Monday, August 04, 2003 A Week Sans TV: Day One So, it may not come as news to some of you that I watch a lot of TV -- but what might strike you as odd is that I don't much like that fact about myself. It's not that I dislike TV -- heaven forfend! -- it just takes up an awful lot of my time, and I'm not sure how much I get out of it. Plus, now that I'm working a regular nine-to-five job (with an hour commute each way), my time seems a lot more precious. In all, I get about five hours for myself every day -- which is a lot, I know, but I don't want to squander it on episodes of Family Guy (brilliant though it might be). In On Writing, Stephen King urges the writer to shut off "the idiot box." Like many people, I tend to think that Stephen King can be a bit full of shit, but occasionally he makes his point. So I'm not giving up TV, but this week, I'm going to tuck myself in with The Daily Show (which really only works on a day-to-day basis) and save the rest of my TV watching for Sunday -- when I have more time than I know what to do with, anyways. I've always said that the reason I wanted TiVo was so that I could have power over my addiction -- that I could say what shows I wanted to watch, and when I wanted to watch them. I've lived under the idiot box's spell -- but I now have the chance to make TV my bitch. Because I'll have time in the evenings now, I'll try and update every day with a progress report. So far, Day One has gone pretty well. I uploaded some Tahoe pictures, talked to my roommate, read a little, and did some work on the screenplay. I have more confidence in it than I did yesterday, when I pulled myself kicking and screaming out of the first act. There's a small chance that it may not suck. I'm going to put the screenplay to bed, in fact, and read some more McSweeney's before hitting the hay a bit early. Because I can do that now. With all my time. | permalink blog • archives • photos • about • contact This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All content © 2004.