TV TIVO Texas westerns

[Connie Clark]

Igor Loving <lovingigor at hotmail.com> wrote:
As far as I can see from a 
television that has been left here and is hooked to some sort of 120 channel 
cable the only program worth watching is the local weather and even that is 
no longer a rada circle going round and around and has some computer voice 
saying stuff, Best watch it with the mute button on. 

<reply>

Yes Charlie, it is true that time is much better spent on reading or in more creative pursuits.  I am one of those who spends way too much time watching the boob-tube.  It would be better if I kept up with my stack of reading, or practice my music more often.

TV can have its' moments however.  In the 60s, at the rent house that I shared with Pat Lane on Harris, next to Eastwoods Park, we had a console TV.  I was too busy to watch TV for the most part during that period, but I remember all too well the nightly news reporting the number of Vietnam casualties and other bad news.  I sat one night and witnessed via TV, LBJs historic announcement to not run for office (what year was that? '67?).  Around the same time, before remote control, a friend, Mike Hershey and I one night decided we needed to be able to turn annoying TV commercials sound off.  We went to the hardware store and bought electrical wire and a switch, and wired a pig-tail type control to the speakers.  It worked.  We could 'mute' commercials - what a relief.  That was a good twenty years before mute buttons I'll bet.  We put a stop-watch to it all and found that approximately 30% of primetime programming was devoted to commercials.

That was then.  It is true that my down time would be better spent in the evenings reading good books such as those you mentioned, the history of coffee sounds pretty interesting.  I'm serious, that is the kind of reading I enjoy.  However, even then, the element of choice is important.  I recently spent a number of hours reading a James Patterson best seller, which I consider a waste of time - could have just waited and seen the movie when it comes out (or not) - would be just as good in my opinion.  There are other novelists that of course are better on the written page. Ok? I do know the difference.

It was also my pleasure to spend the last couple of nights watching PBS' Ken Burns story about Jack Johnson the first black world champion boxer.  Sorry you missed that, you might have enjoyed it despite it being on TV.  

I have a TIVO, and found that one can whittle news down to size by fast forwarding thru commercials or other fluff, and save precious time.  Sort of an advanced version of the mute. That's what it is good for.

You are right to ignore the 120 channel schlock - I don't know of any westerns, too bad.  Hey, BTW, PBS announced that they will be taking applications for people to be in one of their reality shows like the 1900 House and Frontier, or Manor House.  This one will be filmed in east Texas this summer, and the participants will have to live like a Texas Rancher just after the civil war (no cheating - bathing just once a week and all that).  Applications are online Feb 1.  I might try to get on that, except that I don't think I can be away from the job that long - but there are several here on this list that could.  It is not a paid job, but they say will be a life enriching experience and you get to be on TV!

Connie


		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Yahoo! Mail - 250MB free storage. Do more. Manage less.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/austin-ghetto-list/attachments/20050119/100c1aa2/attachment.htm