Do you even bother with TV anymore?
polycounter lvl 18
I find now that there is nothing to watch anymore. Aside from the evening news, Nova, Frontline and TVO (local public tv) there is just little that holds my interest. Even old faves like The Simpsons have played out.
All my friends ask me when I'm going to buy a huge flat screen, the wife wants cable- why? to watch what? Movies we rent, the console I never play anymore. (PS2 was the last console I'll buy) We had pir8 US sat. I even owned an unlooper for the card (sat. went down- into the reader- l/d .bin, boom up again in less than a minute) 150 odd channels of nothing! after awhile I just could be arsed to unloop anymore. Also the American commercial breaks were just endless.
I find I spend most my nights working on my 3d "art" stuff, gaming or lots and lots of reading forums. I find much to read on Something Awful.
You can take my TV but you will pry the net from my cold dead hands!!!1!
All my friends ask me when I'm going to buy a huge flat screen, the wife wants cable- why? to watch what? Movies we rent, the console I never play anymore. (PS2 was the last console I'll buy) We had pir8 US sat. I even owned an unlooper for the card (sat. went down- into the reader- l/d .bin, boom up again in less than a minute) 150 odd channels of nothing! after awhile I just could be arsed to unloop anymore. Also the American commercial breaks were just endless.
I find I spend most my nights working on my 3d "art" stuff, gaming or lots and lots of reading forums. I find much to read on Something Awful.
You can take my TV but you will pry the net from my cold dead hands!!!1!
Replies
I tried catching a few reality TV shows just to see what the big deal was. I've concluded that people who enjoy reality TV are mentally challenged.
Sometimes I visit my parents for free dinner and the TV is on. Mtv is pure shit now. Isn't there another called FUSE? I watched a Green Day video, and all 5 videos after it looked exactly the same.
My grandma watches Oprah and Lifetime. Oprah and Lifetime much be destroyed.
I only use the TV for movies and Gamecube now.
But its the summer! You don't want to be stuck inside watching TV anyway. Get out and see the worlds, get to the theatre, go to some gigs, take up dancing, go for a walk, go to the pub with mates.
i tend to watch History, Discovery, TLC (when rides or overhaulin is on), cartoon network (adult swim), spike tv... and that's usually it.
a good combination of mind stimulation and entertainment.
http://cfl.mybrighthouse.com/services/pvr/
paid $20 a month for a HD-DVR. It was really nice to record the Daily Show or whatever and watch it when I had time. Our condo place here in LA forces you to have DirectTV. Hopefully in a few months we'll move and I can get it again. I really don't like buying equipment like the DVR thing.
Network TV as a whole is the DEVIL. Crap reality shows, crap commercials. The only good things are latenight shows (conan) and family guy
I'd glad i dont watch too much TV or have cable, or I'd be sitting there flipping stations for hours.
I think I will get TV again in a couple of years for my daughter though as just because I had the idiot box doesn't mean she has to be unable to relate to all the other little junior consumers at school
r.
If I were you I'd get the cable for the wife and just keep doing my own thing.
If i can find 30 minutes in a week that i actually *want to watch, i think i'm doing really well.
I still have vage memories of what it was at the time.
Just wondering Hawken, even though you say you don't watch it, but is japanese television over crowded with poorly dubbed US Cartoons?
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I won't mention where, but I only DL TV that seems interesting. Soon most channels will start offering this service, but obviously not as torrents. The scary things is that once the BBC or Channel4 launch their services I'll be willing to pay a subscription.
As for Japanese TV, it's mostly about food. I did have cable in the common room at my old place. That was mostly about food too. I understand your joke though. And yes, they are playing that starwars cartoon at the moment. My Japanese TV isn't a bilingual model, and I hardly have it on (after I re-arranged my room the cable wasn't long enough). I was advised from a friend that watching Japanese TV would improve my language skills. It's too annoying to watch, or even have on in the background.
This thread is fucking interesting. I always suspected creatives never watch the box. It's true!!
I went for about 4 years without TV. I only used it for my Amigas 500/1200. Trying to tell the court that was another matter.
I got taken to court for refusing to pay my TV license back in '98.
However, in '03 I went out and bought a state of the art widescreen Sony TV, surround sound kit, freeview box, a ton of consoles, a divx HDD TV recorder from KiSS etc.
Still got all that shit in the UK. Gathering dust. That is what a bloated sallary does to one. Oh I thank my lucky stars I'm poor now!!!
They should come up with a new system for tv. Everybody got tired of ads and i, myself, am having a hard time to find a good show on tv. The only stuff i watch when it's on is:
-Scrubs (got taken off dutch tv)
-Family Guy (got taken off dutch tv)
-CSI and Las Vegas (my sis likes these two a lot, it's always nice to watch it with her, to 'socialise')
-Anything interesting on Discovery
I guess i turn on the tv from time to time when i'm totally bored but don't feel like going to bed yet. Sometimes i fire up Solitaire or single player Q3, at other times it's tv. Don't know why really, guess it's a force of habit.
Though i don't think it's strange that people don't bother with tv any more. Games and the internet are much more interactive and you can get what you want and get it when you want.
This thread is fucking interesting. I always suspected creatives never watch the box. It's true!!
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Hawken - don't be mistaken, i'd watch TV all the time if there was something on ... i bet the same goes for a lot of others
by "something on" i mean how it used to be. A couple of hours of new-ish comedy on BBC2 on Tuesday and/or Thursday nights. A good american sci-fi or thriller series after that, but NOT 4 solid fucking hours of it which is what we get now. A Hammer horror film on BBC1 at 11.10pm on Friday. A mindless bollocks film on Saturday evenings, followed by a good one on C4 on Sunday, 10pm. Wednesdays and Mondays were always dead on telly - hence these are traditionally the nights for pub quizzes, so no complaints there.
Sunday afternoon TV on 4 always got my vote. You couldn't prise me off the sofa for love or money.
a few weeks ago i stumbled across an episode of "Angel" that i found interesting so i went out and got all 5 seasons on dvd, half way thru the last season, pretty decent series, season 4 was by far the strongest it was the only one that was one continuing story, all the others were pretty much sepperate storrys but had an underlying story that continued.
but its with good reason.
1.all the new channels as well as evening news are mainly entertainment stories, the cables news are all pundits spouting hate and extended stories on micheal jackson or some rich upper class child who got kidnapped its rare to see real journalisim on tv.
2.reality shows-christ how i loathe these shows,get boring/uninteresting people and put them on tv or even worse assholes on tv,i deal with real life assholes in real life whats makes them think i want to see them on tv.
3. cable tv 95% of it is crap,pure and utter crap
after that there isnt much i really want to see.
take up dancing
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Ive gota see your moves Rick.
Yes , advertising has pretty much destoryed TV for me , and the odd time there is somthing to watch on BBC i always forget ... I even hate the news because its no where near being impatial, or informed.
the tv in the lounge belonges to the ps2 (im too poor to afford othergames systems)
I do somtimes watch big brother tho , which is sad ...
both of which i can also get from the good old internets.
I guess it's like that Jamba ringtone crap. Everyone hates it, but somehow it's very succesfull.
And another thing i hate about reality shows is that they tend to put people in a situation that FORCES friction between people, resulting in a fight or whatever. Stuff like Temptation Island...What's the point? And why are these people retarded enough to even sign up for the show? You'll probably end up making a total ass out of yourself in front of the whole country and if you cheat on your partner, you'll be nationally dubbed as a jerk...
havent watched cable tv since December when i moved in with my gf. cable tv is just too expensive for us right now and really besides Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, Food Network and the like there's nothing worth watching.
i havent watched the big four(NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX) since Duchovny was leaving XFiles on FOX and the other three i havent watched since TGIF was huge back in the late 80s/early 90s.
the only thing i really miss is Adult Swim
I find I watch The Daily Show, Mythbusters, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Family Guy, some Aduly Swim, and will record Iron Chef for background. Nothing beyond that really interests me much, and if I didn't have a PVR, it's likely I wouldn't watch anything at all. TV on my schedule is nice, not on the networks schedule.
Back when I had Voom, I'd turn on the Lab channel for background while working on the laptop. It was a HD channel that broadcast miscalenous music like videos, mostly electronic music and art project things instead of people singing. Voom was also nice for HD hockey games, and a good selection of movies transfered to an HD format. Once they died though, I found myself less then thrilled with normal cable TV.
Ny news these days comes from a subscription to the BBC broadband streaming service. The last straw for me was wanting more info on the London attacks, and turning on "Headline News" to see some political talk show. It seems CNN dumped the idea of a full 24 hour news network now. Back with Voom, they had a 24 hour HDNews channel that had a 7 minute rotation of top stories and the US weather. They showed very little bias and simply reported on things, like a news channel should.