shut down, I haven't been getting my fill of blockbusters-and-nots. Ten bucks to see "A Guy Thing"? No. A deuce? Sure. Not to mention those 10 DVD packs of old old Hitchcock or Sonny Chiba, for like, five bucks. Much better watching than the Americanization of George Strombolopoulos.
• And yet my cable company has no trouble charging me an arm and a leg for several hundred channels' worth of unwatchable crap What? You don't suck the marrow from the seventeen golf channels, nor luxuriate in the nineteen music channels that used to show videos only, but became slowly saturated with retarded-but-trendy variety shows? Personally, I can't live without the Dirt Clod Channel.
• We dropped everything above channel 24 sometime around November. See, I am in the opposite bind. I rarely watch anything below channel 24. (right now I'm watching channel 403! Watching Floyd Landis make an amazing comback after everyone including me wrote him off yesterday. USA! USA! USA!) I watch a lot of tv, but damn, I can't stand cop/lawyer/doctor shows. I like reality shows, but this crap is just talent shows. I don't care if you can dance and I don't want to hear self-important kids sing songs I never liked in the first place. I think Lost is the only network TV I watch. Lots of TLC and Discovery and Scifi and wrestling.
• I get two channels up here. One is the CSI channel and the other is in French, which I don't speak. Not that it matters, the French channel only has softcore porn at night and who cares about the dialogue? Not that I watch it. Because that would be wrong.
• Dude, it's in French. That means it's ART!
• What better way to LEARN French than by watching Francophone softcore? Oh, Gaston, j'aime beaucoup le double entendre. Ah oui, oui, OUIIIIIIII!
• there is a CSI channel????? /calls dish network to re-activate the satelliite!
• I think you're making the case that watching tv isn't part of a programmed culture.
• You may or may not be glad to know that you're not alone in your misery. Norwegian commercial channels are buying these concepts and sometimes even showing the American versions. If I didn't still have the NRK, SVT and BBC, my tv would be history.
• Where's "up here"? Goat-on-a-poleville?
• Is this the sort of thing that you would have to not watch tv to understand?
• No, you'd have to watch tv to not understand.
• It is probably worth noting that Channel 24 is the heretofore unknown (at least to me and 'Mr' Cobalt) OTB horse race results channel. We also appear to be getting the Falun Gong show on the cable access. So yeah, the computer's my brainsucky machine of choice these days.
• Kurosawa ran out of the library? Hope he didn't have any books in his knapsack.
• They can say its the holiday, but its still the networks problem. Better programming would compete with being outside, dinner parties, hiking, biking, softball, etc. Wait? Why would anyone *want* to compete with that. To hell with the networks.
• being outside, dinner parties, hiking, biking, softball, etc. What? And miss Gilligan those strange NHK shows with wacky animation?
• Flag, you've hit on one of my fav movie quotes of all time. Thank you.
• Wait, soon it will will be anti-patriotic to NOT watch television. The government must be getting very worried at the statistics. Just as the establishment has wiped out the last facets of truth from the medium, we've turned away from it. Which brings us to confront the stark realities of losing "net-neutrality" and letting the carriers, read "corporations", and our government regulate/decide what internet traffic gets through.
• I'm already anti-patriotic. When they come to take away the internets, we'll start stringing our own community networks, and when that doesn't work, we'll switch to tin cans and string.
• Watching TV has nothing to do with oil. Therefore, it has nothing to do with patriotism.
• We'll throw tin cans at our overlords and string them up?
• ASCII pr0n is bad enough.
• ASCII pr0n is never bad. It's just not all that terrific.
• Medusa:not exactly. Its just a channel that has CSI on six nights a week.
• afaik every channel has CSI on six nights a week
• I cannot stand the Law and Order and CSI progams, mainly for ethical and philosophical reasons. If you pay attention to those shows you'll notice that civil rights are routinely and caviliarly violated on those shows. Anytime you see someone on one of those shows ask for a lawyer or to see a warrant or otherwise stand up for their rights you can be sure that person will turn out to be the guilty party by the end of the show. Oooohhh, how subtle, civil rights are only for the guilty. Then there's the way CSI portrays it female characters. Marge Helgenberger is awfully easy on the eyes but I gaurantee you that no crime scene tech in the real world goes to crime scenes in low cut blouses, skin tight jeans, etc. Not to mention the fact that real crime scene techs do not interrogate suspects. For a much better view of how it works in the real world watch DaVinci's Inquest. And yes I know that it's a Canadian show but I like it anyway. The only shows worth watching on the broadcast networks are 24 and Prison Break. Do not get me started, I repeat, DO NO GET ME STARTED, on how much Lost really really really realllllllly SUCKS! The best shows are on the cable networks now. The Shield, Rescue Me, Battlestar Galactica, Nip N' Tuck, the aforementioned Davinci's Inquest and yes I know that it's Canadian and a syndicated show in the states which means that it is sometimes shown on broadcast shows but I still like it so there, and, of course, Dr. Who. *Pant pant pant* /Ends rant //Massages throbbing vein in scalp ///Crawls under desk and sucks thumb
• Awww, man, Dr. Who? Tracy's never going to ban you now .... *shoves hands in pockets, kicks at dirt*
• It's okay, Berek. You can come out now (unless there's something really entertaining under that desk). I agree with everything you said, and also that Rescue Me is a highly watchable show. If it weren't for Robot Chicken and PeeWee reruns I'd definitely be looking for a paper bag big enough to contain my set so that quidnunc could watch Backdraft in stereo.
• Yeah, Robot Chicken rocks!
• Thre are good shows out there, you're just missing them. Tivo, people. Ti. Vo.
• By the way, your favourite band sucks.
• We don't have none of that fancy TiVo crap up here. But we do have PVR's, and it has changed the way we view TV. So much so that when we are forced to watch something "live" it is a big disappointment. We have to watch commercials? Oh, man...
• I piss on your Robot Chicken. Venture Brothers justifies my 180 channels. (I also like the DIY Network, History International, and BBC-America. Sundance and IFC are all right. You hafta pony up the change to get the decent channels. And I don't actually mind Robot Chicken, though they occasionally show really racist sketches that I think are supposed to be "ironically anti-racist" but just don't come off well. Those Pee-Wee's Playhouse episodes are making me really happy lately, too.) TUM - last I heard the Columbus Metropolitan Library had an APB on the ghost of an elderly Japanese man, who left carrying a big camera lens and a stack of Criterion DVDs that he hadn't checked out properly.