Taking a bite out of TV

Some people abhor television. To them it is a brain-numbing device sent to destroy people's creativity.

I'm not one of those people.

Odds are you aren't either. Because – honestly – let's face it, most people love TV. In the United States, the average person watches 151 hours of television per month, according to the Neilson Group. That's three hours per day. Every day. For each and every American citizen.

Taking into account the people that don't watch any television, that means that some people have to watch 302 hours of TV per month to make that average work out. Six hours a day. Every day. Monday through Sunday. As though it were their job.

Now I'm not that much of a TV fanatic, but maybe you are. Maybe you live vicariously through the soap operas and sitcoms that get broadcast day in and day out. Maybe you can't get through a conversation without saying “Hey, did you see (fill in the blank) last night?”

I'm not here to judge. If that's how you roll, good for you. I'm just here to let you know that we might have something to talk about now. Because for nearly the last year, my answer was almost always, “No.”

I've been without my trusty TV for a while for a variety of reasons, none of which are pertinent to this column. I haven't seen local news. I missed every episode of the final season of Lost. American Idol escaped me. I've never seen Tosh.0. And I missed almost all of Shark Week.

Actually it was Shark Week that put me over the edge. I was planning on waiting until the start of the hockey season to subscribe to any sort of television service, but I couldn't take all the tweets and Facebook updates about Shark Week. I just couldn't stand not being in the loop. I felt like an outsider – the new kid in school who didn't get all the inside jokes.

So last week I caved about two months earlier than planned and got myself hooked up to the rest of the world. I reveled in the glory that is HD. And I sat gleefully on my couch watching as sharks ate things. And people. I watched some Saturday Night Live and some stupid show about the 10 dumbest partiers. I recorded some movies on my DVR. I even watched a sappy chick flick. Then I watched sharks eat things to cleanse my palate.

I've always been more of a computer guy than a TV guy. Usually I'd rather watch some stupid video on YouTube than sit in front of the television going through 227 channels trying to find something worth watching. And I'm sure I'll still spend more time in front of my netbook's 10-inch screen than my television's 37-inch screen. But now I have the option.

I doubt I'll watch my allotted three hours a day. Then again, I did just sit down and schedule four movies to record today. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, none of them featuring sharks eating people.

Too bad it's not Shark Month.  

Bits and pieces ...

It’s easy in this fast-paced world we live in to lose sight of the big picture .I think a lot of people did that this past week when President Obama visited Buffalo.

All anyone seemed to want to talk about was that he had chosen Duff’s over Anchor Bar for wings and that some woman called him a “hottie.” I heard very little conversation on the substance of his speech.

Of course, I’m not sure his speech had much substance, to be honest with you. But it was the reason he was here. And yet, we’re talking about cougars and chicken wings.

Chicken wings and cougars must be the modern-day version of bread and circus.

•••

For some reason or another, I wasn’t interested in seeing the president while he was here. I’m sure I could have easily gotten press credentials for one of the things on his to-do list, but I made no effort whatsoever. I’m not even sure why.

In 2004, when President Bush was in town, I made sure to go see him.

Knowing what you know about me, it’s odd, right? That I’d make an effort to see Bush and not Obama. I’m still trying to figure out what that means.

•••

Of course, with most live events, you get a better view from your couch than from the event itself. Think of all the things you miss when you’re at a Bills game that you see on TV. Then again, it’s really the atmosphere that you’re there for. I could sit home and listen to Pearl Jam any time, but going to the concert last Monday was something special. It really is the atmosphere. And oftentimes, the company.

•••

That said, local TV did a great job covering the presidential visit. I caught some of Channel 2’s coverage and was forced to watch some of Channel 4’s. I’m going to assume that Channel 7’s was similar in scope to the other two.

Radio, on the other hand, didn’t do as good a job in my opinion. I checked three different stations, all of the news-talk variety. Only one of them really covered the visit. And they used the audio feed from one of the TV stations to do it. But it was better than the satellite-fed talk shows on the other two.

•••

It seems to me that the world is shrinking all the time. Maybe it’s because I make such an effort to stay connected, whether it’s through Facebook or Twitter or my cell phone or my latest greatest method of connectivity, foursquare.

Foursquare is an application for your phone which uses your GPS to allow you to tell your friends where you’re at. It seemed silly at first, but it’s fun when you get into it.

This past weekend, I noticed that one friend of mine and I were never more than a few blocks apart, despite the fact that we were all over the Buffalo region. Another friend of mine and I were actually at the Buffalo Zoo at the same time, although we didn’t run into each other. Was just weird, I guess.

You may recall I mentioned a while ago that I was apartment hunting and it went well. As it turns out, I now live down the street from a friend of mine, a fact I didn’t know until after moving in. Making this more strange is that I have recently discovered that two other pairs of friends live down the street from each other. One pair knows each other, but didn’t know they lived so close. The other pair only know each other’s names … and only because I’ve mentioned them to each other.

Maybe this is common and we don’t know it. Maybe we should just pay attention better.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how small the world is if you don’t take your face out of your phone to actually talk to the person next to you.

I think that’s the real big picture.