writer's strike aftershocks

Remember the big hairy tv writer's strike that hit last year? The one that forced Americans without cable into watching re-run after re-run and put Deal or No Deal on TV every night? Oh, yeah, that one . . . . I had forgotten about it until I read a journal entry from last year. While the biggest disappointment with that was The Office being cut short (and missing out on the Christmas episode), I have to say that in our house the advantages have been great. Quite simply, our TV watching dropped. Drastically, in fact. It was so easy to tune into random stuff and now I realize that we rarely watch TV at night. I don't know what we do with that time, but I'm sure it's way more productive!

We now have our one show that everything stops for: The Office; and our own individual shows: the NCIS and sometimes Eli Stone or the Unit for Tuan and the-show-that-shall-not-be-named-because-I-really-don't-want-to-be-that-transparent-on-here that I watch! This spring we'll add LOST to the mix, but that's it. We are way more deliberate about TV now and that's a good thing. Going without for so long just made so many shows less important. Giving up TV altogether--no way, JOSE and I don't care what the preacher says.

I'm joking about the preacher because I and my parents have had friends who have gotten rid of the TV and returned it depending on who their preacher was. Good thing they kept it in the closet during the no TV preacher time. It saves a lot of money when you get a preacher who says its okay.