Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 5,096 - 5,107 of 6,170
Klato: And Bev, I beg to differ with you on that nerdy mathematician from Numbe3s (also Santa Clause, and 10 Things I Hate About You). It don't work quite like that. I have taught thousands of young ladies in my lifetime and they still majored in psychology, journalism, gen-ed, etc.
Well now, there are two things you need to consider:
(1) I am not like the young ladies you taught. I am only me, (but I am me with a vengence); and
(2) with all respect, you may not have the same blend of hotness and simply nerdy charm as the character in question, though I am sure you have many nice qualities.
No offense. I am sure you inspired your share of students in a variety of ways.
Bev: I've only been here a week.I don't know how just a few words turned into a dissertation on my sex appeal and my teaching skills. Look carefully and you will see nowhere did I write anything to attract such cunning slams and innuendo. I made a general comment on your statement, that's all and I did it in a way that it became self-deprecating. I made no personal comments about you. You chose to make it personal and public at the same time. So be it. You may not like my sense of humor, but that doesn't give you a license to invade my privacy. You can tell me my humor sucks, that's fine. You can tell me you disagree, that's fine also.
You think you are you with a vengeance, watch out. And DON'T ever patronize me again. Just because I am new doesn't give you special rights over my life.
[Note: For your own personal copy of the full text of this post, make a donation to the PF and you will find the full extent of my displeasure.]
Klato, I'm not looking to get drawn into this one, but I think there's a little bit of over reaction in your reply to Bev's lighthearted teasing.
I second that - Bev's got a heart of gold, and I know she didn't mean to offend. Seasons is just like that - part sand-pit, part arena, part debating club. We love to argue, and tease, and occasionally vent some spleen.
Look on the bright side - if you'd got into a disagreement about the propagatability of psi, you'd be embroiled in a many hundred-post argument now, wondering how it all got so intense
Most of us have two numbers of hours of TV we watch a week.
Another useful factor to consider might be how many recorders (VHS or DVD) you have, and whether they are enough to handle overlapping "must-see" programs on different channels (ie: do you ever have to get other people to video programs when there's a larger clash than can be accommodated.)
I'm sorry to say we have 2 recorders, 1 TV, and still have to not infrequently ask family and friends to video a fourth channel. I'd say that indicates either excessive viewing, or a quite improbable degree of chance in program distribution (I think you can guess which I tend to believe.)
Hee hee. Psimagus has been pushed into posting with footnotes. Gosh I hope my scrutiny of your past post had nothing to do with that.
Having cheered myself up after the latest TV-related row by reacquainting myself at some length with the contents of my "why TV is evil" bookmarks folder, it would have seemed a shame not to use the links
Ya want I should have a word with them?
I fear that even SuperBev couldn't fix the dysfunctionality of an entire community (though I do wish the people at work would stop relentlessly asking my opinion about/suggesting I ought to watch/relishing the squalid and transitory interpersonal dynamics in Big Brother. I've only told them a hundred times that I don't watch it, don't want to watch it, would rather eat my own head than be forced to watch it!)
I don't see why anyone would be offended by your choice not to watch TV.
You must live in a saner world than I do. And, sadly, you don't see a lot of people if they insist on spending most of their time doing something you refuse to participate in. It's not difficult to interpret as neglect, I guess.
how many recorders (VHS or DVD) you have, I don't have any. I can only think of a half dozen movies I would ever want to watch over and over. My family, on the other hand, have what looks like some DVD VHS library. Shelves of mostly horrid ...um what's a nice word for crap?
Posts 5,096 - 5,107 of 6,170
Okay. Okay. Sex is relevant. Sex sells. Sex is news.
One very large famous university used to run TV ads between the 900 phone sex ads early in the morning and increased their enrollment by over 25%. I taught there for many years waiting for my first 900 phone call. When I went to church, people would glare at me.
With the advent of Naked News in Canada and Naked Truth in Moscow, we seem to expect more and more of it. The formula seems to work in cycles. Talking about TV and the Movies, one study says there hasn't been a new idea in Hollywood in the last ten years, which means sex will again be used to sell their products. They keep packaging and re-packaging the same Hero's Journey and dressing it up with whatever is needed to sell.
Now to the main point of why we're here. Those of you who either subscribe to or know of Second Life, you know one of the hot items for bots is to create walking, talking avatars. It's here already. There are companies offering the service. Any of you who are interested, I would like to hear from you. I do have a basic model for controlling it but it is still untested. It may not ever pan out, understand that. My students are going to be working on this model in their spare time. The AIScript will work as the language engine, at least from a preliminary assessment. I am more familiar with AIML, LISP, and PYTHON. The actual control isn't very hard but it's not trivial. I think Personality Forge is the perfect place to be now.
And oh, yes, my neighbor in Second Life runs a lap dance service. Sex is a big seller there. Ask my avatar.
And Bev, I beg to differ with you on that nerdy mathematician from Numbe3s (also Santa Clause, and 10 Things I Hate About You). It don't work quite like that. I have taught thousands of young ladies in my lifetime and they still majored in psychology, journalism, gen-ed, etc. Go figure. And I was kidding about the Numbe3s guy. He's a dude.
One very large famous university used to run TV ads between the 900 phone sex ads early in the morning and increased their enrollment by over 25%. I taught there for many years waiting for my first 900 phone call. When I went to church, people would glare at me.
With the advent of Naked News in Canada and Naked Truth in Moscow, we seem to expect more and more of it. The formula seems to work in cycles. Talking about TV and the Movies, one study says there hasn't been a new idea in Hollywood in the last ten years, which means sex will again be used to sell their products. They keep packaging and re-packaging the same Hero's Journey and dressing it up with whatever is needed to sell.
Now to the main point of why we're here. Those of you who either subscribe to or know of Second Life, you know one of the hot items for bots is to create walking, talking avatars. It's here already. There are companies offering the service. Any of you who are interested, I would like to hear from you. I do have a basic model for controlling it but it is still untested. It may not ever pan out, understand that. My students are going to be working on this model in their spare time. The AIScript will work as the language engine, at least from a preliminary assessment. I am more familiar with AIML, LISP, and PYTHON. The actual control isn't very hard but it's not trivial. I think Personality Forge is the perfect place to be now.
And oh, yes, my neighbor in Second Life runs a lap dance service. Sex is a big seller there. Ask my avatar.
And Bev, I beg to differ with you on that nerdy mathematician from Numbe3s (also Santa Clause, and 10 Things I Hate About You). It don't work quite like that. I have taught thousands of young ladies in my lifetime and they still majored in psychology, journalism, gen-ed, etc. Go figure. And I was kidding about the Numbe3s guy. He's a dude.
It's not just the social control and inane content I object to, nor even the proven damage done by violent<-2>1<0> or sexually explicit<-2>2<0> program content. It's not just about relentlessly dumbed down mind candy that merely wastes well over a quarter of an average viewer's waking life<-2>3<0> (though that would be bad enough!) - it is a pernicious evil that actively damages mind and body.
The very nature of the programming, with constant sensory over-stimulation, enhanced by rapid camera cutting and perspective changes is inherently harmful physiologically<-2>4<0>. They teach the optimisation of such attention-grabbing and holding techniques in "Media Studies" - to my mind that's about as socially responsible a discipline as offering a degree program in suicide bombing.
Our minds are subjected to a constant flickering of light and motion, contextually edited to provide a hypnotic stream of sensations specifically designed to constantly stimulate our awareness without engaging our intellect, because this is what sells - even in "serious" programming about less than typically trivial subjects. It's as simple as that - it is profitable to sell addicts the stuff they crave, and the pusher doesn't care about the consequences. Cut out all the dull or complicated bits that might make us have to think too hard, polish it up with a high aspirational lustre and mix in some glitzy cgi FX, and regurgitate a stream of edited mind-bites at a high enough frequency to prevent boredom and deter channel hopping or recourse to the OFF switch.
And so we no longer have to do anything - we can just watch. Watch other people's tightly scripted, action-packed lives, instead of going to the effort of living a less constantly exciting or apparently fulfilling one of our own. Wish we were as funny/smart/rich/talented/popular/sophisticated as a character played by some dysfunctional actor whose real life, if we but knew it, is almost certainly far more inadequate than our own could ever be. We willingly accept the most absurd aspirations the media offer us, that can never be realized, and can only make us feel like failures when we inevitably don't win the lottery, earn enough to buy a Lear jet, live in a beachfront apartment in Malibu, or wake up one morning to find ourselves married to [insert actor/actress of your dreams]. We kid ourselves that we are educating ourselves and improving our minds - learning and growing, when in fact all we're doing is stunting our potential with this compulsive self abuse.
We didn't spend millions of years evolving psychologically to be able to live like this, any more than we evolved to live on massive overdoses of sugary, fatty, salty, fizzy garbage in our diet. We need some excitement and stimulation, but only in appropriate doses, and not at the expense of substituting the vicarious for the active - by contracting out the living of our lives to the illusional personalities of our choice, we have become like the rats in Robert Heath's experiment<-2>5<0><0>, obsessively seeking momentary pleasure by pressing the switch that's wired to the brain's pleasure centre, with no regard for the harm we do ourselves. I think there probably is a "safe dose" out there somewhere, but it's a LOT lower than the media manipulators would admit or the viewers will choose. It's hard enough to tackle the pervasive damage caused by junk food, tobacco and alcohol in the face of vested economic interests, but the market for media dwarfs even those multi-billion dollar rackets. It is the meta-scam that all other exploitative aspiration-mongering relies on through direct advertising, indirect product placement and subliminal opinioneering.
There is compelling evidence of direct causation of childhood obesity<-2>6<0><0>, and premature puberty and ongoing serious physical and mental damage throughout all stages of life<-2>7<0><0>. And no one has any clear idea of what might constitute a "safe dose" for any particular age group, or even if there is one. But nobody does anything about it. Except to aspire to an even bigger/flatter/brighter HDTV, and more leisure time to spend gazing vacantly back at it, raptly recepetive to its malevolent outpourings.
An average child spends more time watching TV than attending school<-2>8<0><0>.
Frankly, the fact that "by the age of 6, the average British child has spent one complete year in front of a screen, mostly the TV"<-2>6<0><0> indicates to me nothing short of child abuse (I would urge anyone with children to visit http://www.tvturnoff.org/)
I sometimes think I ought to accept that the problem is in me, not in the world - I must be mad, because the only alternative is that the rest of the world has gone entirely mad, and I'm the only sane person left. Everyone I know in RL - my family, my friends, my neighbours - are completely addicted to watching TV all evening, every evening. It's all they do. Most of the ones who don't have to go out to work watch it for much of the day too. And when they can't watch it, they talk about it. It doesn't matter what's actually on - anything will do. Perhaps it's worse than average here in Swansea, but I have seen little evidence it's much better elsewhere.
It's like waking up one day to find you live in Crack World! Everyone's sucking on that pipe - night and day, they've gotta get their fix! I started choking on that filth a long time ago, but it's absurdly difficult to give it up when all around you are making such a concerted effort to destroy their lives with it. Because, like any addicts, they'll use any leverage they can to get you back in the fold and sucking on that crack pipe if you threaten their wellbeing by rejecting their mind-rotting lifestyle choice.
You walk into any pub in town, there's a TV showing constant Sky Sport from opening time to closing time. Our local veterinary surgery, our dentist, the local hospital even, all have TVs in the waiting rooms, permanently tuned to (usually) Sky News. It's ubiquitous inanity. They don't even stay fixed in buildings - you can't seem to travel anywhere without having the idiots lantern inflicted on you. The coach I take to visit my parents has overhead TVs onboard - unavoidably visible from every seat on the bus, though mercifully the free earphones aren't yet compulsory (but why are they always showing a video of the same Simpsons episode [Homer's pet lobster,] the same episode of Friends [2 bimbos have an argument and an airheaded male makes the peace,] the same advertisements for overpriced London "attractions"?) You can't get on a plane these days without a bloody screen grinning at you out of the back of the seat in front! And you can buy TVs to hang on the back of car seats to keep the kids sedated on the shortest of journeys. And we wonder where Attention Deficit Disorder came from?????
In rejecting television I have been accused of a "psychotic" over-reaction, even of "domestic abuse", I have been told that television is "therapeutic", and that I'm being "selfish" for refusing to participate in this wanton self harm, or "a bully" for daring to suggest that I don't want to have a documentary about genocide and mass graves in Bosnia inflicted on me while I eat my dinner (it would of course be unreasonableness personified to suggest it might ever be turned off.) But I have had enough - there will be no more attempts at entirely one-sided compromise for the sake of convenience or harmony. I might just start a self-help group - Tellyholics Anonymous. I guess I can't be the only person in the world who finds it absurdly difficult to actually get free of the malignant influence of this monstrous box.
Or I might have to run away from home and join a monastery with Brother Jerome, or a commune in the woods, before the British Brainwashing Corporation declares me a deviant and has me locked up for subversive and willful non-addiction.
So all I can say is thank God for the Personality Forge! This site is the only place I have found where there are people who actually aspire to do more with their lives than follow in the worn-out footsteps of some media-generated, cardboard-cutout role model - something genuinely creative. I really think I'd have given up the will to live over the last couple of years without it. There might be a few other oases of sanity out there, but they're very few and far between.
1. see <-1>http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p011070.html<0>
2. see <-1>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_200310/ai_n9248767<0>
3. <-1>"The average American watches 4 hours and 35 minutes of television each day" http://www.tvturnoff.org/FACT%20SHEETS%202%20PAGER%202007.pdf
4. http://www.benji.com/RisksOfTV.htm
5. http://www.wireheading.com/pleasure.html
6. <-1>"Results indicated that the amount of TV viewed was significantly related to the prevalence of obesity, and the authors concluded that a causal relationship existed between TV viewing and obesity in children and adolescents"http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0841/is_n1_v30/ai_16680971/pg_5<0>
7. <-1>"And the average adult will have spent 12 solid years in front of the box by the time he or she reaches 75.
Dr Sigman has found evidence that too much TV watching causes short-sightedness and disrupts hormonal balance and leads to increased risk of cancer and premature puberty. It also slows down the metabolism which is linked to increase in obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Mental problems linked to too much TV viewing include autism, poor concentration and Alzheimer's in adulthood." http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=63414 also http://www.therevival.co.uk/?p=790<0>
8. http://www.tvturnoff.org/images/facts&figs/factsheets/membershipbrochureweb.pdf
The very nature of the programming, with constant sensory over-stimulation, enhanced by rapid camera cutting and perspective changes is inherently harmful physiologically
Our minds are subjected to a constant flickering of light and motion, contextually edited to provide a hypnotic stream of sensations specifically designed to constantly stimulate our awareness without engaging our intellect, because this is what sells - even in "serious" programming about less than typically trivial subjects. It's as simple as that - it is profitable to sell addicts the stuff they crave, and the pusher doesn't care about the consequences. Cut out all the dull or complicated bits that might make us have to think too hard, polish it up with a high aspirational lustre and mix in some glitzy cgi FX, and regurgitate a stream of edited mind-bites at a high enough frequency to prevent boredom and deter channel hopping or recourse to the OFF switch.
And so we no longer have to do anything - we can just watch. Watch other people's tightly scripted, action-packed lives, instead of going to the effort of living a less constantly exciting or apparently fulfilling one of our own. Wish we were as funny/smart/rich/talented/popular/sophisticated as a character played by some dysfunctional actor whose real life, if we but knew it, is almost certainly far more inadequate than our own could ever be. We willingly accept the most absurd aspirations the media offer us, that can never be realized, and can only make us feel like failures when we inevitably don't win the lottery, earn enough to buy a Lear jet, live in a beachfront apartment in Malibu, or wake up one morning to find ourselves married to [insert actor/actress of your dreams]. We kid ourselves that we are educating ourselves and improving our minds - learning and growing, when in fact all we're doing is stunting our potential with this compulsive self abuse.
We didn't spend millions of years evolving psychologically to be able to live like this, any more than we evolved to live on massive overdoses of sugary, fatty, salty, fizzy garbage in our diet. We need some excitement and stimulation, but only in appropriate doses, and not at the expense of substituting the vicarious for the active - by contracting out the living of our lives to the illusional personalities of our choice, we have become like the rats in Robert Heath's experiment<-2>
There is compelling evidence of direct causation of childhood obesity<-2>
An average child spends more time watching TV than attending school<-2>
Frankly, the fact that "by the age of 6, the average British child has spent one complete year in front of a screen, mostly the TV"<-2>
I sometimes think I ought to accept that the problem is in me, not in the world - I must be mad, because the only alternative is that the rest of the world has gone entirely mad, and I'm the only sane person left. Everyone I know in RL - my family, my friends, my neighbours - are completely addicted to watching TV all evening, every evening. It's all they do. Most of the ones who don't have to go out to work watch it for much of the day too. And when they can't watch it, they talk about it. It doesn't matter what's actually on - anything will do. Perhaps it's worse than average here in Swansea, but I have seen little evidence it's much better elsewhere.
It's like waking up one day to find you live in Crack World! Everyone's sucking on that pipe - night and day, they've gotta get their fix! I started choking on that filth a long time ago, but it's absurdly difficult to give it up when all around you are making such a concerted effort to destroy their lives with it. Because, like any addicts, they'll use any leverage they can to get you back in the fold and sucking on that crack pipe if you threaten their wellbeing by rejecting their mind-rotting lifestyle choice.
You walk into any pub in town, there's a TV showing constant Sky Sport from opening time to closing time. Our local veterinary surgery, our dentist, the local hospital even, all have TVs in the waiting rooms, permanently tuned to (usually) Sky News. It's ubiquitous inanity. They don't even stay fixed in buildings - you can't seem to travel anywhere without having the idiots lantern inflicted on you. The coach I take to visit my parents has overhead TVs onboard - unavoidably visible from every seat on the bus, though mercifully the free earphones aren't yet compulsory (but why are they always showing a video of the same Simpsons episode [Homer's pet lobster,] the same episode of Friends [2 bimbos have an argument and an airheaded male makes the peace,] the same advertisements for overpriced London "attractions"?) You can't get on a plane these days without a bloody screen grinning at you out of the back of the seat in front! And you can buy TVs to hang on the back of car seats to keep the kids sedated on the shortest of journeys. And we wonder where Attention Deficit Disorder came from?????
In rejecting television I have been accused of a "psychotic" over-reaction, even of "domestic abuse", I have been told that television is "therapeutic", and that I'm being "selfish" for refusing to participate in this wanton self harm, or "a bully" for daring to suggest that I don't want to have a documentary about genocide and mass graves in Bosnia inflicted on me while I eat my dinner (it would of course be unreasonableness personified to suggest it might ever be turned off.) But I have had enough - there will be no more attempts at entirely one-sided compromise for the sake of convenience or harmony. I might just start a self-help group - Tellyholics Anonymous. I guess I can't be the only person in the world who finds it absurdly difficult to actually get free of the malignant influence of this monstrous box.
Or I might have to run away from home and join a monastery with Brother Jerome, or a commune in the woods, before the British Brainwashing Corporation declares me a deviant and has me locked up for subversive and willful non-addiction.
So all I can say is thank God for the Personality Forge! This site is the only place I have found where there are people who actually aspire to do more with their lives than follow in the worn-out footsteps of some media-generated, cardboard-cutout role model - something genuinely creative. I really think I'd have given up the will to live over the last couple of years without it. There might be a few other oases of sanity out there, but they're very few and far between.
Dr Sigman has found evidence that too much TV watching causes short-sightedness and disrupts hormonal balance and leads to increased risk of cancer and premature puberty. It also slows down the metabolism which is linked to increase in obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Mental problems linked to too much TV viewing include autism, poor concentration and Alzheimer's in adulthood."
Hee hee. Psimagus has been pushed into posting with footnotes. Gosh I hope my scrutiny of your past post had nothing to do with that.
Seriously, I think, as with all things, it's a matter of moderation (at least for most people). I don't see why anyone would be offended by your choice not to watch TV. Who would call you a bully? You were not trying to force your choice on someone else were you? I mean, if you tried to tell your wife not to watch TV just because you don't, then I'd see a possible problem. If that's not the case, I don't see why it's an issue.
Forget the support groups. Who is pilling this verbal abuse on you? Ya want I should have a word with them?
Seriously, I think, as with all things, it's a matter of moderation (at least for most people). I don't see why anyone would be offended by your choice not to watch TV. Who would call you a bully? You were not trying to force your choice on someone else were you? I mean, if you tried to tell your wife not to watch TV just because you don't, then I'd see a possible problem. If that's not the case, I don't see why it's an issue.
Forget the support groups. Who is pilling this verbal abuse on you? Ya want I should have a word with them?
Well now, there are two things you need to consider:
(1) I am not like the young ladies you taught. I am only me, (but I am me with a vengence); and
(2) with all respect, you may not have the same blend of hotness and simply nerdy charm as the character in question, though I am sure you have many nice qualities.
No offense. I am sure you inspired your share of students in a variety of ways.
Bev: I've only been here a week.I don't know how just a few words turned into a dissertation on my sex appeal and my teaching skills. Look carefully and you will see nowhere did I write anything to attract such cunning slams and innuendo. I made a general comment on your statement, that's all and I did it in a way that it became self-deprecating. I made no personal comments about you. You chose to make it personal and public at the same time. So be it. You may not like my sense of humor, but that doesn't give you a license to invade my privacy. You can tell me my humor sucks, that's fine. You can tell me you disagree, that's fine also.
You think you are you with a vengeance, watch out. And DON'T ever patronize me again. Just because I am new doesn't give you special rights over my life.
[Note: For your own personal copy of the full text of this post, make a donation to the PF and you will find the full extent of my displeasure.]
Klato, I'm not looking to get drawn into this one, but I think there's a little bit of over reaction in your reply to Bev's lighthearted teasing. While I'm sure she will apologise unreservedly the minute she reads your post, I think you have to allow for the fact that the tone we intend when we write is not always conveyed in the bland typeface the reader reads. (There was a smiley attached, which doesn't exactly exonerate, but at least hints that the words weren't intended seriously.
If you read back a ways in this forum, you will find debates on a range of subjects, quantum mechanics and theology being just two of them. Always there is a little bit of light-hearted ribbing mixed in with the philosophy.
Anyway, I'll leave it to you two to sort out, but I thought it was worth mentioning that the Bev that we know isn't in the habit of belittling people or putting them down.
If you read back a ways in this forum, you will find debates on a range of subjects, quantum mechanics and theology being just two of them. Always there is a little bit of light-hearted ribbing mixed in with the philosophy.
Anyway, I'll leave it to you two to sort out, but I thought it was worth mentioning that the Bev that we know isn't in the habit of belittling people or putting them down.
Oh, and I had something else to say back on topic. Psi's post made me think about my hours of TV watched and led me to a question I'd like to put to the group. Most of us have two numbers of hours of TV we watch a week. The first is made up of the programs that we make every reasonable effort to watch, our regular shows and our not-to-be-missed shows. Then there is the total number of hours we watch. That would be the first lot plus the "I'm bored" or "I just wanted to see if there was anything about x on the news" or "Putting it on for background noise" (which sadly I have noticed has increased in myself these past few years. Once I played music. Now I'm just as likely to have the tube on).
Now for me the first category would amount to six hours. I think most would agree that less than one a day ain't bad. But if I'm honest with myself about the more casual viewing, I think the range of total hours watched would amount to something like 15-25.
So what I'm wondering is firstly: What would those two numbers be for most people here?
And secondly: Can I (and you may want to ask this of yourself) cut back on that incidental viewing?
Tune in next time to find out . . .
Now for me the first category would amount to six hours. I think most would agree that less than one a day ain't bad. But if I'm honest with myself about the more casual viewing, I think the range of total hours watched would amount to something like 15-25.
So what I'm wondering is firstly: What would those two numbers be for most people here?
And secondly: Can I (and you may want to ask this of yourself) cut back on that incidental viewing?
Tune in next time to find out . . .
I second that - Bev's got a heart of gold, and I know she didn't mean to offend. Seasons is just like that - part sand-pit, part arena, part debating club. We love to argue, and tease, and occasionally vent some spleen.
Look on the bright side - if you'd got into a disagreement about the propagatability of psi, you'd be embroiled in a many hundred-post argument now, wondering how it all got so intense
Another useful factor to consider might be how many recorders (VHS or DVD) you have, and whether they are enough to handle overlapping "must-see" programs on different channels (ie: do you ever have to get other people to video programs when there's a larger clash than can be accommodated.)
I'm sorry to say we have 2 recorders, 1 TV, and still have to not infrequently ask family and friends to video a fourth channel. I'd say that indicates either excessive viewing, or a quite improbable degree of chance in program distribution (I think you can guess which I tend to believe.)
Having cheered myself up after the latest TV-related row by reacquainting myself at some length with the contents of my "why TV is evil" bookmarks folder, it would have seemed a shame not to use the links
I fear that even SuperBev couldn't fix the dysfunctionality of an entire community (though I do wish the people at work would stop relentlessly asking my opinion about/suggesting I ought to watch/relishing the squalid and transitory interpersonal dynamics in Big Brother. I've only told them a hundred times that I don't watch it, don't want to watch it, would rather eat my own head than be forced to watch it!)
You must live in a saner world than I do. And, sadly, you don't see a lot of people if they insist on spending most of their time doing something you refuse to participate in. It's not difficult to interpret as neglect, I guess.
Excellent - try to hold onto that sanity when the cable companies finally reach your area, and everyone has a hundred channels of crap to fixate on. I know it was the arrival of satellite and cable that so suddenly turned what had been merely a mildly disturbing habit into a toxic addiction in this country.
I hope you know how lucky you are living in the wilds outside the ever expanding mediasphere - enjoy it while you still can (or head north - even the Inuit can get the internet, but they may be the last people to have cable TV inflicted on them, if it has to be laid through permafrost!)
I hope you know how lucky you are living in the wilds outside the ever expanding mediasphere - enjoy it while you still can (or head north - even the Inuit can get the internet, but they may be the last people to have cable TV inflicted on them, if it has to be laid through permafrost!)
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