Cold comfort for change/Did you exchange
May. 15th, 2008 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shoebox_dwSo, moving along now. Not that the ongoing FBoFW plotline doesn't continue to bug big-time, because it does (hell, at this point even LJ's fellow 50's relicts are likely all "Whoa, lady, let them sow a few wild oats, eh?").
However. One of the reasons that I started this blog in the first place was to avoid becoming one of those Netizens who believe their life now has Meaning because they've found a forum to vent about comic strips. (Which does not, I feel compelled to add, include the majority of the posters at Comics Curmudgeon or![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
binky_betsy, whose wide and entertaining knowledge of the world is actually what makes their snark readable.)
Thus we progress with all decent speed from the Settleocalypse to...the Cableocalypse.
See, Shoemom and I have recently concluded a review of the family budget wherein it emerged that we spend upwards of $70/month to watch for all practical purposes, four cable channels: Discovery, Food Network, HGTV and TreehouseTV. Or maybe five, if you count the Turner Classic Movie channel, which you pretty much have to, on account of every so often they snap and show things like They Died With Their Boots On - a biopic of Gen. George Armstrong Custer starring Errol Flynn. Which proves to be about as good an idea as a biopic of Barack Obama starring Keanu Reeves.
I mean, there's historical revisionism, and then there's recasting the arrogant loser of Little Big Horn as a selfless - crusading! - hero in a 40's biopic. The movie's main case for heroism appears to be that he's attracted the love of a woman (Olivia de Haviland, natch) who wears really elaborate costumes.
Barring such incidental pleasures, the more we discussed the matter the more difficult it became to ignore the value-for-money issues surrounding the likes of Smash Lab and Fifi & the Flowertots, to say nothing of Paula Deen.
Especially after a quick tour of the 'TV on DVD' section of the local HMV, which revealed to us - in a manner reminiscent of Dorothy stepping over the rainbow and into glorious Technicolour - that all those paid hours spent attempting to wring entertainment value out of Dirty Jobs and Kitchen: Impossible instead could've been spent amassing pretty well every single beloved media memory of my thirty-seven years. Up to and including the complete series of Jamie's Kitchen.
In the end, we'd narrowed our must-have cable consumption down to:
1. That episode of Iron Chef America which features Jamie Oliver. Which is on next week.
So we've cancelled the cable as of the end of May...which, in the manner of most such decisions, has started me thinking that, well, Dirty Jobs was after all kinda nice and harmless to go to sleep to. And, y'know, it would be sorta hard to explain Backyardigans DVDs lying around when friends come to visit...
...In short, having a big ol'blank spot in my daily routine where an ever-obliging media presence used to be is going to take more getting used to than I maybe bargained for.
Eventually, embarrassment over this weakness becomes such that I have to pull myself up and remonstrate sternly on matters touching intellectual independence and healthy lifestyles. This mostly takes the form of reminding myself that - as part of the tax refund spree - I now own at least twenty-four solid hours of Mythbusters. Including the One Where They Escape From Alcatraz. Unbroken by those endless promo bumpers for Giant Cosmic Space Wedgie: Are We Prepared? or whatever other Mega Disaster will make for the coolest F/X this week.
Immediately, the prospect glows much brighter, the happy-go-chipper soundtrack swells, and lo, visions of episode reviews have already started dancing through my head. Shoot, a couple more days of this treatment and I'll be all set to present my complete screenplay of the Life of Ruskin - not that he was inspired by the Discovery Channel, of course, that would be silly.
I'm thinking maybe Top Design.
However. One of the reasons that I started this blog in the first place was to avoid becoming one of those Netizens who believe their life now has Meaning because they've found a forum to vent about comic strips. (Which does not, I feel compelled to add, include the majority of the posters at Comics Curmudgeon or
binky_betsy, whose wide and entertaining knowledge of the world is actually what makes their snark readable.) Thus we progress with all decent speed from the Settleocalypse to...the Cableocalypse.
See, Shoemom and I have recently concluded a review of the family budget wherein it emerged that we spend upwards of $70/month to watch for all practical purposes, four cable channels: Discovery, Food Network, HGTV and TreehouseTV. Or maybe five, if you count the Turner Classic Movie channel, which you pretty much have to, on account of every so often they snap and show things like They Died With Their Boots On - a biopic of Gen. George Armstrong Custer starring Errol Flynn. Which proves to be about as good an idea as a biopic of Barack Obama starring Keanu Reeves.
I mean, there's historical revisionism, and then there's recasting the arrogant loser of Little Big Horn as a selfless - crusading! - hero in a 40's biopic. The movie's main case for heroism appears to be that he's attracted the love of a woman (Olivia de Haviland, natch) who wears really elaborate costumes.
Barring such incidental pleasures, the more we discussed the matter the more difficult it became to ignore the value-for-money issues surrounding the likes of Smash Lab and Fifi & the Flowertots, to say nothing of Paula Deen.
Especially after a quick tour of the 'TV on DVD' section of the local HMV, which revealed to us - in a manner reminiscent of Dorothy stepping over the rainbow and into glorious Technicolour - that all those paid hours spent attempting to wring entertainment value out of Dirty Jobs and Kitchen: Impossible instead could've been spent amassing pretty well every single beloved media memory of my thirty-seven years. Up to and including the complete series of Jamie's Kitchen.
In the end, we'd narrowed our must-have cable consumption down to:
1. That episode of Iron Chef America which features Jamie Oliver. Which is on next week.
So we've cancelled the cable as of the end of May...which, in the manner of most such decisions, has started me thinking that, well, Dirty Jobs was after all kinda nice and harmless to go to sleep to. And, y'know, it would be sorta hard to explain Backyardigans DVDs lying around when friends come to visit...
...In short, having a big ol'blank spot in my daily routine where an ever-obliging media presence used to be is going to take more getting used to than I maybe bargained for.
Eventually, embarrassment over this weakness becomes such that I have to pull myself up and remonstrate sternly on matters touching intellectual independence and healthy lifestyles. This mostly takes the form of reminding myself that - as part of the tax refund spree - I now own at least twenty-four solid hours of Mythbusters. Including the One Where They Escape From Alcatraz. Unbroken by those endless promo bumpers for Giant Cosmic Space Wedgie: Are We Prepared? or whatever other Mega Disaster will make for the coolest F/X this week.
Immediately, the prospect glows much brighter, the happy-go-chipper soundtrack swells, and lo, visions of episode reviews have already started dancing through my head. Shoot, a couple more days of this treatment and I'll be all set to present my complete screenplay of the Life of Ruskin - not that he was inspired by the Discovery Channel, of course, that would be silly.
I'm thinking maybe Top Design.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-16 07:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-20 04:15 am (UTC)Luckily, the consciousness of the money she's saving should sail her on through.