Another Good Thing about not having T.V.

Apart from a brief stint with a close friend who had television, we've not had more than a barely visible local news station or two since about 1992. It's not political or anything like that--when it started it was simple economics: we were students and couldn't afford it, not when food, beer, and new sabre blades demanded what cash didn't make it to the university regents. We just got used to living without it.

I don't think about t.v. all that often--the longer you're away from television the less interesting most of it is. Not infrequently when I do see it, usually at some friend's house, the airport, or increasingly, gas stations... (why? Is anyone there that long?), shows and commercials alike tend to view more like the offerings of Europe's least technologically savvy countries. It's good for laughs, but not something I would want to pay $50 plus a month to see.

One good thing about this is that lots of good people I know do have television, and they tend to share what they think is watchable, and if we're lucky, down right entertaining. Most recently, my buddy Jon introduced me to "Firefly," a show that for reasons that still baffle me, among thousands of others, was cancelled. If you've not watched it (there are fourteen episodes I think), add them to your Netflix queue or rent them at whichever video monopoly infests your neighborhood. It's good, really. See to the film they made to tie up some of the loose-ends, "Serenity."