I hate American television.

I praise you Bradylama. Is our current society not unlike "Fahrenheit 451" where the only love people had in life was the "tele-screen" which was a vague reference to telivision? Anyone remember how they could only be satisfied by trying to have two or three on at once?

The greatest joy is creation. Dont settle for someone's else's work. If you do, let the work not make you entertained, but allow you to be entertained under the circumstances of your choice. Like compare a non-linear rpg to a linear one.

Books are better since you determine their pace and you have to have some level of thought to imagine what is therein.

Both physically and mentally mainstream TV is just masterbation. Except for the "educational" channels and Cartoon Network.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
You don't masturbate to The History Channel?! How dare you!

Actually, this thread is reminding me of the story A Bowl of Biskies Makes a Growing Boy. Very good and dark story. - Colt
 
Colt said:
Paris Hilton is too fake. - Colt
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Not to mention stupid, spoilt, uneducated, vulgar and overly promiscuous. Fuck, I would rather be dating Madeleine Albright than that witless whore.
 
i don't have cable TV in my house, so i don't watch it (other than the occasional DVD that i buy, so it has to go through the crap-filter anyway). the only thing that's ever on is the local news channel (on rare occasion)
 
And Paris only has one pose.

I don't get the fascination - except maybe relative to Hilton fortune shows how trashy the rich can be?

It's too much reality TV and that is due ot MTV- a channel made for spreading ADD.

I agree, most of what's on TV is crap. I generally don't watch. Sopranos, 24, the Shield, a few other shows.

ALthough I have to admit I enjoy teasing my wife when she watches 30 minute meals about how much I want butter Rachel Rays muffins and what the thinks I could teach her with a spatula.

History Channel can be fun, but sometimes it's just so much bullshit. Sci-Fi channel has the worst movie- embarrasing.

I have also been disappointed with much of what is playing in the movies today.

The reason is because our standards are sinking and kids are dumber, I suspect. When the TV folks figured the main audiences were housewives- they made soap operas. When the housewives got jobs and the main audience was poor and uneducated- Jerry Springer and the Day-time horror shows. But it's still a lot of kids.

Reality TV sells because it's vicarious living.

If you want to live vicarious, have some good fiction and learn something- read.

This past month I have read a lot of stuff about foreign countries, all worth reading-

Robert Stone- the Flag for Sunrise
Aiden Hartley- The Zanzibar Chest- non-fiction- life of a war journalist not much older than you guys,
Alex Garland- The Tesseract
Robert Wilson- Instruments of Darkness

Better stuff than I have seen on TV.

But there are also good movies too- but you have to look for them. Skip the I-Robot's and the ALien vs Predator commercialized crap and go for something interesting- try- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

By the way, for Portuguese speakers- Lisbella and the Prisoner. Funny flick.
 
You're actually right about THC, Welsh. Sometimes they get a in a woo-woo mode with all of the UFO crap and conspiracy theories. I usually turn it off the n. - Colt
 
Part of this is cable TV- 100 freaking channels and nothing is on.

Occassionally I catch my wife watching C-SPAN because it's more interesting that most of the other crap.

Worse it's spreading. WHen I was in Brazil I saw a couple of the Brazilian versions of crappy US programs.

Thing about reality TV is that it's cheap to make. I mean think about American Idol. The million dollar contract that they promise the winner is nothing compared to how much they make each episode.

Sometimes you really have to hunt for the good shows. I was so please I could find the Equalizer and pissed when they took it off. Northern Exposure- I should tape it.

No wonder religious TV is spreading- I think my cable network has like 4 "Praise Jesus"' Channels. What they need is a Hare Krishna channel. OR what about a Hezbollah Channel? Bored with the Catholic nun, flick to the Holy Roller asking for cash in a glass temple. Bored with the hair style? Do a little Hare Krishna chant? Then over to the Buddhist channel for "Dinner with Dalai." Too much "peace" let's go with AK-47 packing Ayatollahs.

Next Stop WKKK/ARYAN TV.
 
Worse it's spreading. WHen I was in Brazil I saw a couple of the Brazilian versions of crappy US programs.
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Not many people were singing praises for Brazilian television to begin with, really. Not to mention that a lot of crappy television ideas we have now we've stolen from the Europeans. Further support that we're running out of ideas, let alone even the crappy ones.

I think my cable network has like 4 "Praise Jesus"' Channels.
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No kidding? I live in the heart of the Bible Belt, and unless you count PAX as a Praise Jesus channel, we only had one. Then again, the town I lived in was built on the moderate success of a domestic oil company, so there were lots of phonies anyways.
 
For the most part I can't help but agree. What is passed off as "reality" TV shows are just crap, IMHO, trying to titillate inside the bounds of the FCC. Just put some porn on mainstream TV and let the networks make sensible programs... or something :) I have perhaps 250 cable channels, and perhaps 50 are pure drivel not worth watching at all, another 50 have some redeeming quality like hosting the occasional sports match of note or large event like the olympics, but otherwise remain unacknowledge for the remainder of the year, another 50 will play interesting programs on a regular enough basis, perhaps 40 more special interest stations like sports, international channel, quasi-news like FOX-"News", CNN, C-SPAN, etc, and another 60 or so that are by and large home to the interesting programs, such as several flavors of Discovery and History channel, Science Channel, Tech TV, Wings Channel, "Do-It-Yourself", BBC America (The Avengers! The Saint! :D ) and an awful lot of movie channels, which is good considering IMHO editing a movie for mainstream play on networks or basic cable (For run time or especially content) is basically an offense to the director and all the people who created it. If I made movies I would not allow them to be subject to such barbaric bowdlerization.
 
Be lucky you don't have only four channels and have to watch Australian T.V., I get really sick of havin to watch Neighbours all day, and some other horrible soap operas.

(I have to do this)
 
Why? Your job to stress-test televisions or something??? Having only four channels to watch will quickly turn one away from television for anything but facilitating Videocassettes/discs...

I spent a lot of my youth in Motel rooms watching shitty network programming. Anyway I once tried to follow Clint Eastwood's "Tightrope" on TBS. Well, it involved people being killed while having sex, so the viewer had less of an idea what was going on than did the protagonist, since they edited out all the parts that made it make sense, but also had something sexual in it... for some reason American TV censors must think female nipples are an abomination, or extremely frightening.
 
Hmmmm, Ive never seen that eastwood movie.... sounds intersting.



Its cause the US was founded my sexualy represed puritans, its become a major facet of our culture.
 
Chucky said:
Be lucky you don't have only four channels and have to watch Australian T.V., I get really sick of havin to watch Neighbours all day, and some other horrible soap operas.

(I have to do this)
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I don't know mate, Neighbours is shite but you could say it's a masterpiece compared to some of those reality shows and other crap they inflict on us on TV these days.

What really pisses me off though is all those infomercials they put on every station at the same time.
 
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