In Which I Take Charge of my TV Watching Habits
In January, Javert and I got TiVO. Except that it's not TiVO, it's actually something called a TV tuner card which Javert installed into our computer. After about two frustrating (for him, not for me) weeks of trying to get it to work properly, we started enjoying watching what we want, when we want it.
It works just like TiVO except it's better. For example, we can program it to skip commercials completely. When the commercial break starts, it automatically skips and you don't have to sit through any interruption at all. Which is great, although I'm starting to wonder if later in life I'll regret not watching the commercials, like I'm missing out on a cultural phenomenon or something. I picture a repeat of how I used to feel in college, when my friends would talk about the shows they'd watched as kids and I'd have to sit silently, since my parents allowed me to watch TV only on weekends. Shows what an influence that rule had on me, since now I have a sophisticated fake TiVO system! That'll show my parents (who now own a 37-inch flat panel television).
There are some problems with our sophisticated system, though. The first concerns the wonderful Javert. He's great with computers--really great, and he likes them so much that I joke that his first and true love will always be the cpu under our desk (instead of ME). He's always willing to work on the program to improve it and to fix it when it breaks. However, I know very little about computers, either because I don't have to or because I'm lazy, and when the fake TiVO simply stops working during a crucial moment of, say, CSI, I am helpless to fix it. But this usually works out since Javert will go and fix it and I can do something much more interesting, like knit or sleep, till it's functional again.
Second, and perhaps more important: the program we use allows us to watch shows at a faster-than-normal speed. It adjusts pitch and whatever else usually gets messed up when you speed up, so people don't sound like chipmunks, they sound normal. Most of the time, we speed things up by about 20 percent--anything faster becomes a little silly. I think this is great since it saves all sorts of time. A normal hour length show now takes like 35 minutes (maybe less? I haven't timed it). But some of my friends are concerned this habit will make me into a robot who gets used to the speed increase and then can't handle the pace of normal life.
But normal life doesn't move like life on television! Who moves that slowly? Who talks that slowly? I mean, have you heard the narrator on Desperate Housewives? Maybe it's just me, I know that I talk fast, my grandmother tells me so all the time. I don't think that we should have to conform to the desires or needs of the television industry, whether it means not sitting through commercials or not suffering as David Caruso oh-so-slowly puts on his stupid sunglasses after solving yet another crime. For the first time in my life, I'm in charge of my own tv watching and I love it!* Yay for watching sped-up, commercial-free TV on school-nights!
*I realize that I'm not in charge, since I rely on Javert to arrange things on the fake tivo and computer, but he does whatever I tell him so basically I am in charge.
It works just like TiVO except it's better. For example, we can program it to skip commercials completely. When the commercial break starts, it automatically skips and you don't have to sit through any interruption at all. Which is great, although I'm starting to wonder if later in life I'll regret not watching the commercials, like I'm missing out on a cultural phenomenon or something. I picture a repeat of how I used to feel in college, when my friends would talk about the shows they'd watched as kids and I'd have to sit silently, since my parents allowed me to watch TV only on weekends. Shows what an influence that rule had on me, since now I have a sophisticated fake TiVO system! That'll show my parents (who now own a 37-inch flat panel television).
There are some problems with our sophisticated system, though. The first concerns the wonderful Javert. He's great with computers--really great, and he likes them so much that I joke that his first and true love will always be the cpu under our desk (instead of ME). He's always willing to work on the program to improve it and to fix it when it breaks. However, I know very little about computers, either because I don't have to or because I'm lazy, and when the fake TiVO simply stops working during a crucial moment of, say, CSI, I am helpless to fix it. But this usually works out since Javert will go and fix it and I can do something much more interesting, like knit or sleep, till it's functional again.
Second, and perhaps more important: the program we use allows us to watch shows at a faster-than-normal speed. It adjusts pitch and whatever else usually gets messed up when you speed up, so people don't sound like chipmunks, they sound normal. Most of the time, we speed things up by about 20 percent--anything faster becomes a little silly. I think this is great since it saves all sorts of time. A normal hour length show now takes like 35 minutes (maybe less? I haven't timed it). But some of my friends are concerned this habit will make me into a robot who gets used to the speed increase and then can't handle the pace of normal life.
But normal life doesn't move like life on television! Who moves that slowly? Who talks that slowly? I mean, have you heard the narrator on Desperate Housewives? Maybe it's just me, I know that I talk fast, my grandmother tells me so all the time. I don't think that we should have to conform to the desires or needs of the television industry, whether it means not sitting through commercials or not suffering as David Caruso oh-so-slowly puts on his stupid sunglasses after solving yet another crime. For the first time in my life, I'm in charge of my own tv watching and I love it!* Yay for watching sped-up, commercial-free TV on school-nights!
*I realize that I'm not in charge, since I rely on Javert to arrange things on the fake tivo and computer, but he does whatever I tell him so basically I am in charge.
posted by Emil at 4:24 PM
1 Comments:
A curmudgeon might also point out that you are not "in charge" in the sense that the programming itself is all still dictated for you.
But then, that person probably watches CSI in secret sometimes.
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