Episode 109

Sometimes we just have to leave the apartment. As much as I love television, a little fresh air (or food) does the body good. There are certain nights that I stay in no matter what. Thursday nights are those kinds of nights. If I were to miss Survivor, The Office, and 30 Rock, not only would I have to cry myself to sleep, but I'd have way too much TV to catch up on and it would stress me out. Television should not, under any circumstances, cause stress (which is why I'm having trouble getting in to Friday Night Lights, but more on that another day).

Certain days, though, I take the night off from TV, for various reasons. The other night, I went rollerskating (not as fun as it sounds), thus missing the new episode of LOST. It sounds tragic, especially because of my newly renewed excitement for the show. But, as we know, there are now a plethora of ways to catch up.

I don't have TiVo (I actually had to just google it to see how it was spelled). TiVo is probably a bad idea for someone like me. As I said, sometimes we just have to leave the apartment, and if I had TiVo, it would serve the opposite of its intended function -- instead of feeling like I could leave the house even if something good were on TV, I would never leave the house because something good would always be on TV.

I do, however, have the internet. And the internet allows us to watch our shows -- often in HD and with limited commercial interruptions -- whenever we want. I'm not going to get in to the discussion of how this has changed TV culture in America (I'll leave that to Jason Mittell, who, by the way, is apparently my competition) but it's something to think about. Without any trouble, I can now pause LOST, rewind it to say "Was that THAT lady?!", and then start it again without having missed anything. At the very least, this leads to much less annoying shh-ing during shows (come on, we're all guilty).

And I will now leave you with a relevant and absolutely phenomenal commercial on TV for TV. I was going to sneak it in somewhere in the entry, but it's too good to risk you all not clicking on my all too witty links. If you watch enough TV, you've seen it anyway, but just in case: here you go.