"the 9" thread - a pleasant place to converse

[OzziePete]

We're fixing to give up cable... and then there'll never be anything on TV.  :hello2:

We gave up cable a long time ago.

... but recently we just got netflix (Damn!!)

Sadly, in Australia, we are back in the dark ages of PPV TV...
We only really have one pay TV nationwide & that's a Fox network, and I just checked on Netflix and they insist on a US mailing address. I also remember tryingto watch a linked preview program on Nertflix and it locked me out, so I doubt that I can get that... :sad:

I refuse to pay for Fox even though the A-League that I follow is exclusively on it......But there are ways to watch that  :evil4: (streaming)

 

[pabloman]

I finally got netflix for my phone. I'm not sure why I wanted it so bad but it's finally a reality. Now I need the HDMI cable for the phone and I'll be set. :headbang1:

 

[OzziePete]

I finally got netflix for my phone. I'm not sure why I wanted it so bad but it's finally a reality. Now I need the HDMI cable for the phone and I'll be set. :headbang1:

HDMI cable for a phone?? What SORT of phone!  :icon_scratch:

 

[pabloman]

It's a Droid Incredible. That will allow me to watch the videos on the big tv. Again redundant since the Bluray and Wii in the living room are also hooked up to netflix but still.

 

[elfro89]

At least you don't have to pay for a TV license, the BBC are scum!  :laughing7:

 

[stubhead]

Hey Max - you know engineering in school is insanely math-heavy, right? I started that way, and I can do numbers, but it didn't take long to figure that I didn't want to do numbers that heavy for that long. Not in Miami, with all the great #$&* and the Florida beach bunnies who learned to %#*&@!! at 14 and all.... Siberia would be a good place for an engineering school.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I put my TV in the closet three years ago and my life is immeasurably better for it. When I was growing up, everybody's dad had a workshop in their house, everybody had hobbies, be it music, chess, building stuff... now people watch TV shows about building stuff! The average American adult watches five hour of TV a day now - 80% of their free time! Nobody reads to their children, goes fishing, nobody knows their neighbor - they're "TOO BUSY." "Oooh! I'm so busy, busy, busy..."

"Busy" sitting on their ass, zoned out on the products of Hollywood, which are only and entirely designed to provoke you into a nervous and agitated state, because science has proven to the Hollywood Overlords that anxious nervous people will buy a lot more crap that they don't need to try to sooth themselves. Which is the ONLY reason for the existence of TV, take away the ads - no TV. People can't help but start to sense the dangers of the world when they watch Law & Order and C.S.I. all the time, they think they're friggin' documentaries or something... and the news shows get the best ratings if they track down stories that most resemble the "dramas", which is why you hear about some asshat who kept a captive in their basement, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. While crime in the U.S. is at a fifty-year low.... and anytime an attractive little blonde girl goes missing, ANYWHERE IN THE UNITED STATES, everybody in the whole country gets anxious over little DeeDee's fate. How many "Amber Alerts" have you ever heard for an ugly fat little black kid named "Leroy" who goes missing in Harlem?

Did you know that less than 1,000 people die every year in America from ALL illegal drug overdoses combined? Or that at least 17,000 people die from screwups in their PRESCRIBED drugs? No of course not, because the doctors are GOOD GUYS and the crazed drug fiend is such a staple of Hollywood trash there's got to be millions of them, almost as many as there are serial killers...

SAVE YOURSELF - KILL THE TV's....

 

[Justinginn]

SAVE YOURSELF - KILL THE TV's....

I'm a person with a life and I approve this message.

 

[swarfrat]

I went 7 years without a TV, and I'm amazed how much stupider it got in that time.

 

[erogenousjones17]

I went 7 years without a TV, and I'm amazed how much stupider it got in that time.

Same here. I never had a TV in univeristy--undergraduate or graduate--but now my girlfriend and I have basic cable. It's mind-numbing.

 

[AndyG]

I've worked at a television station for the last 10 years, and doing a variety of post production gigs for another 8 or so years before that ...
TV in the 70's and 80's wasn't much better .... just a different reflection of the times.  That is what TV has almost always been.  Now with the 500+ channel universe we live in, they have to fill that time with something!  The DIY shows seem to be popular, which is not a bad thing because it can help people get ideas for things that they might want to try.  Reality shows are a complete oxymoron .... they are "cast", and, IMO scripted to a degree.  The nature of the way TV is produced forces that situation.  For me, TV is news, live sporting events, information/education (I love working on and watching documetaries), and arts programs .... but most of the mainstream pablum that Hollywood is producing is certainly not my taste either.

Bottom line, couch potatoes will always be couch potatoes.  If it wasn't TV, they would find another excuse to sit around and do nothing.

 

[swarfrat]

I beg to differ. At least in the 70's and 80's they had writers and scripts. Now they just take a dozen bozo's stick em in a room and vote on each other's popularity until there's only one left.  Much cheaper than plots, actors and special effects. We have an entire crop of people who are famous for no other reason than being in some sort of social experiment.

 

[AndyG]

I beg to differ. At least in the 70's and 80's they had writers and scripts. Now they just take a dozen bozo's stick em in a room and vote on each other's popularity until there's only one left.  Much cheaper than plots, actors and special effects. We have an entire crop of people who are famous for no other reason than being in some sort of social experiment.

Agreed, sort of ....
That is what my reality show obersvation was based on.  But the dramas and sitcoms these days aren't much better than those produced back in the day .... in fact, they probably are worse because they are simply recycling the same plot lines and jokes .... but when they were fresh, they were funny.  And I do agree about special effects .... CAD and CGI taking away the real arts of model building, set design, and stunt performers is a travesty .... and (for the most part), I still think it looks fake  :glasses9:

 

[mayfly]

The really sad thing is that whenever I need to get something done in the house, I turn on the TV and the kids are glued to it.  Then after 15 minutes when I go to turn it off (so we can do something fun, like change a battery in a toy - requires tools!) I get cries and screams. 

I think I need to 'break' the TV so that we always have to 'fix' it to get it to work.  At least they will learn about something fixing the TV...

 

[erogenousjones17]

I read a book once where the narrator dreamed of an art installation consisting of a bunch of people locked in a subway car--forever--so that observers could watch them laugh, cry, fight, um...fraternize and eventually die and decompose. Add cameras and you've got this summer's hot new reality TV series! 

 

[SustainerPlayer]

I read a book once where the narrator dreamed of an art installation consisting of a bunch of people locked in a subway car--forever--so that observers could watch them laugh, cry, fight, um...fraternize and eventually die and decompose. Add cameras and you've got this summer's hot new reality TV series! 

Yes - just remember that next season needs to have even more edge. Bigger, better, faster, more ... in a sad, absurd way.

Well - as long as we got guitars and rock music ... fudge reality.  :evil4: :guitaristgif:

 

[swarfrat]

Re breaking the tv - Had a friend in college who let me use his shop. He built a Heathkit TV - had the first color TV on the block.  He was racing to finish it so his girls could watch The Wizard of OZ. Fired it up first time with an hour to go, and he had the wrong value part in the vertical gain section, picture repeated three times. Got it fixed with minutes left and he fires it up and...

There's no color! Of course most of us know Kansas is in black & white.

 

[stubhead]

Before I killed mine there were two shows on, the highlight of both of them was when people were forced to eat disgusting raw live bugs or worms or crawly awful... things. One was called "Survivor" and the other was "Fear Factor" or "Factory" or something. Sometimes, they had to stick their face in the bowl of worms to eat without using their hands.... what struck me as insane was that the "winner" was the person who ate the most, not the least. To me, anybody who is willing to do this is by definition a "loser."

 

[SustainerPlayer]

.... what struck me as insane was that the "winner" was the person who ate the most, not the least. To me, anybody who is willing to do this is by definition a "loser."

Or just very, very hungry with no particular discriminating taste for food.  :laughing7:

No - I agree.

 

[elfro89]

Yeah I stopped watching TV years ago, I watch the odd film or comedy program but not all to often. I think TV is filled with the wrong sort of stuff, I watch tones of on-line lectures about a huge range of subjects and I read books about them. It's great to learn something new or get a different perspective on things. If they showed this sort of stuff on TV then I think the world might be a smarter place. They would realise just how retarded TV is, and how retarded it can make their audience.