Drat this working for a living all to heck.

So, Andrew Drucker suggested that those of us die hard LiveJournal users should band together and read each other, so I started reading him.  And one of the things he does daily is list with links the interesting things he's read, like today: http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/3146207.html

And one of today's links is TV is For Old People at the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/tv-is-increasingly-for-old-people/?hpid=z15

This may be true, but I don't think the trend is driven by demographics, as such, but rather by seriously crapatastic programming.  The demographic component is that I (one of the older TV viewing persisters) developed my leisure habits when the delights of the internet were not an option.  I wanted the internet from my teens, before it was called that, as described in my science fiction (& I have always read more than I have watched TV), and continued to want it when it was so expensively in its infancy (our first computer cost one tenth of our combined yearly income, and fees for dial-up were pretty off-putting especially when you didn't know what you were going to get), but we didn't get it until I was nearly 40 (& SOGP older).  So, in the meantme, we watched TV.  And there were some reasonably decent things to watch. (Although, when I returned to finish my degree, and we scaled back our expenses and gave up cable, *and* just happened to live in a broadcast shadow so we didn't get the local free channels, we relied on video for movies and taped TV shows, and didn't miss the current shows.  When we went back to TV it was because I had been given a coupon to save the installation fee [1/3 our rent] for high-speed internet, which came with TV bundled.)

So. Where am I going with this?  Well, we're accustomed to sitting together after dinner and watching something together.  TV is still a family activity.  But often we are reduced to watching The Weather Network (http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/canada/british-columbia/vancouver), which repeats its daily programming in one hour blocks.  We can't stand the natter, so we have it on without sound.  Or we will "watch" the pretty picture channel, The Frame (https://community.shaw.ca/docs/DOC-1665).  We are usually reading at each other while watching these - but we are together, and the TV is on.

SOGP will watch a program through the net: a favorite show, or soccer (he likes the extra replay or view from another angle options). We both watch various YouTuby things: CGP Grey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU) Posh Nosh (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfN4_52loC4) Annie Lennox (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZqPoriYXho&list=AL94UKMTqg-9D68wxwko25_RVheuVp91jp) and like that.

But, there are a lot of rinky dinky little irritants that get in the way of me trading up to only onlne viewing.  We have a crappy chair at the desktop system.  I can't sit there for an entire program viewing.  I hate the weight of the headphone on my head, and having the sound drilled into my ears (on that last Annie Lennox video I can't turn the headphones low enough for comfort).  By the time I have watched a 30 minute program I have such a stiff neck.  The cat can't sit in my lap while I view.  And like that.

So,  I could buy an internet service for my tablet and watch on that, in any comfy chair at any time.  Well, the fees for those plans are too much.  But really the problem is the teeny tiny screen.  As the eyeballs age, bigger screens become necessary - hence plasma TVs and High Def programming become more enticing.

But really: what is there to watch?  Reality TV with idiots.  "Documentaries" with breathless overwrought narration and a story-recap after every commercial and commercials more frequent than eyeblinks.  Any time there might be a program one might grow to like (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2710104/?ref_=nv_sr_1) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/?ref_=nv_sr_2) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286039/?ref_=nv_sr_4), predictably, the network loses its nerve.

So, yeah we're still watching ("watching") TV.  And SOGP just gave in to a phone offer of 6 months reduced rate for High Def TV(new cable box, free access to all channels, blah de blah de blah).  And we still automatically turn on the TV in the evening.

But, you know what?  It's such crap.

I have asked the retired SOGP to investigate the funnelling of the internet through the plasma TV (there are some menu options which suggest it may be possible).  If I never have to choose between old wannabee frontiersmen shooting endangered mammals or young no-other-option fishermen being maimed while dragnetting endangered crustaceans, I won't miss it even once.

So.  TV viewing may be customary in my demographic, but it is riding on habit and inertia.  And because TV & high speed internet are still bundled (can't get high speed without some rudimentary TV attached), it's still so easy to just attach the connection to the plasma.  But, seriously?, if ESPN president John Skipper expects younger people to "trade up" to the crap available, I suggest that ESPN stockholders might want to sell their shares.