Attention Drew…
on 07/26/2013 at 03:51 PM
Not to mention having TV shows and movies - they have these great things called books!
No electricity required (unless it’s dark), no annoying FBI/Interpol warnings, you can skip ahead or reread sections at you hearts content, and best of all - they stimulate your brain, creating visual images based on the words.
How can you beat that?!?
Books are fine and they have their place. Lord knows I have loads of them around here. Some are old old friends I’ve read dozens of times, some have only been read once. I usually have one or two by the bedside. Peiper and I trade books frequently, and I often swap with my neighbors. I’m a pretty voracious reader.
But aside from reading bedtime stories to children, it’s pretty tough to share the experience of a book at the same time you read it with another person. So we turn to TV. With hundreds of channels to choose from, and so many networks now doing summer series, plus with the depth of the cable company’s On Demand system, we can almost always find something we like ... and we hate stupid TV, reality shows, anything “America’s Top...” or “America’s Next...”, ancient crap from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and so on. We’re rather picky. But even so, we can find stuff. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s a bit cheesy ...
I caught John Carter of Mars yesterday. It took me a week to read the book by E.R.B. when I was a kid, but even my sexually precocious active imagination didn’t envision Dejah Thoris as hot as she is in the film. Dressed mostly in jewelry and paint, her look sort of reminded me of the smokin hot Patricia Velasquez’s Ankh Sun Amun from 1999’s The Mummy. Only DT is also a brilliant warrior princess. Given that Dejah T is the ultimate sci-fi sex bomb since the very beginning of the genre, and has been drawn to extremes by comic books for decades, I think the studio did a great job of making her look respectable, classy, and powerful as well as really hot. So it was a grade A book back when my dad was a kid, and a fun grade B sci-fi flick today. Not too much CGI, plus swords and ray guns. How can you go wrong?
TNT’s King & Maxwell is our latest find. Monday nights. Ha ha, I read the book first then it became a TV show. It’s fun, it’s mild adventure, it’s only partially cute, and Rebecca Romijn adds a big dose of eye candy. Two ex-secret service folks working as private investigators solving crimes. Aided by their special-abilities guy (I’m sure folks like him are not called idiot-savants any longer, but I don’t know the current PC term), they run around DC looking great and trading banter. It’s good enough for a summer show.
And if I need a dose of synchronicity, the guy who plays in this show played (Kyra Sedgwick) Brenda Lee’s FBI agent boyfriend on The Closer. That show continues without either of them, now called Major Crimes, and is on ahead of K&M. That was a great cast, so I’ll probably watch that at least a couple times too.Your choice if you want to live without TV. Personally I think that’s nuts. You’ve cut yourself off from the rest of the world and the 21st century. And if instead you’re watching stuff online ... well, that’s either a bit of hypocrisy or sort of like cheating. Understood though if you have to save money and cable TV costs too much.
We use the library for a lot of tv, especially when grandkids around for younger shows - that we no longer have a need for. It’s the commercials - that I now mute. Can’t stand them anymore.
But I’m with the hubby - books are great to stimulate the mind.
And Christopher - I love the library playaway - great little thing - all you need are the batteries and earphones - too many books are 10+ cds or cassettes now - but the playway is self contained and SMALL.
Drew, my wife’s friends also think we’re nuts. I’ve not cut myself off from the rest of the world. My choice was between internet and TV. Internet wins. I don’t watch stuff online. I do occasionally checkout stuff like Battlestar Galactica or The Walking Dead from the library.
I’m currently on a Bogart bing and have several of his movies on reserve.
