When we had cable the TV was on all day, usually on some muted news station. Then in the evenings something was usually being taped for later.
Now that we have the fiber streaming service, the TV is almost never on, unless there is breaking news like election coverage or a sports game.
Why? Because the hunt is gone. You never get the thrill of stumbling across a repeat of your favorite episode of your favorite show. The excitement of, "Oh, look, American Experience has that new documentary I heard about."
Now? None of that. I don't hear the radio so NPR doesn't give me new beasts to hunt, and I don't run up and down the channels so there are no surfing safari finds. There are entire days when the TV is not on at all. And all I record is Colbert, SNL, and Rachel Maddow, I suppose because they're all topical enough that I might not get what's going on if I wait to watch it later.
However, today it rained, and I remembered that Christmas it rained for a month, and I stayed in and watched a marathon of The Curse of Oak Island. I got hooked on that damn show. Even still, after years of arguing with the narrator. (Him: "Have the brothers found gold in the treasure shaft?" Me: "NO. They have found trash. Give up; it's a sinkhole.")
Well, now of course that sent me off to record the new season and I find I have missed four episodes.
I thought, "That's four hours in real time; I don't know if I can do my 20 minute fast-forward digest version on this new TV setup."
And then I swear to you I thought, "But I have to watch them, they might have found something."
And then I laughed and laughed.
Comments