1st Media Musings

The other thing I wanted to do with this blog was to record various musings about my life--my experiences, what I watch on TV, the movies I rarely get to see, and the music I listen to. Like every other blog out there. So I will attempt to do so daily, even if no one is reading.

We have TiVo. As Rosie O'Donnell said recently, TiVo's the best invention in the last ten years. I don't agree with Rosie about most things, but I agree with that. I remember the days when I had twenty video tapes around, and it was near to impossible keeping them all straight. Digital recordings make things so much easier. It's one of those technologies (like the microwave oven, the cell phone, and the internet) that I can't imagine my life without.

Of course, having TiVo means that as a family, we watch a lot more TV than we used to, which is saying a lot for me, since I've always, my entire life, been a big TV viewer. I've always loved TV. As I told my husband last week, there's just too much good TV out there. His reply was, "Can't imagine saying that five years ago." But it's true. Back in March of this year, Entertainment Weekly proclaimed that we're now in another "golden age of television." They made a good case for it, so I think that I agree with that statement. There are so many quality programs being produced. I'd rather curl up on my sofa with my husband and watch an episode of "Lost" than most of the movies being made these days.

Another problem with having TiVo is that we have so much TV to watch, we're always behind. For example, we watched last Thursday's episode of "Shark" last night. The situation will be temporarily worse this week because my husband is going out of town to Boise, ID until Saturday night. My review in the following post.

At any rate, TiVo is great. We tape the kids' programs and allow them to watch them at the end of day. Yes, being the parent of two developmentally disabled little kids, we're perpetually in toddler-world. That means I've become the expert of preschool children's TV programming. We TiVo (who would've thought that word would've become a noun?) "Sesame Street," "Blue's Clues," "The Wiggles," "Lazy Town," and "Little Einsteins." We do not allow "Barney" and "The Teletubbies" in our house; they are illegal! I'll probably talk about those shows (and other children's shows) from time to time.

One of my favorite uses for TiVo personally is to go back and review certain shows from time to time. During the final season of "Friends" in 2004, I realized that I had missed a few seasons, so I put it on our Season Pass and watched it from beginning to end. I rediscovered the show! It was great fun. At the same time, I realized that I had watched very few episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (yah TV Land!) and did the same thing. Also great fun. These days, I've gone back to "NYPD Blue" on Court TV, which is in the middle of the 2000-2001 season. Yes, doing that is a big commitment, especially with the long-running shows. When all is said and done, watching one episode a day, it'll take about a year to view the entire series from beginning to end.