Yeah, the other day, I wanted to talk to a friend of mine, but he had plans to go see a movie, instead! That jerk needs to get a life!
:rolleyes:
But that’s what VCRs and TiVo were made for… 
Urge to agree… rising…
Ah, but a lot of mine are still on video and I have tapes of shows that were never released on DVD (all my episodes of MST3K.)
I have noticed that half of the time when I do have the TV on, I’m not paying attention anyways. When I watch tv, I’m usually doing something else at the same time-reading, embroidering, etc. It also ends up being nice for background noise when I’ve been home by myself or up late at night after reading that brand new Stephen King. (Putting on a comedy so I can sneak down and use the bathroom makes the house less spooky!)
I’ve now clocked up three months without a television and there’s been only one occasion during that time when I wished that I still had one (on the night of the recent Australian election). Otherwise, I don’t miss it at all and I don’t intend to buy another.
I don’t have one either at the moment. Irish terrestrial TV is, for the most part, profoundly crap. Cable costs more, which I can’t justify on my own. I also really really covet an espresso machine and that to me is worth the money more. It’s no big deal either way, though. One thing that Irish television does broadcast (and sooner than the English channels) is The Sopranos. When they come back on I might get one. I do miss the soccer, though.
I did have to argue with a friend of mine to refuse a spare telly she had. She really seemed uncomfortable with the thought of someone not having one. The cost is in the license fee, not the machine. Also it is an interesting thing to see what happens if you can’t just zonk out. So that’s why I turned the offer down. I lived without one for a year before and you do read a lot more and are also more motivated to get out the house to do a course or something like that. You do miss some really good programs, though.
As for smugness. Well…I have to admit to a bit of that. Because it is amazing how you can shock people by just innocently stating you don’t have one. It’s not that I think not having on makes me a better more intellectual person. But it can really throw some people and that’s kind of fun.
I also really really hope the license fee people come and check. 
I didn’t have one for nearly a year up until 9/11. I went out and rented one the next morning.
How do you manage that? If I have the one-eyed monster on, it sucks my brain right out. I can do some motor intensive activities - modelling, for example, while the TV is on, but if my brain has to be involved, like for reading, I cannot function while the idiot box is on. Hell, I can barely have a conversation in the same room as a TV.
Not Guinastasia, but I do the same thing. I’m one of those people that MUST be doing two things at once. If I’m cooking, I usually have a book propped up so that I’m reading at the same time. If I’m online or playing the Sims, the television is on and I’m watching it at the same time. I have always read and watched TV at the same time - it doesn’t take that much brain power to do both.
My husband gets mad at me in the movies because I have a tendency to bounce my leg in the movies. I chalk it up to the ‘not able to do one thing at a time’ syndrome. He calls it a short attention span, but it’s not that I have a short attention span - I can do something for quite awhile as long as I’m doing something ELSE with it.
Ava
Avabeth, it’s not that I have problems with the concept of doing two things at once: I read and cook, or read a book while I’m online, or read while I’m shaving, or walking. I will play a game while carrying on convesations, and other things. It’s just the one-eyed monster that defeats me. If it’s on, my brain isn’t. 8-(
I don’t know why it’s so easy to watch TV and do something else, then. Maybe I’m just really, really practiced at it? (I don’t know if that’s good or bad). It’s very rare that I put things down to watch a show – the only time I’ve done that lately was for the Farscape miniseries. But after an hour, I was dying to check my email at the same time because I couldn’t stand only focusing on the TV.
Ava
Not saying that Kyla does this, but what gets me is this one. . .
“Did you see that game yesterday?”
“I don’t have a TV.”
OK, Mr. Thats-not-what-I-asked.
It’s like asking someone,
“Did you eat yet?”
and they say. . .
“I don’t have a microwave.”
Fine with me, so long as you realize that being a vegetarian, not having a TV, and not playing video games does not make you any better than the rest of us.
Nor does being an omnivore, having a TV, and playing video games make me (or anyone) a better person than anyone else. I’m not sure why this is so hard for some people to accept, but it seems to be.
But you’re right about bananas, Kyla. Maybe realizing the awful truth about bananas makes us better than other people 
Watching DVDs on your computer comes dangerously close to owning a TV.
Okay, then. What’s your point, exactly?
My thoughts exactly. It bugs the shit out of me when some jackass says, “Oh, well I don’t have a TV, you see. I’ve got far better things to do than lose brain cells while watching.” Um, like pulling your head out of your ass every once in a while?
Still, the OP sounds pretty reasonable - and I feel her pain. I don’t have cable anymore (not quite the same as not having a TV), mainly because we only watched a few cable channels when we had it, and our use didn’t really warrant the service. Then Charter kept hiking our bill for basic cable, trying to get us to get digital, which we weren’t really interested in (though my mom does have digital, and whenever I visit, I can’t stop flipping channels). In fact, my mom is visiting today until Sunday, and one of her first questions was “Do you still have cable?” When I told her we don’t, she said, “You don’t have cable? What do you DO at night? sigh Oh, well. At least I’ll be able to watch my shows (soap operas).”
But, like Mr. Blue Sky said - to each his own.
This will probably get me in trouble with the PETA people but my wife leaves the TV on all day for our birds. They are especially fond of “Jerry Springer,” though that proves what we have long suspected–Jerry’s best appreciated by birdbrains.
Maybe that was to avoid having to keep hearing questions like this in the future?