Tue 11 Jul 2006
I coulda been a Luddite. In another time and another place I could have been happy without all this technology. I love, love, love, not having a television. I sometimes want to cry when the phone rings. I don’t want to venture too many steps from my own door and I wish my children would all live near me forever.
But over the years there have been a few things I missed watching on the tube. I missed watching the Olympics and I missed all those great BBC shows. Now from my computer I can do almost everything I ever wanted to do. I can watch almost any BBC series ever made. I can watch all those PBS shows, you know the only shows on American television that anyone will ever admit to watching.
How many times have you had this conversations?:
Person 1: “We don’t have a TV.”
Person 2: ” We only watch public television.”
That isn’t even a joke since I have heard it millions of times.
Why am I telling you all this?
Because I can download Season 5 of 24 from iTunes before it ever hits the DVD store.
I can watch 24; then I can watch other people watch 24; then I can watch other people watch other people watch 24, all from my computer.
Right now!
It is going to be a long day.
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What hath man wrought?
H and I avoid TV trends but this summer have managed to get hooked on 24. We’re 1/8 finished with season 5 right now. That’s nearly five seasons of 24 we’ve watched in the last month or so. I don’t know if we’re better off playing lemming or catch-up. Also, H and I seem to be a TV show curse. As soon as we get hooked on a show, it gets cancelled. Seriously, five shows in the last three years have ended as soon as H and I got caught up on the previous 3-5 seasons. I hope this doesn’t mean doom for Jack Bauer.
Comment by Mrs. Happy Housewife (July 11, 2006 @ 8:54 am )
I think I need to learn how to do that…download, I mean.
Dana in GA
Comment by Dana (July 11, 2006 @ 10:33 am )
My husband and now my 14 yo daughter are totally hooked on 24. They have only seen the first season and they are begging me to allow
them to buy the second season. Those two lose hours of sleep and ignore the rest of us when they are in the middle of a season.
I should probably join them but then who would take care of the rest of the children and keep up with the house??
Comment by Janet (July 11, 2006 @ 10:49 am )
It has gotten really bad around here. Some people are on one episode and some on the other and so everyone has to be careful not to say certain things. My dh is working nights these days so I have time to watch.
Comment by Cindy (July 11, 2006 @ 12:45 pm )
Well we do have a TV, and we don’t watch only public television. I posted on my blog what we do watch.
BTW, I never heard of 24 until I read your post today. (And I never read any of Jan Karon’s books.) Why am I always so out of the loop?
Comment by Jeannine (July 11, 2006 @ 4:12 pm )
Jeannine, don’t worry, we are 5 years behind on the 24 series.
Comment by Janet (July 11, 2006 @ 7:16 pm )
Cindy,
Readily confessing my lack of technological knowledge (except that which is necessary for random blog reading), where do you find the BBC series for downloading?
–Jennifer
Comment by Jennifer (July 11, 2006 @ 9:00 pm )
24? What’s that? Truly, I’ve never seen it.
Comment by Kim (Coffee and a Muffin) (July 11, 2006 @ 9:10 pm )
Jeannine,
I love reading Hamish Macbeth and we even rented the BBC Hamish Macbeths and loved them for the most part. So you are in a pretty good loop as far as I am concerned.
Having all 5 seasons of 24 ahead is a like having all of Dorothy Sayers’ books ahead. You are in for a fun time and with 24, a wild ride.
Jennifer, We don’t download BBC things but we watch DVDs on our computer instead of a TV.
Comment by Cindy (July 11, 2006 @ 9:12 pm )
Well, that’s us. We really do ONLY watch public TV once or twice a week, and “Lost” on Wednesday nights (blame Kaitlin for getting us hooked on that) and occasionally “Numbers” (the mathmetician crime show). Everyone keeps telling us how good “24″ is, but we don’t need another addiction. Watching ONLY Public TV is not a virtue - a lot of that is trash too. And then we have NetFlix so we can watch a few movies without having to walk into a video store. Even without cable, we have more TV than we need already.
Comment by Sandy (July 12, 2006 @ 8:40 am )
Cindy,
If you like the Hamish books I think you’ll also like the Evan Evans books by Rhys Bowen. I really enjoyed them. They’re a mystery series starring a Welsh constable (sound a little familiar?).
Comment by Jeannine (July 12, 2006 @ 10:51 am )
Sandy,
We seem to be in the same boat as you. We do not have cable, but I thank God we don’t. We also are addicted (big time) to LOST, and since Invasion came on right after Lost, we were hooked on that, too. Invasion, I understand, was cancelled, though. It is a HUGE battle to keep everyone in the family from finding some new addiction. My guys all love to watch sports; they’ll watch golf if they have to! And I admit to watching a bit of public television myself. :redface_wp:
Comment by Linda (July 12, 2006 @ 11:08 am )
You can also buy Lost on iTunes. But I have avoided that trap for now.
Comment by Cindy (July 12, 2006 @ 11:13 am )
I don’t understand this “I don’t have TV, but I watch TV shows.”
(Saying this with a smile, not a judgemental brow) We have cable, otherwise, we would get no reception and the men would be lost without the BRAVES and Tarheel basketball.
Could you explain why it is great to not have a TV, but then watch TV shows? Does it have to do with the commercials?
I would love to have no TV at all and watch nothing except the occasional movie. This is how we lived in France for two years. We had REAL culture shock when we got back!
Comment by laura (July 12, 2006 @ 2:55 pm )
When we watch something it is on purpose. We never just sit down and flip stations and we don’t have to watch commercials. I wish we would totally NOT Watch. Years ago we didn’t have a TV and therefore couldn’t ever watch anything. Now through the computer we can add some watching back into our lives. I don’t think that is necessarily good, but at least it is selective.
I don’t mind that other people have and watch TVs. We freely admit that the reason we don’t have a television is because we are not disciplined.
Comment by Cindy (July 12, 2006 @ 3:33 pm )
Speaking of not being disciplined–guess what Vince is watching right now. I suspected he would be so I got up and went into the living room and he’s happily watching poker. I burst out laughing and he said, “What are you writing your blog?” and then he laughed too. He is just getting over a bad illness remember.
And Linda, Vince happily watches golf too. I’ll never forget when we were first married and I was in the kitchen cooking. Vince started shouting and then said, “Quick, Jeannine, come out here and watch this!” I went into the living room in time to see a replay of some golf shot (or whatever it’s called). I thought to myself, You have to be kidding. Now I know better. I no longer get upset at all, and as a matter of fact the older I get the more OK with it all I am. I just smile at my sports watching family and think there’s worse things they could be doing.
Janet and Kim, I’m glad I’m not the only one who had never heard of 24. I asked Alyssa if she’d heard about it and she said she had and that it was critically acclaimed but she was about five seasons behind.
Comment by Jeannine (July 12, 2006 @ 8:44 pm )
That is one thing that happens around here daily. The boys call me over to the computer saying, “You have to see this.” Oh, another great baseball play! How unique!
Comment by Cindy (July 13, 2006 @ 5:33 am )
Thanks for the explaination.
I figured that was the reson. We do the same thing, but we do have a TV. Oh! I do love Paula Dean on the food station. 
Comment by laura (July 13, 2006 @ 1:05 pm )
I wanted to clarify my comment from last night. I don’t consider Vince to be undisciplined; it’s just there are reasons why I was always very happy living without ESPN, etc.
Vince usually watches poker until 11 and then he reads. I think we’re on a somewhat late schedule here which can be hard since Phil gets up at 5:20 for work, and Alyssa gets up between 6 & 7 depending on what time she has to go in, and sometimes they wake the little boys and then it’s all over (our sleep that is).
Comment by Jeannine (July 13, 2006 @ 1:48 pm )
You people must have DSL or Cable modem. Us poor dial-up people can’t download anything.
And I’m closer to the big town than you!!!
Comment by Sandy (July 13, 2006 @ 2:03 pm )
Hello, Linda! It’s always good to find a fellow “Lost” addict. By God’s grace, we managed to turn the TV off after it, and thankfully, we didn’t get sucked into “Invasion”. “Lost” went down a lot this past season, so I’m starting to lose interest. With all this talk about “24″, I’ve decided to put it on our NetFlix list. We can watch it while Lost is in re-runs. ~Sandy
Comment by Sandy (July 13, 2006 @ 2:08 pm )
Ah, the curse of waking the little boys. That curse lives here,too.
Comment by Cindy (July 13, 2006 @ 4:04 pm )