On Sat, 10 Mar 2001, J. van Baardwijk wrote:
> At 09:51 10-3-01 -0600, Julia Thompson wrote:
>
> >And I also like just enough of the
> >commercials on the shows I'm watching to put up with the ones I don't; and
> >I also like the fact that every hour, there are several opportunities for
> >me to bolt for the bathroom without losing much of anything worthwhile.
> >(I have to time these things a lot more carefully when I'm watching
> >PBS....)
>
> Julia, I really think you oughta go and buy a VCR now! :)
>
> You can skip the commercials, and go the bathroom when *you* want, not when
> the networks decide to interrupt the program and gracefully allow you a
> pee-break.
We have a VCR. It's actually easier to sit down and watch the program
when it's on. I watch at most 10 hours of prime-time programming every
week, and just skip the shows I'm interested in if I've got something more
important or interesting to be doing at that time. (E.g., going out to
the theater, doing something with friends, etc.)
Besides, it's really hard to swap out the tape that we're using
exclusively for that Babylon 5 episode to tape the thing that comes on
another channel right afterwards. ;) (And the other TV/VCR setup in the
house has a similar problem with swapping out tapes just after The
Simpsons.)
No, what we *really* need is Tivo. But we don't have a phone line
convenient for Tivo in the room where we'd want it set up. Maybe in a
different house in the future....
On the Babylon 5 taping, the VCR marks the commercials after it's
recorded, and then fast-forwards over them automatically when we play
back. Then I can watch an episode with minimal interruption, and pause
when needed, etc. But Babylon 5 is the only thing important enough for
that.
> <devil's advocate>
> Fast-forwarding through the commercials? Using the break to go the
> bathroom? How dare you! You're not supposed to do that! You're supposed to
> sit on the couch and watch those commercials!
> </devil's advocate>
Fine. Any advertiser that wants to send me a case of Depends is free to
do so, and I promise I'll stay on the couch for *their* commercials.
And if I'm getting up and leaving the room for something other than the
bathroom, I can hear the commercial just fine. So they get some good out
of it, right?
Julia
