discovering cable TV
Apr. 23rd, 2003 04:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
topazEllen came in to the living room late tonight and asked, "What are you watching?"
I'm still not sure, but I think it was the prelims of the Eastern Log-Sawing Competition.
We are discovering the great social experiment that is American cable television. Neither of us has had much exposure to cable TV. Ellen had cable in her youth, but it was pre-MTV, before the era of 500 channels, when "cable" was how people in the sticks got any TV reception at all. I grew up in a neighborhood in Brooklyn where cable TV wasn't available. (Or so my parents told me. They may have been conveniently fibbing.) We did eventually get something called WHT, which was like the bargain basement of cable services -- it was the movie channel that ran all the bombs and B-movies of yesterday, movies like "Bronco Billy" and "Rough Cut." It was horrible. The memory still gives me nightmares.
As adults neither of us have ever spent much time watching TV. In Chicago we always ran home from work to catch "The Simpsons," and we'd pick up "M*A*S*H" at 11 p.m. In the last few years we've picked up a wicked bad "West Wing" habit but have (proudly) successfully avoided getting sucked into anything else, despite earnest attempts by "ER" and "Will & Grace" to occupy our attention.
Now, beyond our wildest dreams, cable Internet has finally come to our town. We signed up right away. I wouldn't have bothered with the cable TV subscription, but Comcast offers TV + Internet service for $5/month less than Internet service alone, and I could not resist. (Something about capturing eyeballs. The poor fools.) The fellow came this morning to hook us up, and now we're hooked.
Since we both are weirdly obsessive about organizing information, I immediately went about writing down the names of all the channels that scrolled by on the TV Guide channel. This information is surely available online somewhere, but wouldn't you know it, I just had to do it by hand. Then we typed up the list and looked up the ones we weren't familiar with. ("What the hell is EWTN?" "Something Catholic." "Okay, how about TNN? What is that, country music?") Then we reorganized the channel list, sorted by category.
Sick, sick, sick.
What was most interesting about it all was that -- ods bodkins -- we actually spent the evening hanging out together sharing an experience. I have come to look down my long pointy nose at TV, considering it entertainment for the brainwashed. We have resisted cable TV mightily. We have wanted not to become zombies to the box. Because, sure as sunset, as soon as our cable was hooked up, we were completely engrossed in a half-hour TLC spot on dwarfism. This is not necessarily how I want to pass my days.
The surprising thing was that it was a more active, personal experience than I expected. After the kids are in bed, we often retreat to our separate offices -- "to check our mail," of course -- and emerge only hours later, pale and drawn, spent of energy and hardly able to drag ourselves to bed. Tonight we sat down in front of the television while we both still had some energy and spent the time talking and laughing together. (Which led to having some really fabulous sex and eating up the leftover Thai food in the fridge. All in all a better night than I've had in a long time.)
It's still the honeymoon period, of course. This NRE thing can't last. Before long we'll be watching reruns of Happy Days, drooling, slackjawed, and wondering where the evenings went. But until then we can enjoy the present....
I'm still not sure, but I think it was the prelims of the Eastern Log-Sawing Competition.
We are discovering the great social experiment that is American cable television. Neither of us has had much exposure to cable TV. Ellen had cable in her youth, but it was pre-MTV, before the era of 500 channels, when "cable" was how people in the sticks got any TV reception at all. I grew up in a neighborhood in Brooklyn where cable TV wasn't available. (Or so my parents told me. They may have been conveniently fibbing.) We did eventually get something called WHT, which was like the bargain basement of cable services -- it was the movie channel that ran all the bombs and B-movies of yesterday, movies like "Bronco Billy" and "Rough Cut." It was horrible. The memory still gives me nightmares.
As adults neither of us have ever spent much time watching TV. In Chicago we always ran home from work to catch "The Simpsons," and we'd pick up "M*A*S*H" at 11 p.m. In the last few years we've picked up a wicked bad "West Wing" habit but have (proudly) successfully avoided getting sucked into anything else, despite earnest attempts by "ER" and "Will & Grace" to occupy our attention.
Now, beyond our wildest dreams, cable Internet has finally come to our town. We signed up right away. I wouldn't have bothered with the cable TV subscription, but Comcast offers TV + Internet service for $5/month less than Internet service alone, and I could not resist. (Something about capturing eyeballs. The poor fools.) The fellow came this morning to hook us up, and now we're hooked.
Since we both are weirdly obsessive about organizing information, I immediately went about writing down the names of all the channels that scrolled by on the TV Guide channel. This information is surely available online somewhere, but wouldn't you know it, I just had to do it by hand. Then we typed up the list and looked up the ones we weren't familiar with. ("What the hell is EWTN?" "Something Catholic." "Okay, how about TNN? What is that, country music?") Then we reorganized the channel list, sorted by category.
Sick, sick, sick.
What was most interesting about it all was that -- ods bodkins -- we actually spent the evening hanging out together sharing an experience. I have come to look down my long pointy nose at TV, considering it entertainment for the brainwashed. We have resisted cable TV mightily. We have wanted not to become zombies to the box. Because, sure as sunset, as soon as our cable was hooked up, we were completely engrossed in a half-hour TLC spot on dwarfism. This is not necessarily how I want to pass my days.
The surprising thing was that it was a more active, personal experience than I expected. After the kids are in bed, we often retreat to our separate offices -- "to check our mail," of course -- and emerge only hours later, pale and drawn, spent of energy and hardly able to drag ourselves to bed. Tonight we sat down in front of the television while we both still had some energy and spent the time talking and laughing together. (Which led to having some really fabulous sex and eating up the leftover Thai food in the fridge. All in all a better night than I've had in a long time.)
It's still the honeymoon period, of course. This NRE thing can't last. Before long we'll be watching reruns of Happy Days, drooling, slackjawed, and wondering where the evenings went. But until then we can enjoy the present....
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-23 07:37 am (UTC)But it does have one redeeming quality.
"The Dukes of Hazzard"
I'd do Daisy, Beau and Luke.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-23 08:20 am (UTC)wow, it scares me to know that i know that much television trivia. *shakes head*
no subject
Date: 2003-04-23 11:07 am (UTC)Why did I ever doubt the wisdom of this in the first place?