MSN.com has a brief video titled “Last Night on TV.” The video recaps shows that aired on TV the previous night. I watched this video for the first time this morning. I have no idea why. This morning’s video highlighted the winner of Hell’s Kitchen, the latest “betrayal” on Survivor, and the end of the contest vomit-fest on MTV’s The Challenge Cutthroat. Literally, the clip highlighted four or five contestants vomiting on the ground, with an off-camera female voice shouting, “You get it out, girl!” This video recap came the morning after the Boss and I, enjoying some couch time after her brief foray to DC this week, flipped through some 250 channels on cable without finding anything we were interested in watching. We settled on Phineas and Ferb on the Disney channel.
I’m not much of a TV watcher. I have a rather large high definition TV hanging on the wall, and if I watch three hours of TV each week, that’s a lot. After football season ends, my viewing time will drop significantly. I’ve seen one episode of Hell’s Kitchen. After you’ve seen Gordon Ramsey verbally decimate one chef, you’ve seen the entire show. I’ve seen one or two episodes of Survivor (years ago), but honestly, wouldn’t it be a better moral and ethical choice to take that million dollar prize and give it to someone who actually survives day-to-day in hellish conditions (Gordon Ramsey’s kitchen not included) rather than awarding that money to pampered Americans who get a wee taste of poor living conditions while revisiting immature drama that they should have escaped when they graduated from high school? Jesus experienced betrayal at the hands of Judas. Survivor contestants experience disappointment. Someone will have to explain to me the premise behind The Challenge Cutthroat. MTV lost its allure in the mid 80’s, shortly after I deployed on Westpac. It was fun to watch in the barracks during sub school, but there really wasn’t time for it after that. And, if watching people vomiting is the highlight of television programming, I’m thinking that maybe less is more. If we have so many TV channels and so much programming that we have to resort to watching people vomit to be entertained, I’m thinking that maybe we’ve lost sight of what is important in life.
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Where Are Your Clothes, Little Girl?
I received a brief note from Kellie this morning. She said that Jack Henry “is doing very well. Surgery was a success! He is groggy and sleeping a lot.” She is thankful for everyone’s prayers. Thank you, God, for watching over this little guy, for guiding his surgeons, and for taking care of pirate mom and pirate dad.
Recently, sitting and staring at a blank word processing screen has produced the same question over and over again. What happened to the stories? What happened to the insanity that defined my life? Where are the stories that I shared on my blog that were nothing more than a venting rant that people found entertaining? Some readers laughed with me while some readers laughed at me, and I really didn’t care as long as everyone was laughing.
The answer came to me when I realized that my children have settled down. Captain Chaos hasn’t been chaotic. Major Havoc hasn’t created any havoc. If General Mayhem’s recent behavior (he’s 12 11/12 years old) is any indication, the teen years might be tolerable. He’s almost human. Any thoughts that sanity might reign in the Arby household were forgotten when we found the girl standing in the living room at 10:30 last night, wearing nothing but toe nail polish and a smile.
“Hello, little girl, where are your clothes?” I asked.
“I took them off,” she replied, spinning in a circle. The twinkle in her eyes indicated that she was wide awake, ready to play, and enjoying her nakee-ness.
A little food helped put her in a sleepy state. When we brought her to bed we discovered that she had set up camp on the floor of her bedroom to play. She had a small TV on for an illicit viewing of Kipper the Dog. During a recent rearranging of stuff in our house, we tossed a small TV and VCR in the kid’s room, more out of a lack of anyplace to put it than a desire to allow our children to have a TV in their room. There is no television reception in their room, so this was only for children’s VCR tapes. We really do not want our children to have either TVs or computers in their own rooms, and this one is going to find a new location in our home today.
Captain Chaos understands stealth. I have no idea how long she was awake before we discovered her streaking upstairs. I suspect a long train of blogging topics is just below the horizon, heading my way!
Recently, sitting and staring at a blank word processing screen has produced the same question over and over again. What happened to the stories? What happened to the insanity that defined my life? Where are the stories that I shared on my blog that were nothing more than a venting rant that people found entertaining? Some readers laughed with me while some readers laughed at me, and I really didn’t care as long as everyone was laughing.
The answer came to me when I realized that my children have settled down. Captain Chaos hasn’t been chaotic. Major Havoc hasn’t created any havoc. If General Mayhem’s recent behavior (he’s 12 11/12 years old) is any indication, the teen years might be tolerable. He’s almost human. Any thoughts that sanity might reign in the Arby household were forgotten when we found the girl standing in the living room at 10:30 last night, wearing nothing but toe nail polish and a smile.
“Hello, little girl, where are your clothes?” I asked.
“I took them off,” she replied, spinning in a circle. The twinkle in her eyes indicated that she was wide awake, ready to play, and enjoying her nakee-ness.
A little food helped put her in a sleepy state. When we brought her to bed we discovered that she had set up camp on the floor of her bedroom to play. She had a small TV on for an illicit viewing of Kipper the Dog. During a recent rearranging of stuff in our house, we tossed a small TV and VCR in the kid’s room, more out of a lack of anyplace to put it than a desire to allow our children to have a TV in their room. There is no television reception in their room, so this was only for children’s VCR tapes. We really do not want our children to have either TVs or computers in their own rooms, and this one is going to find a new location in our home today.
Captain Chaos understands stealth. I have no idea how long she was awake before we discovered her streaking upstairs. I suspect a long train of blogging topics is just below the horizon, heading my way!
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