Forget about choosing what is good vs. what is bad, what is right vs. what is wrong. As a Christ follower, there is a life with God, and there is death apart from him. Everyday, every choice, I don't choose right from wrong, I choose between God and whatever else. This blog was about how I chose God over TV. Now it's just about how I choose God.
Simply put, an awesome clip. I love it. I've seen it 3 times now, and each time it gets better. I actually need to stop watching it before it becomes like watching re-runs of a TV show. In any case, I've been walking around the house shouting "SWEET BERRY WINE!" for the last 24 hours or so. It's driving Emily a little crazy at this point. She laughs, but she also suggested that I wouldn't find it nearly as funny if were still watching TV. Maybe that's true. You watch this a couple of times, and then report back. Funny? Or am I just enjoying the fruits of drastically fewer motion pictures?
Since I'm at work right now, I can't embed a youtube video, but I do have the link:
It's been a REALLY long time since I've posted an entry, so I thought I would check in. Not too much to report. I think I've denied myself TV in most of the situations that usually would have cued me in to turn it on enough times at this point that I don't think about it too much anymore. I still miss my favorite shows, but maybe a little less than I used to.
I think maybe I don't post much about it anymore because I'm tired of thinking about something I don't do anymore. That's good, right? Anyway, I think that's about all I've got for now.
Yesterday I was talking with my friend Dan, who has also liberated himself from the television. He said, "It's great! I don't even really miss it!" While I'm excited for Dan, I don't know if I'm in the same boat. I wish it was! But I think I still miss it a little. A lot less than I thought I would, but still - I do miss it.
Last night, I went out for a pretty long run while Emily watched a little Hulu action. I put that all together in my head a little later that night. So, of course, I asked in excitement, "What'd you watch?" Community! Ohhhh... "What did Troy do? Peirce?!" Oh I bet it was funny! Apparently, Peirce has become a level six buddhist hot-tub monk. I'm sure something funny must have happened with that.
So you see, I clearly still miss it. It's like when you break up with someone. If you're not really over them, then you still want to check in with someone about them - find out how they're doing. Probably a nice thing to do, even if you are over them, but if you're jumping out of your seat to find the juicy details - you're probably still a little dependent upon them. I think of these scenes of Friends and 30 Rock and I think about what it looks like when someone is still not over something they've given up.
... sadly the scene from 30 rock where Jack makes Liz eat a $54 steak in front of him is not available. I did find this song that Vaughn made up (the hippy that always takes his shirt off on Community) about getting over Britta after she dumped him. It's a break-up song about life after the relationship... so it's... well... almost fitting. :-) Enjoy!
The bottom line though, people, is this. Though I feel I feel the impact of a world without them (them being my TV buddies), the course of my favorite shows probably hasn't been altered by the fact that I'm no longer watching them. In fact, yeah... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the course of those shows DEFINITELY has not changed as a result of my lack of viewing. A little sad for me to think about, but also very true. And I think that's an important step in getting over something/someone you miss - that is, knowing that they're over you (or in this case, that they never knew you existed in the first place because "they" are fictional).
So I guess I'm not out of the woods with this TV thing yet... but we're still moving forward!
Today's temptation rating: 3 (It's too nice outside to be tempted by sitting inside watching the TV)
youtube clips are not cheating as long as they're passed on by someone else. I just can't go looking for clips. I'm setting the record straight on this one because my friend sent me a FANTASTIC youtube clip today, that I have watched twice now. Check it out:
Also, a little while back, someone found this incredible (triathlon related) video. I actually posted a blog entry on teamscrappy.blogspot.com about it:
I think I appreciate these that much more because I don't get to watch TV. That's all for today. Funny stuff.
Today's temptation rating: 5.4
Days without incident: I'M 50!!!!! (A little reference to a Molly Shannon skit on SNL.)
So I'm trying to become this super fit professional triathlete, right? It can be difficult when your wife tries new concoctions like chocolate chip cookie brownies. No, not chocolate chip brownies. Nope, not those chocolate chip cookies that come in bricks like brownies. Chocolate chip brownies. Just look below at the deliciously unhealthiness that is my new favorite dessert.
First you take a brownie pan. Fill it with brownie batter... mmm... then you take chocolate chip cookie dough and plop it in the brownie batter... MMM... Then you bake it. But wait folks there's more!
Then you make this chocolate sauce from cream and butter and chocolate chips, and you pour it all over the top! I know right. Freakin' delicious, let me tell you. So delicious I was actually eating it just moments before racing at my swim meet this weekend (as were several of my relay team members). Awesomeness all around.
ANYWAY... we consequently have a large sum of left over cookie dough sitting in our refrigerator. If we had a TV, I would have procrastinated on doing my workouts for the day by picking up the bag of cookie dough and proceeding to have eat an unmonitored quantity daily as I zoned out in front of the TV after work. The bag might have lasted a day or two. It's now several days later and there is still about half of the cookie dough still sitting in the fridge (I'm so healthy... not really). Well, maybe on the counter... because without TV, I just found a new way to waste my after school time.
PAN FRIED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. That's right friends, take some cookie dough and put it in a non stick pan... see what happens... I did. The first one burned... pretty badly on the outside, but was still gooey in the middle. How do I know? Well despite the charred outside, I ate it anyway of course. No sense wasting perfectly good cookie dough. The second cookie was much more successful. It's a rather slow cooking process, but the result was almost worth the wait. It took about as long as it takes to bake a cookie in the oven, but yielded two crispy sides instead of one. If you like your cookies crispy it'd definitely be something to try. I'd show you a picture, but I only made one and I ate it already. I tried finding a picture of it somewhere online, but would you believe it... I found no recipes for pan fried chocolate chip cookies. Deep fried, sure, but not pan fried! I guess this not TV thing has my creative juices flowing.
Anyway, time to go work off the cookie dough. That's all folks!
Get it? Like the opening song to Happy Days, except that I replaced "hap" with "crap"... you get it. Anyway, that's the theme song for the start of this week folks. I had a swim meet this last weekend - and despite it going pretty well, I'm freakin' exhausted. That coupled with the fact that it might quite possibly be as depressing outside as anyone could ever imagine, and probably a few other factors have made yesterday and today two of the more depressingly crappy days on record.
You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging so much lately. Well, like I told a concerned student this morning in class (that's right, someone other than you actually reads this, Mom! :-)) I've just been filling my time with things to do more. TV has, in large part, been replaced by real life. Success! But today... oh boy. Today is what my students might call a "life fail".
Back in the days when I was watching TV, if I had a crappy day, I would just watch, watch, watch... show, show, show. Sometimes if I felt reeeeaaaallly validated, I would be in a slightly better mode as I went to bed having done nothing else. But sometimes, I would just sulk in the crappiness of the day in front of the TV all afternoon/evening, and not get anything else done. This would of course leave me feeling guilty that I didn't do anything with the day, and I would then become disappointed with myself, and thus even more depressed about how crappy the day was. I figured without TV as that outlet on crappy days, I was safe from sinking myself further into those already crappy and depressing days. As it turns out... "la, la, la... I'm no superman." :-)
Those days are just bound to happen, and there's nothing I can do about it. Today (and yesterday) was one of those crappy days. Yesterday really set the stage. Exhausted from the meet this weekend, my emotional state has been pretty fragile - I'd say. The rain doesn't help. Especially since, without a car, I have to go out in it. Rain or shine, I had to ride my bike up to the pool for my swim workouts. So yesterday I got to ride up to the pool. (When I got there, there was a guy standing under the awning, talking to someone on his phone for the sole purpose of complaining about the fact that it was raining buckets and that his car was 100 feet away. He said this as he watched me ride in from the rain, completely drenched head to toe. So... I guess I could have been in a bit more of a sulky cranky mood - but don't worry... I'll get there soon enough as the story is not over.) The ride up was ok, I guess... but on the way home - I rode through a puddle (word to the wise - if it's raining AVOID PUDDLES ON YOUR BIKE), right into a huge pot hole that stopped me dead in my tracks. I got a flat tire... 2 miles from my house. That's right. So in the pouring down rain, I had to get off my bike, and change a flat tire, and then continue to ride home.
Today, I was supposed to ride up to the pool again. This time to swim and run - both indoors because it is yet again, raining like a banshee. I had a little extra time though - which turned out to be just enough down time before my workout to fall asleep. That was about 4 hours ago, and I woke up about an hour ago. So today, instead of going out in the rain, I fell asleep for about 3 hours. Didn't do my workouts. Made a sucky dinner, which my poor wife will have to eat when she gets home... all by herself... Why? Because I'm a bad husband that's going to bed without her, because despite sleeping an extra 3 hours this afternoon, my eyes are doing this weird shifty thing that is making me dizzy, and difficult for me to finish typing this blog entry. Is that from not watching TV anymore? Who knows!
Bottom line is this - as it turns out - those really crappy days that I thought were crappy in part because of TV might have just been days that were bound to be crappy regardless. Oh well - the sun will come out... tomor--oh wait, no it won't. The sun will come out... the day after tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that ... the day after tomorrow.... there'll be sun. In the meantime - let the crap-fest continue.
Today's temptation rating: 7.6
Day's without incident: 48
PS - I sincerely apologize if I depressed you a little with this post. :-)
My hamstring has been sore from running the last week or so - so yesterday my coach told me that instead of this week being the last of 3 hard weeks of training, it is now a recovery week. I took yesterday off, and the next week will be lighter workouts. It was nice to have some time at home to myself yesterday, but I definitely had a TV attack amidst all of that unscheduled time. The temptation rating was through the roof!
Today's better. I've got plans all day including... wait for it... PIZZA! :-)
I can't tell you how excited I am for this dinner. It's going to be fantastic. Not only do I get to enjoy it in the company of my new friends Ian and Anna, but ... well... it's pizza! I mean who doesn't love pizza right? I think I'll get "the Joey special." What's the Joey special you ask? Two pizzas of course! Oh Joey... I'm actually waiting to post this until I get home so I can include a few incidences with Joey and pizza for your enjoyment.
Recovery and pizza... all we need is for the clouds to part and this would be the perfect day - who needs TV!
Today's temptation rating: 3.8
Days without incident: 42
(OK so I didn't get a chance to embed some videos from youtube, and it is now the following morning. Oops!)
