i hate tv

i hate tv. i own one and i watch it periodically, but every time i do i feel empty and cheated. it seriously bores the shit out of me to sit in front of the thing, and i wind up shutting it off, annoyed.

i'm annoyed with the violence. CSI has like, 4 shows, and each one starts with a mutilated corpse in the establishing shot. and CSI is only one franchise; there are others i'm sure. i don't need to be traumatized by the sight of mutilated corpses every day.

i'm annoyed with the pressure to BUY MORE STUFF. "If you don't smoke Tarrytons, Fuck You!" i don't need to consume more chinese-made plastic shiny shit to be happy. really. the cognitive dissonance induced by a relentless barrage of YOU ARE NOT HAPPY BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE OUR PRODUCT messages from that screen pisses me off.

Throwing Christians to the Lions (or Reality Shows): annoyed. I personally do not need to witness the suffering of others in order to feel better about myself. (Oh, look at that fool. I make MUCH better choices than THAT fool. Thank heavens.) who are these millions of viewers?

televised sports: boring boring boring.

i do engage in a lot of screen time - i spend more time in front of a computer than my nose in books, or doing something creative. or spending time with other real-life humans. but a lot of those humans want to watch tv. and i don't wanna.

i rationalize my choices by telling myself that i at least have more control over the content i consume and interact with the information that i receive. and interact with other computer humans.

in the last few years that my dad was alive, he used to phone me and ask me to Google something for him once in a while. he learned just enough to use e-mail and that was it. he never e-mailed me; he had one friend he would write to.

his Google requests were great conversation starters, and i miss them.