Item #36 - No TV or Video Games for a Week

"What's he's typed will be a window into his madness"

"No TV and no beer make Homer something something"
"Go crazy?"
"Don't mind if I do!"
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Saturday, 07-09-11,  11:11am

I have been up for just over an hour.  I plan to go the next 7 days without TV and without video games, and so by Friday night, I assume I'll have unleashed my inner Homer. Perhaps some giant murals of my favorite television characters on my living room walls. Maybe life-sized homemade cut-outs of my team that I've been playing FIFA 2010 with. I'm not sure. But it could be ugly, as I'm definitely one of those people that likes the comforting white noise of TV - even when I'm sitting down and writing one of these oh-so-hilarious posts, the TV's on in the background. Doesn't have to be anything good. Just has to be on.

From here on out, we'll be shortening No TV and No Video Games to just NTVNVG, because that's what the cool young kids with their hippety hop music and Snoopy Doopy Dogs would do.

Of course, in today's wacky technological world, "no TV and no video games" needs to be a little more defined. If I wanted to, I could just leave me TV off all week and stream Slingbox from my parents house direct to my smartphone . . . but that's cheating, and cheating is for pansies, communists and Jesse Ventura ("Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!"). So we'll try and live within the spirit of the list item, and outline some particulars.

• Hulu episodes. . . illegal. That's pretty obvious. It's TV, but just on my laptop
• TV DVD's . . . illegal. I could easily kill my spare time this week by going through all 53 of the Bluth family's issues, or by following Bret and Jemaine's wacky New York misadventures (see what I did there? "mis"adventures? get it?), but that definitely goes against the spirit of the law.
• Youtube/Hulu clips . . . allowed. I'm talking about the short stuff that will keep me up to date in the world of internet memes, because a world without Keyboard Cat is a world I don't want to live in.
• Netflix Streaming . . . illegal. There's like 70 movies on just my instant streaming queue. Too easy of a time killer. 
• Netflix 2-at-a-time physical DVD's . . . allowed. The point of NTVNVG is to not get sucked into doing nothing. It's the anti-Seinfeld I suppose. Sitting down to watch a DVD is more like an actual event. There's purpose. And since I only have 2 at a time, and it's the weekend, and I've already watched 1 of my 2, and it takes 2 days to send one in and get it back, the most I could possibly watch this week is 3.
•  Live Sports at home. . . illegal. This one pains me. Copa America is going on (the South American soccer championship). The women's World Cup is going on. And yes, I'm soccer-geeky enough to care about watching both. 
• Sport Highlights Online . . . legal. No different than reading the news in the year 2011. 
• XBox games . . . illegal. Obviously
• Games on my phone . . . legal. So long as it doesn't mean me losing 30 minutes out of the day because I got too involved in a game. But most of the time its just Sudoku anyway.

So thems the rules. Now for the full disclosure -  there's a few reasons I waited awhile to do this list item:

• Its a shitty TV week. No new episodes for any of my favorite weekly shows (though I will miss my man crushes Stewart and Colbert).  
• Its a shitty sports week on the whole. No NFL. No college football. No English Premier League. No NHL playoffs. Just the aforementioned soccer competitions and meaningless midseason baseball. 
• I've actually got some stuff going on this week. 3 soccer games. Golf with work folk. Maybe a softball game. Oh, and an oil change scheduled for Wednesday! How exciting!

So I may be exploiting some loopholes here,  but consider this attempt to decrease my TV and video games addiction like a smoker using the patch instead of quitting cold turkey.

Sunday, 07-10-11, 12:18pm

One day down, though it was a fairly easy one. A soccer game, followed by the roller derby, followed by the bar. Fin. Today will be tougher. I may have to actually get outside and do stuff on my own, as crazy as a thought as that might be. Soccer in 8 hours. Lots of time to do . . . stuff. And as I type, the US women's soccer team is leading Brazil 1-0. Yes, I want to watch. No, I won't watch. Sigh.

Sunday, 07-10-11, 2:48pm

I haven't really done anything positive yet today. But, apparently I did end up missing A RIDICULOUSLY GREAT WORLD CUP GAME. Strike 1, NTVNVG. I had the game cast going (just stats, no video). But according to the Facebook universe, I really missed out. Non-soccer folk commenting on how awesome it was.
"Dude... that game is easily in the top 5 greatest sports moments ever"
"One of the best sporting events I've watched in a while. Wow. " 
The US ties Brazil in overtime with basically no time left, and then they win on penalty kicks. For the second time today . . . sigh. Even when I try and pick a week when I have little chance of missing anything important, I miss something important (and yes, I DO consider the women's World Cup important). They play the semi-final Wednesday, and since I'm pot-committed now, I'll miss that one too. Hopefully they make it through and I can watch the final Sunday.

Sunday, 07-10-11, 6:33pm

I certainly haven't done much today. A soccer game yesterday combined with one tonight and tomorrow have prevented my old man knees from wanting to do anything active. But, I did do one thing I probably wouldn't have done if I had been watching TV instead - for the first time in the 2 years and 8 months I've had it, I actually vacuumed my car. I guess that's something. Oh, I went to Target, which in itself is a vacuum for money. According to the Spicer Theory, it's virtually impossible to spend less than $50 in a trip to Target. Today's trip hit $90. Damn you Target and your reasonably priced plain T-shirts and picture frames!

Monday, 07-11-11, 9:48pm

Back in college, I used to play on a Sunday men's club team over the summer. Games were at 10am, 12pm or 2pm. And after awhile, I figured out 2 different correlations to how well I played in game. First, if the previous night was . . . . fruitful? . . . .I ended up playing worse. However, the drunker I got the night before, the better I played, which held true even if I was out until 3am and then played in the early 10am game.

After 3 days of going cold turkey, I now think that either video games, TV or both, also have an effect. Saturday, early into the experiment, I had a 1:00pm game. I played pretty damn well. I had a goal. We won 3-1. Hooray. Then yesterday, Day 2, I had another game. I had 2 goals, we won 4-1, and overall I played pretty decently. Today? 72 hours without TV or video games? We lost 4-1 and I played like garbage. Easily my worst outdoor game of the 15 or so I've played this season so far. It even warranted the classic Alan slink-away-silently-afterwards-as-I-mentally-yell-at-myself move.  Thankfully my next game isn't until Saturday, for which I'll apparently have to wake up at 6am to rejuvenate myself by playing FIFA Soccer on XBox, with a TV in the corner showing whatever the hell is on at 6am on a Saturday.

Today's missed viewing includes the WWE (which is the quintessential have-it-on-in-the-background-as-I-play-on-my-laptop viewing. I grew up with it - go watch your shitty reality TV and stop judging me jerk) and the Homerun Derby. Hmmmm, missing 3 hours of Chris Berman yelling BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK BACK? Hooray for NTVNVG!

Wednesday, 07-13-11, 10:57pm

My scheme has worked to perfection the last 2 days, and I think I'm now well over the hump.Yesterday a group of 10 of us golfed immediately after work (while I may play better or worse under varying conditions for soccer, at least my golf game is still consistant . . . . ly shitty). I got home and made a busy man's grilled cheese sandwich, which consisted of me microwaving some cheese in between slices of bread while running out the door, as I had to hurry up and catch the bus for a friendly little social outing, aka, a date (for which you'll get no details. Maybe the dating blog comes after the 52 are knocked out).

Today was another busy day. Work, then an oil change  (which took almost an hour and a half, so they gave it to me for free. Hooray for good business practices), and then a softball game (3-5, with some stellar outfield play). And now instead sitting down with a frosty beverage watching the Daily Show, I'm content to sit with a frosty beverage and type.

So since that's all I have for the last 2 days, let's tack on a list my 5 favorite TV shows going right now:

1. Community - This season it may not have been the absolute funniest show on TV (though it was damn close), but they are doing shit no one has ever done before, or doing things people have done but in completely new and creative ways. The depth of the jokes is ridiculous, so much so that it even once took a blog to point out an entire plot/joke to me in one particular episode, because that entire joke was going on in the background of the actual story. All you people who got on the Arrested Development bandwagon well after it was canceled? Get on this show while you still can. 
2. Parks & Rec - This is the show that WAS the funniest show of the year. Amy Phoeler's character is the rock of the show, but the supporting cart nails it, even more so than the supporting cast of the American Office did early on. Tom Haverford is delightful, and Ron F-ing Swanson is the fucking man.
3. Breaking Bad - There's apparently only 2 answers to the question "what's the best drama on TV?" And since I have no interest in the love affairs of NYC advertising exec's in the 60's, Breaking Bad is the best drama for me. It may not be the fastest paced show, but it always pays off with some absolutely thrilling and jaw-dropping moments (Hank vs the Mexicans in the parking lot, or the night Walt came into Jesse' apartment and . . . and we'll stay spoiler-less). Season 4 starts Sunday people (what a nice way to come back from NTVNVG - the women's World Cup final, and then Breaking Bad). Get into it. 
4. The Daily Show - Consistently funny 4 nights a week. Man crush on Jon Stewart. Enough said.
5. Modern Family, 30 Rock, Always Sunny - I can't choose. At their peak, they're all hysterical, but, they're not always at their peak these days like Parks & Rec or Community are. But if all 3 have a new episode in a week, at least 1 is guaranteed to be incredibly funny. Tracy Morgan can read a health care bill and make me laugh. Charlie Day may be able to just play one note, but he's sooooo freaking good at it. And Modern Family can pull off the cheesy Full House-esque happy ending and not make me want to punch an Olsen twin in the face. You got that, dude?

Thursday, 07-14-11, 8:00pm

Oh man. Thursday at 8:00pm. Reruns or not, I'm about to miss my murderer's row of TV, with Community, Parks & Rec and 30 Rock on in a 2 hour span. Painful.

Also painful? Getting a cold. I only get them in the winter. 1 cold per year. Slowly fades in and then out over a 2 week span. But I got the slight tickle in my throat a few days ago and now have the tickle-cough going on. I am convinced its from me not getting my daily dose of Vitamin TV.

And the bad omens for going TV-less continued today on my way home. I got rear-ended about 2 blocks from my house. Not badly, and as of now there doesn't appear to be any damage (yes, I got his info), but annoying none-the-less. And for all my friends that work at a certain speaker company in Framingham - he was wearing a work badge from your mountain-top company, and he had a license plate holder from Georgia Tech. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

Off to fill-in for a softball team again. Under 30 hours to go. . . . 30 . . . long . . . hours . . . . 

Thursday, 07-14-11, 11:34pm

Went 3-4 in softball, in a league that uses wooden bats (old school, yo!). One positive trend for the NTVNVG week.

And since we did the 5 best yesterday, let's rattle off my 5 worst, or at least 5 random ones I want to bitch about.

1. Two and a Half Men. Hate . . . you . . . so . . . .much. I have "play a Two and a Half Men drinking game" on the list, and still haven't been able to put myself through it, despite it being relatively easy, and despite all the Charlie Sheen news 4 months ago. This show is the epitome of lazy-ass writing that appeals to boring rural housewives who think a Friday night out at Chili's is a wild weekend. Actually, that's all of CBS. And this is its flagship. Again, I hate you.
2. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Just because your shirt is made from the same material as your jeans, doesn't mean it goes together, and it definitely doesn't make you a cool middle class guy, you 2-time show-stealing son-of-a-bitch. 10 monkeys on 10 typewriters could write his monologue.
3. Fox News. All of it. Yeah, I'm liberal. Deal with it.
4. Big Bang Theory. Kind of a Two and a Half Men lite. I've seen a few episodes. Not horrible, as far as CBS sitcoms go. But it just got nominated today for Best Comedy, and it had 2 actors get nominated for Best Actor. At the same time, Community was completely shut out. No Best Comedy nod. No Joel McHale for Best Actor. No Annie, Britta, Troy or Abed for Best Supporting. So because its got the Emmy nods Community deserved, and because its actually on at the same time as Community, and could help lead to its early Arrested Development-esque downfall, it gets on the list.
5. How I Met Your Mother. Probably the best of the CBS comedies, but that's like being the skinny kid at fat camp. Actually this show has its moments and isn't half bad. NPH is funny. I've seen a fair amount of episodes. I've laughed on occasion. But I have a beef with it for 3 reasons. 1 - It gets WAY overrated. I know a lot of people that LOVE this show, when in reality, its nowhere near the comedies I've mentioned above. 2 - Just like Friends, its a rom-com movie disguised as a sitcom. Don't be fooled people. Just because NPH throws in a few man-I-love-banging-chicks jokes doesn't mean this isn't just a relationship show at its core. And 3 - Speaking of Friends, Ted is the most punchable TV character since Ross. You're not romantic. You're a whining unbearable douche. Grow a pair dammit. 
6. (bonus!) Sportscenter .The easy thing to do is rag on Sportscenter because it went from  being cool in 90's to thinking it was way cooler than it actually was in the 2000's. Or because all is does these days is kiss the superstars' asses and appeal to the big markets (Jeter hit his 3000th! Slurp slurp slurp).  But, the real reason I can't stand is much simpler. When I used to watch it before school back int he day, it was a half hour, and it was a filled with highlights. 30 minutes jam-packed with actual sports. Over the course of a bowl of cereal, I could get almost completely caught up in yesterday's games. Now? 60 minutes, and maybe 5 minutes of highlights. You'd figure that a show called Sportscenter would, at its core, show a lot of sports . . .  but no (and I realize bitching about this is probably as cliche as bitching about MTV not showing music videos, but whatever. My blog. Deal with it). 

/rant

Friday Night, 07-15-11, 1:48am

The last time I really watched TV was over a week ago, but we'll roll with the idea that a week isn't limited to exact hours, but rather 7 days and nights. So no TV until I wake up tomorrow.

Technically, I did see some TV this week. Though it was really only while I was out at bars, so that more of a coincidence than anything. And despite having Netflix movies in-house, I said "fuck it" and was able to go without movies this week too. Hooray for me.

I was able to kill off today by again going out. Went to Revere to see a sand castle competition (some cool stuff, but a little underwhelming on the whole) with a new friend of the female variety, and then we headed back downtown for dinner and drinks. A delightful little night overall.

Again, its almost 2am. I'm tired. I'm in the middle of a full-on cough-ridden bug (though I'm not so bad that I can't have a tall-boy Narragansett). Sorry for the lack of jokes at this point. It's been an exhausting immunity-lacking week. I'll try and come up with something to tie it all up tomorrow morning. Hopefully over a cup of iced coffee . . . while watching a Magic Bullet infomercial, or whatever the hell is on at 9am. TV! I'm coming back for you baby!

Saturday, 07-16-11, 10:31am

They say "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. If it dosent, then it was never meant to be." Well TV . . . I'm back, and I'm yours forever! (though maybe in a reduced capacity). I've been up for over an hour without you, let's see what I'm missing.
(channel surfs)
Well, that was less than exciting. But I guess I'm down to 2 choices. 3rd Round coverage of the British Open, or a movie called The Promotion on Comedy Central. Its from 2008, and it stars John C Reilly and Sean William Scott. I've never heard of it, which means its either a underground indie film, or a straight-to-DVD kind of film. And considering Wikipedia has no info on how much money it made, I'm guessing its the latter (Rottentomatoes top critics have it at 48%). So yeah, that's what I've been missing.


One week of no TV and no video games. What did we learn about myself? Well, lets do it in handy graph form. 

7 days of experimentation. Thus the above chart is 100% factual. Its science. And its science that doesn't need to be repeated.