I have TV

Epidic · Post by **Epidic** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:29 am

After living without a TV for five years, I suddenly find myself with one. I even have US TV programs. I must say for the most part, I am at a loss at why it is so popular. American Idol is a mystery. I certainly agree with Moses about Idol worship. One hour of 24 was enough.

However, my wife and I are enjoying Animal Planet and the Discovery channel. Not perfect, Petsburgh USA is a little wanting, but there are some very good documentaries on the channels. I am watching a banna slug at the moment - it looks like one rather than eating them.

BTW, I have seen the History channel. I feel a little sad as there does not seem to be any peace in our history.

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:52 am

I am at a loss at why it is so popular

You are not alone! I have had a TV as long as I can remember, but when I hear the statistics of the number of hours the "average" person watches each week and compare it to my viewing I am astounded! I have never even seen an episode of American Idol, Desparate Housewives, Lost, and many other very popular shows.

I must confess however that I do find it can have a sort of "narcotic" effect on me if I am not careful. Most of my TV watching is of DVD movies my wife rents. If I stay on the couch with the remote after the movie (and my wife goes to bed) I may find myself flipping through channels and watching all sorts of nonsense into the wee hours of the morning. After this I usually regret missing the 3 or 4 hours of additional sleep I could have had instead.

I used to watch much more when I was younger... perhaps now that I'm older I value my time more.

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 3:00 pm

Charlie commented:

I used to watch much more when I was younger... perhaps now that I'm older I value my time more.

I think I can relate to that. Television has become a waste land in my opinion but like belly buttons everyone has one

I don't have cable or satellite and not to sound demeaning but they are not worth the money for what there is to view. National Geo, Discovery, History, and other educational programing is great and there should be more programing of this sort on all TV broadcast both "free TV" and cable/satellite but at thirty dollars or more for three or four stations that I would watch...well I will just keep my money in my pocket.

Maybe I am just getting old and grouchy, I suppose

It's Friday here and a long time ago, "Rawhide" would be coming on at 8PM.

I know, I know, it and all the other "old" shows still are broadcast on TV Land but then we get back to that money issue again. Yeah, I'm a tight wad too. So...who's buying the pizza and pepsi's tonight?

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:31 pm

If you have, or can get National Geographic Channel and Animal Planet, I think they have some of the most interesting stuff.

When I was a kid (1960s) we had three television channels, and there was nearly ALWAYS something on I wanted to watch. Now I have 200 channels, and it is a struggle to find something that interests me. I seem to remember Bruce Springsteen doing a song back in the '80s called "Fifty-seven channels and there's nothing on". Except for the number of channels, boy did he get it right!

salden · Post by **salden** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 2:50 am

Same here, nothing on the tube anymore. Just a bunch of reality shows that are not really reality

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 3:19 am

Time all governments insisted the TV industry bring out real pay to view TV, where you insert a credit, debit card or prepaid card into your set and only pay for what you watch, rather like a prepayment gas or electricity meter!

If you switch a program on for a couple of minutes and decide it's rubbish the TV station producing it only gets paid for a couple of minutes viewing, so only the channels people watch would make any money and then only for program's that are watched. That would soon convince the program companies they are producing rubbish nobody wants to watch.

At the moment you are forced to pay for packages 90% of which you are not interested in. Another idea would be that pay per view channels can only be sold singularly, not as part of a package deal. That way you could just select the channels you want to watch and ignore those they now foist upon you.

In many cases you don't really have a choice of dozens of channels because they are simply used for time shifting by showing the same programs at different times. Surely that was what the video recorder was invented to do so no need for TV channels to do it. They should put on different programs. If that means a big reduction in duplicated TV channels. so much the better!

DaveW

DaveW

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 3:38 am

Epidic wrote:

I feel a little sad as there does not seem to be any peace in our history.

It has been stated over and over but yet we fail to listen; "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." History is quite an important subject, as a matter of fact in high school I had a major in history, for what that is worth, and always found the subject intensely interesting. There are peaceful times recorded in history but I suppose it is human nature to key in on the bad things and there are a large number events, unfortunately, that should not be forgotten; such as the autrocities commited against the Jewish Nation or the nuclear bombing of Japan and the destruction of the World Trade Center just to name a few. The review of these tragic events in the annals of history are there for us to learn from in order that maybe one day we could bring peace to our world by the study and analysis of those events, in hopes of avoiding the repeating of them in the future and applying measures in our present time to avoid doing so.

There are a great number of peaceful events that took place in history and unfortunately they or some, have been obscured because they occured during troublesome times. I agree with you though, it is sad that there does not seem to be any peaceful times but there were, though they are few. It has also been stated that people like "dirty laundry." Hewy Lewis and the News ( I suppose I spelled his name right?

) stated in their song Dirty Laundry; "the evening news comes on at five, the bubble headed bleached blond can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye."

Maybe it is in our nature that we find tragedy, pain and suffering, and cataclysmic events to be so interesting. I would imagine too that if we were to take all that out of the evening news (local and national), it would last at the most in its entirety 15 minutes?

twebster · Post by **twebster** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:58 am

I don't think I've watched a TV but a handful of times in the last 10 years and we have three TV sets in our household. There's just too many interesting things to do and experience in our short lifetimes than to sit in front of a TV.

Best regards,

Adrian · Post by **Adrian** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:55 am

wow i guess im not so alone after all,

since i moved out of my parents house i have refused to expose myself to tv. and i honestly dont think i will ever go back to it again, i left my parents house when i was 20, and have been in my own house for 1 and 2/3 years

i will never allow a tv into my house.

allthough when i lived with my parents i did enjoy the history channels and discovery science. everynow and then, but spent most of my time on the computer, as i got older i guess i realised the value in exporing the world, and this is why i moved out of my parents hell hole in the city to my own house in the country.

but i feel entertainment plays a very bad role in society these days. and i believe it to be one of the major issues that plauges youngsters these days.. well this is what i believe anyways.

there are some good things on the tv, i believe, but there are other things that do not belong on it.