900 channels and nothing on

Posted
You’ve heard the saying, “900 channels and there is nothing on TV.” Surely you have. You might have cable TV, streaming TV from the Internet, subscriptions to companies that mail you movies or all sorts of other ways to watch movies or TV shows. I’ve even got a collection of CDs and even VHS tapes to play, too. Watching a movie or TV show over again is nothing for me. I can wear out an old VHS tape. In fact, I have done that. With all the new ways to watch video entertainment, why do we still complain about nothing to watch? It’s hard to believe that ,even today, you can flip through all sorts of television channels, look at your collection of CDs, tapes, etc., and there is nothing you want to watch. That is a modern day mystery. How can that happen? For an old guy like me, I think we have gotten into a new era of entertainment. Our tastes have changed or the method in which we get this medium has completely kicked us in a new direction of getting entertainment. Remember when you loved to go to a movie theatre? How about going to the drive-in theatre? Bet you haven’t been there in a while. Now people are watching shows on phones while they are walking down the street. This isn’t too upsetting it just proves that things have changed. Things are changing rapidly, but I’m stuck back in the old days. The 900 channels don’t seem to have anything to watch that I’m looking for. Now I’m in the cycle of watching shows that I watched more than 30 years ago. Worse for me is the fact that some networks bundle the shows so you can watch them all the time. Once a year, I get hooked on “The Twilight Zone” marathon. The shows are great and I remember watching them with my dad way back. Now I’m watching “Colombo,” and my wife is watching “M.A.S.H.” back-to-back episodes. It’s easy to watch these shows. You have seen them before, and you keep watching to see if you remember the show correctly. Sometimes you have to watch because you want to remember your grandmother. I hated having to go to my grandmother’s house on Lawrence Welk night. We had to sit in the den and be quiet. We couldn’t make a sound until all of the polka music was over. Now I watch it just to bring back the memory of visiting there. There are pitfalls to watching these marathon type shows. The other night I watched three straight hours of a crime show. I was really mad that I had been sitting on the couch for three hours straight and could have finished several columns had I only cut off the TV. It’s easy to get caught up in something like that. One of my friends is hooked on a live police camera feed. She watches crimes as they are committed and all the camera work is from police body cams and people riding along with the cops. There are advantages to watching some of these shows. My friend can say the alphabet backward and stand on one foot and count to 10. Fear of a road check has flown out of the window. I still have a big stack of books to finish reading before the end of the year. Christmas is on the way and I only want books for a Christmas present. Somehow I think reading is a more worthwhile venture than just watching a TV show. I’ve got to hurry, though. Four episodes of “Scrubs” will be on TV this afternoon.