We watch tv and spend time on the internet, they don’t.
Okay, I’ve seen occasional mentions of picking up email, and now and then there will be jokes about some rarely seen member of the family being addicted to an online game, but as a rule, you’ll NEVER seen those people killing two hours reading all the new posts on the Straight Dope, or vegging out through Must See Thursday.
So, the answer is plain: if you want to have life, get rid of your TVs and computers.
Wasn’t one of the characters in the show a journalist of some kind?
Not that I’m suggesting that journalists rake it in, but if you get a post as a junior editor at The New Yorker or something, I’m sure you’ll do alright. Add in a couple of syndication contracts here and there, perhaps a screenplay… it all adds up.
The primary character, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, was a syndicated columnist and (later on) an author of a best-selling book.
The other women were, IIRC, a lawyer, a publicist, and an art dealer. Pretty high-level careers that, with the exception of the lawyer, allow for lots of social mingling.
More accurately, this should read:
If you want to get involved in wacky misunderstandings and social mishaps by the dozens, get rid of your TVs and computers.
Could someone explain how rent control works?
It is different in different jurisdictions. Basically, the government (usually a local municipality, such as New York City, Berkeley or Santa Monica, CA [three examples of cities that I know have some type of rent control]) dictates how much rent a landlord can charge to a residential tenant. Most of the schemes were based on some maximum percentage increase in rent, based on the rent being charged at the time the scheme was implemented.
Some of them state that the caps only apply during the term of the lease to a particular individual (i.e., once that person moves out, the landlord can raise the rent to a market level). This results in all sorts of shenanigans, where tenants enter into secret subleases etc, in order to avoid having the rent increased (IIRC, one of the apartments in “Friends” was a sublet from someone’s relative).
A big problem with rent control is the effect it has on the market-place – because the rents can’t increase, demand begins to outstrip supply, and you get housing shortages. Investors have no incentive to build more apartments, if they can’t charge rents that will give them a profit. Owners have no incentive to fix up their existing apartments, if they can’t recoup their expenses through the rents.
‘Monica’ is a chef at a restaurant. New Yorkers never eat out during the weekend so she always gets those days off. 
Could Chandler & Joey have realistically afforded their rent? Chandler was an office worker of some kind, with some supervisory responsibilites. Joey was a (mostly) out of work actor. They were in a 2BR/1BA apartment that looked like it was about 600ish square feet.
And Rachel was a waitreess for a while, Joey’s an actor who does stage productions, Phoebe’s a masseuse, her boyfriend plays piano in a nightclub, etc. None of thse people should have much free time on the weekends and evenings, certainly not at the same time as Chandler (accounting, sorta) and Ross (professor).
Before Carrie Bradshaw became a best-selling author, her only job seemed to be a sex column in an alternative weekly paper. In real life, no one, in any American city, would be paid enough to live on by an independent paper for a weekly column. You would either have to also be a full time writer/reporter for that paper or another paper or have a series of freelance writing jobs (or another job of some kind).
Even in New York City, I can’t imagine that writing one, single column for an alternative weekly would get you more than a few hundred bucks a week, certainly not enough to live on, and certainly not enough to afford a closet in Manhattan. But from the show, it’s clear that Carrie has absolutely job responsibility other than her weekly column and she has no independent wealth either. The only way she’s surviving in her lifestyle is if she’s working as a call girl on the side. That’s pretty much the only job that could explain her situation.
Of course Homer is the “Safety Inspector” at the Springfield nuclear power plant, so pretty much all he has to do is show up on the days the Feds are inspecting, and rubber stamp all the certifications.
[Homer]NOOOOOOOO![/Homer]
[QUOTE=acsenray]
Before Carrie Bradshaw became a best-selling author, her only job seemed to be a sex column in an alternative weekly paper. In real life, no one, in any American city, would be paid enough to live on by an independent paper for a weekly column. You would either have to also be a full time writer/reporter for that paper or another paper or have a series of freelance writing jobs (or another job of some kind).QUOTE]
My knowledge of Sex in the City is pretty loose. I watched the show with one eye on something else most of the time.
However, I seem to remember a time or two she’d been introduced as “Carrie Bradshaw, syndicated columnist.” Wouldn’t that mean that other newspapers, beyond her weekly alternative paper, are also be carrying her column? I always likened her to Dan Savage who produces Savage Love, a sex-related column that is carried by The Onion, Get Out, and several other “alternative journals.”
Syndicated columnists like Dave Barry make a tidy sum at their gigs. I don’t see why Carrie wouldn’t be one of them.
I don’t know about regular folks, but for an attorney in a successful firm in a large city, Ally McBeal and co. sure seemed to have a freakload of free time. Did they ever bill an hour that they weren’t actually in court?
Not every syndicated columnist makes a ton of money. In fact, I’d say that most of them make quite a bit less than Dave Barry, especially the ones whose columns appear in alternative weeklies. The question then is how much does Dan Savage make and could he live Carrie’s lifestyle?
That being said, so far as I can recall, whenever someone speaks of having read Carrie’s columns, I’ve always thought that they read it only in that specific newspaper. And it seems to me that it is heavily implied that, her column being a very New-York-centric column, that it isn’t known outside the city.
I wonder if syndicated columnist Cecil Adams can afford Carrie’s lifestyle.
Hey, Roseanne and family watch TV kinda like a normal family. There was a great episode where they became a Neilsen family and she didn’t want them to think poor people were stupid, so they sat around watching PBS and betting on wolf vs. moose. The TV just didn’t show up in the “episode about TV”, though - they’re often sitting around eating snacks and watching TV.
Cliff Huxtable wants to just sit down with his hoagie and watch TV, but hijinks always interfere. Ditto Al Bundy.