In Saturday’s cartoon, Mallard Fillmore says,
I’m really getting old… I can remember when “We don’t even own a T.V. wasn’t a status symbol.”
Andy and I don’t pay much attention to status symbols, but I can’t think of anyone who has bragged about not owning a TV. I do know people who are happy with their 40-inch ones.
We have two TVs, a 22-inch one in the living room — connected to an antenna on the roof — and a 19-inch one in my study. Andy watches the local weather live almost every night, and I watch movies and TV series — either using DVDs or streaming over the internet — while I exercise in my study.
I recently finished binge-watching the most recent season of Downton Abbey. I could have watched it in real time earlier in the year, but it’s more fun to wait and completely immerse myself.
What about you? Do you have a TV or two? How do you use it/them?
August 11, 2014
We’re down to two TVs — one in the camper, which we don’t use and are thinking of taking out, and one at home in the living room, which we use mostly for evening news. For a long time, the only way we could get decent reception for “local” stations was through our satellite dish. We canceled Dish Network and when we get home, I’ll be putting up a digital TV antenna. If that doesn’t work we may go back to a satellite subscription.
For everything else, we watch streaming video from Netflix or Hulu.
We’re lucky that we get good reception for the main networks. It would be expensive to have to pay for Andy’s ten minutes a day.
The neighbor’s HUGE TV dwarfs our Big TVs. But I really admire people who don’t own one. —–I’m not going to deprive myself & get rid of TV.
Why do you admire them? Videos are a godsend for me with my eyes.
I thought you watched on your computer & I admire you. 🙂
We have the one TV in the living room. I don’t watch it much. Hubby likes to watch Moto GP, Tour de France (and other cycling programmes) and car shows.
Together, we’ll watch certain series, movies or DVDs.
I agree, and we too like to immerse in favourite series, rather than watch them weekly – if and when possible.
And then there are the commercials that completely disrupt the experience, except for PBS.
We’ve completely gone over to computer.
That’s definitely another way to go.
We have one TV set in the drawing room which is very rarely used to see any TV program. It is used mostly by me to watch DVDs. But not having a TV set and crowing about it now is indeed reverse snobbery.
So people where you are do crow about not having a TV?
We’ve never gotten around to getting a TV for our island house and are happy using computers to stream DVDs. Noone I know seems to think it’s a status symbol, however; they usually look at us as if we’re truly weirdos, or commiserate with us about the weak and erratic communication systems we have out here in the boondocks.
I’ve pre-ordered season 5 of Downton Abbey on DVDs, which if I remember to do so, I’ll then donate to the local library.
I’m curious, where did you order it?
I could stream on my computer, but it would be hard to watch while I use my NordicTrack treadmill. It was easier to buy an extra TV. We’re so lucky to have access to so many gadgets, so much entertainment.
Somewhere you said that you’re binge watching Downton Abbey. We binge-watched Breaking Bad which was free. It looks like you pay $240 to get the Downton Abbey DVDs + an episode that hasn’t been aired yet. Have I got that right?
I had watched the first three seasons of Downton Abbey by streaming with Netflix. They only had Season 4 on DVDs, so I started to watch it using my 2-out-at-a-time DVD account. Then I noticed I could stream it for free using Amazon Prime, so I used that instead.
😀 Good job!