Posts Tagged ‘TV’

By Michaela, Contributor, Mama Michie’s Musings (@MamaMichie)

My husband and I had been talking about changing our cable for years. At first he wanted to switch over to satellite… he drooled over the sports packages that they offered. Year after year passed though and we were still with our cable provider.

When Noah was born we contemplated cutting cable all together. We had become Netflix fans and were watching a lot of movies… the thing that stopped us from doing that though was the sports. My husband just couldn’t imagine not being able to watch his beloved football, hockey and baseball games. I’ll admit that I was happy that I wouldn’t be losing my TLC and HGTV either.

Fast forward 19 months… we now have two children that need out attention. We also have upgraded our TV and have bought a Blu-Ray player that streams Netflix… by this point we are complete Netflix junkies and loved that we could watch movies without having to wait for new disks to be sent. We were still considering canceling cable, but 1) Noah was hooked on the Sprout channel and 2) it was the end of hockey season and our team had a good chance to make it into the playoffs.  There was no way we would cancel now… or so I thought.

I was driving home from my mom’s house one day when Ray broke the news to me over the phone. That night would be our last night with cable… but not just any cable… with HD cable. I was speechless! How could that happen? What did he do? Forget about the sports, how could we live without Sprout? Didn’t my husband know that that one channel was the only thing that helped keep me sane some days?!?

It seems that he had not intended on canceling our cable when he called, but one thing led to another and that’s exactly what happened. We had been downgraded to the most basic of basic programs and nothing more. Even though we don’t watch much TV here in the house, I was still a little sad to see it go… mainly because I knew that I could count on Sprout to keep Noah calm when he woke at 6am… he would sit and watch while Ray was driving home from work and I was cooking… you get the picture.

It’s been almost four weeks since we’ve down-graded and I have to admit that I don’t miss cable nearly as much as I thought I would. We are utilizing the streaming feature of Netflix to get Noah his daily “Sprout” fix. They have many of the shows he used to watch on there, which is great. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t odd not having the guide to let us know what show is playing on which channel… but then again we don’t have as large of a selection of channels available, so it’s not that hard to just channel surf.

In the end, I think my husband made the right decision… just don’t tell him that I said that!

By Megan

I watched the NFL draft last month – did you?

It’s funny, actually, because at least a couple of my Mommyhood co-writers were, um, under-impressed. I saw such tweets from the gals (who will remain nameless to protect them from unsportsmanlike conduct) as:

I think watching a spelling bee is more entertaining to watch than the NFL Draft.

Which garnered the following response:

Or watching grass grow!

I giggled. I get it, not everyone is in to it. It would likely kill them all to know that I’ve never, not EVER, watched a single episode of “Dancing With The Stars”. I’ve not seen “Glee”, either. They just aren’t my thing.

The Draft? Yep, I was all over it. (You were too, weren’t you, Elizabeth?) (note from the editor: yes, Megan, I watched all 7 rounds, basically in their entirety!) I sat on pins and needles, waiting to see who my Colts selected. I watched for the kids from my Hoosiers team to get the chance to hear their name called. I watched the trades, listened to Gruden have a series of mini-strokes, enjoyed the process of team development.

Sports are one of the things my family really bonds over. My mom, sometimes my brothers, and frequently my neighbors hang in my living room with us on football Sundays, where we eat lots of food and scream at the television. My father is a Tennessee Titans season ticket holder, and we (lovingly) trade some pretty snide text messages when we face off. I grew up on Indiana Basketball. Our mutual love of sports was one of the things that brought my husband and me closer together early in our relationship.

I thought it would be interesting to know what, if any, sports interested some of you! My list, in no particular order, includes professional and collegiate football, collegiate basketball, and auto racing (NASCAR, Indy Car and Sprints). I was never, however, an athlete on any level, although I still tell my husband regularly that I’m gonna be a NASCAR driver when I grow up! I’ve always just been a (reeeeally loud) fan.

What sports did/do you play, and what ones do you most enjoy watching?

Megan shares snippets of her life and random, well caffeinated thoughts as a working mom of three on her blog, All A Bunch of Momsense. Family, food, and fun at your fingertips!

By Stephanie

I’m a little afraid I have to break up with American Idol. We’ve had a good run; I’ve been a loyal fan since David Cook won it all. I’ll admit I never watched until my mom, a radio DJ, bribed me with wine and brie to come over and watch it with her. She was starting an AI segment on her morning show and clearly needed my invaluable input.

So I watched. I enjoyed. I became a fan. I loved seeing the broad showcase of talent (I never watched the beginning auditions that I think are pretty much devoted to ridiculing people, something of which I’m not a big fan) and I looked forward to the different mentors each week and the big name performances. We made Idol a weekly event, my mom and I, and we had such fun with our predictions and our mockery of some of the most ridiculous outfits imaginable. Sometimes I was even moved by a performance enough to actually dial a contestant’s number to vote.

But this year I’m feeling…deflated. Let down. Bewildered. Flummoxed. Maybe it’s that I moved across the country and now I’m watching it all alone (my husband is quite “anti”) and that strips it of some of the fun. But I don’t think I’m alone in the sentiment that American Idol is going downhill, maybe overstaying it’s welcome.

The talent doesn’t seem to be as strong. The judges seem burnt out. Even Ryan Seacrest seems to be phoning it in a little, as if everyone is just a little tired. Then again, perhaps I just miss my mama.

This week they trotted out the Lennon/McCartney songbook again, and the performances we predictably painful to watch for the most part. There were some standouts; Katie Stevens sang Let It Be and absolutely blew it out of the park. Crystal Bowersox gave another solid performance with Come Together. Other than that, for me, no one really did anything for me. Some of the performances, like Andrew Garcia’s rendition of Can’t Buy Me Love made my ears bleed a little.

The biggest surprise of the week was Michael Lynche, who would have gone home but for the judge’s save keeping him hanging on for another week. I’ll keep watching – for now – because I feel like I should see it through to the end, give this relationship one last chance before I ban it from my DVR. But it will take something pretty spectacular to revive my interest for there to be any hope of taking this affair to the next level.

What about you? Are you finding yourself a fair weather fan this season or is the show still holding your interest? Will you continue to watch next season?

 

Stephanie is a stay at home mom to Joshua and Ella. She writes daily at Mama Still Wears Gucci,where she discusses everything from a radical obsession with vacuuming the draperies to vying (peacefully of course) for total world domination.

By Elizabeth

I control what you see.

I control what you hear.

I control what you know.

I am big brother.

And I’m watching you…

A lot of people– including my own mother– don’t really understand what I do. I’m a news producer… not an anchor, not a reporter, and definitely not the weatherman. Where does that leave me? And why do *I* have control over what kinds of information you have access to every morning, noon, and night? Why does a woman who makes less money annually than I spent annually on my college education have that kind of authority?

Take a news story. Any news story. The recent Toyota recalls, for example. In the beginning– in the purest form of information, the breadth of ALL the information available– there is this:

NEWS.

Then, a news-gathering source– someone at the Associated Press or Reuters, or maybe a reporter at your local TV station– gets ahold of that information and, having only two minutes to tell the story, whittles it down to this:

News.

Then, ultimately, someone like myself– the peons of journalism, the people whose names, faces, and voices are never seen or heard on air– takes that information and turns it into this:

news.

My mother– yes, the same woman who still thinks my anchors write their own material (they don’t; that’s my job)– once asked me how much of what’s actually ON local television news is true. I told her the truth– 100%. We don’t put lies on TV. But then she asked me a much more important question: what percentage of a news story ever makes it on air? And again I told her the truht– a much sadder truth– maybe… on a good day… 10%.

It’s true. It’s my job to turn a 140-page medical journal that some scientist has spent the last 17 months slaving over into a 20-second story. It’s my job to take the 750 page Congressional Budget and condense it into 30-seconds. It’s my job to turn a mother’s plea for the safe return of her kidnapped child into just one minute. It’s my job to turn just about everything that’s important into something that’s rather cynical.

So the next time you watch Matt Lauer, or Diane Sawyer, or Brian Williams… think of me… the busy bee behind the scenes, turning the complicated into the simple, the long into the short, the “who cares?” into the “I care”‘s.

Got a question about TV news and how it works? Feel free to leave it in a comment, and I’ll respond with what I hope is a coherent and HONEST answer!

Elizabeth is a full-time working mom who’s trying to have it all… and learning the hard way that isn’t always possible. You can read more about her at her brutally honest blog, Confessions From A Working Mom.

By Shandal
Surely everyone is familiar with the ever so famous show called “Friends.”
I recently noticed that sometimes I compare myself with some of the characters of the show. For the most part, I can usually relate more to Monica (played by Courtney Cox). Monica is known for her amazing cooking skills, her OCD, and her eagerness to be a hostess in her tidy little apartment.

I, on the other hand can not stand being a hostess.

I do obsess about it like Monica does, though.

I want my house to be spotless; I want things to go as smoothly as possible. All that equals mass amounts of stress and anxiety for me. .. so I avoid hostessing at all costs. I’m not a big fan of “sporadic” visits by family, either. For the most part I keep our house clean. However, in my eyes, it’s not always presentable. I have two kiddos running around, who like to decorate our house with their toys. I feel like I’m constantly picking up toys, only to have my kids bring them get them right back out. It’s a lost cause, but I can’t stand messes!

I digress.

As I was saying, when it comes to hostessing, I’m no Monica… but her OCD issues are a whole other topic for a whole other post. I’m not as extreme as her, but when it comes to cleaning and organizing, I want it done my way: the right way!

What about you?

What character from TV do you most relate to?

Shandal is a stay at home mother of two. You can follow her journey of being a mom and wife, all while living a healthy lifestyle on her personal blog, My Life In 3D.