TV Turnoff Week

One weblogger notes that this week is TV Turnoff Week (April 21-27). What's today- April 23? I am a little late. I think I need to get a better stereo/receiver with wireless speakers to live tv-free successfully. I noticed that a restaurant one block away is airing The Bachelor tonight with $2.00 drink discounts (two bucks off Firestone wine). Actually I saw Mr. Firestone at the bagel shop two weeks ago. I heard he lives in this neighborhood, maybe I will go on an "errand run" and see if he is watching himself at Charlie's. My friend Molly says I should try to get on the show even thought it already started. Yeah, right Molls. When will single people stop getting harrassed by their married friends?

Seriously, if more bars and restaurants were able to broadcast tv shows I don't think tv would be such a bad thing. I would even get rid of mine. I've tried to get rid of it before and could not believe how many people tried to talk me out of it. "Isn't there something else you could do that would be less drastic?" I think my mom said that, which is so ironic because she restricted tv watching when we were growing up.

She would take the cable connector with her when she went to work, thinking that would keep us from watching anything but a snow screen. Sadly I think I did watch the snowscreen on one really boring summer day. My brothers were old enough to go to the hardware store and buy a new connecter for $2.50. Off she would go to work, we would listen for the garage door to close and her car to drive away. Then we would get the backup connector, hook it up and watch Get Smart, Planet of the Apes, Six Million Dollar Man, Star Trek (they were older bigger and meaner than I was so Brady Bunch was not an option). I was too young to understand those shows, though I do remember liking Get Smart. "Why does he call his girlfriend Ninety Nine?" I would always ask. The other question was "Spock is so smart, how come he isn't the captain of the ship?" Ian had a good explanation about Spock not understanding human nature (how he explained that to a six year old, I will never know).

Now my parents have a tivo (the three of us gave it to them for Christmas five years ago). For the first year of the tivo, it was complaints only: "now we can't record movies with the VCR" or "I can't use the remote that your father took so long to get working" or "now that we have tivo we can't watch our favorite shows". Now my mom, miss anti-tv, tells me to get a tivo instead of giving away the tv. She wants me to write tivo software for the radio so she can record NPR or something. Whatever.

So TV-Turnoff week it is. As soon as American Idol is over, I think I will give it a shot. Oh - but then I'll miss The Bachelor. If tvtn had advertised a little more, I would have had more time to prepare. They'll have to work on that. Ooh ooh - Carmen just got axed from idolonfox, I bet Clay is bumming hard (he has a thing for Carmen, I can tell).

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