You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘direct tv’ tag.
I thought it would be cool to put up some of my pictures once and awhile, that go along with this blog’s point, theme, mood, or whatever you want to call it. Not only just that, but my pictures and photography web site will get some exposure, which they both could use! :)
Sometimes I will include commentary and other times, like now, I will leave the photo for you to deconstruct.
This is the view of the building across the street, from my roof, in NYC.
Unplug.
-Cara
OK, so this is shameless promotion of another blog of mine that Marine and I started last week called, “Those Movies We Watched Out Of The Box [after we turned off the satellite TV]“. This is an “green” entry because we are watching “recycled” DVDs. :)
What is it all about you ask? I’ll tell you…
On April 9th, 2008 in the House of Marine and Cara the Direct TV was turned off (If you would like to learn more about why this event occurred you may go here.). Anyway, with no TV now, we watch movies on DVD, but quickly went through our selection of personal DVDs. Things began to look dark, when suddenly I remembered our friend Tony had given us a box containing millions of his old movies and so began this journey to review every film we watch from out of the box.
Our reviews will be short and to some point I am sure. We rate the films from 1 to a 6. 1 being, “we only watched it to review it” and 6 being “one of the most super fresh films out there”.
As you will see so far the selection has not been the greatest, but ALL films will be watched. I am not sure we can watch all in this lifetime, but we will try!
Pop the popcorn and let’s go.
-Cara
—————————————————
Reason 74 from, 101 Reasons Why I Am Vegetarian:
New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation and its Department of Health have posted an Internet factsheet called “Eating Sport Fish.” The advice speaks for itself: No one should eat more than one meal of fish per week from any of the state’s fresh waters; chemical contaminants may be a problem; trim all fat; don’t consume cooking liquids. On the other hand, if you still want to enjoy the “fun” of sport fishing but don’t want to poison yourself, the factsheet recommends catch and release. But don’t tear out the hook–cut its leader, goes the advice. Also, avoid playing fish to exhaustion. Other states could post similar Web pages: nearly every state in the union has a mercury-in-rivers advisory.
A couple weeks ago Marine and I were talking about turning off our DirectTV DVR service. There is really nothing worth watching and I, just speaking for myself, am not strong enough to not turn it on and watch if given half a chance. I learned this when we said Tuesdays would be a no TV day and then proceeded to watch TV every Tuesday unless we went out! :) One main reason for no TV Tuesdays is there are millions of other things to do like read, go to the park, walk, create, write, talk, volunteer, make a difference, take a class, etc. instead of watching said TV. Now with no TV at all, who knows I might have time to run for President!
Originally, we got the DirectTV DVR to put an end to channel surfing, only record what we wanted to watch, and to avoid commercials. What I learned from this experience is, yes we stopped channel surfing, but now we show surf off the guide instead, we pretty much only watch crap, and because of TIVO/DVR services, every show has commercials in the actual show. This makes the shows I thought had some standards complete whores for advertisers. I understand it has always been that way, but now it is worse, before, I could walk away from commercials, but now to escape you must walk away from TV…so I am.
Another reaction to the turning off of DirectTV is we will not be using the biggest consumer of electricity in the house, our TV. I don’t know how big our carbon footprint is, but is it much smaller now. I was thinking this morning if our electricity bill will go down as in NYC ConEd averages your bill. They say they do this because 9 out of 10 times they can’t get to the meter. In this day and age the fact that the meter does not communicate with their database is ridiculous. This is something I will look into. I don’t want to pay what the average consumer of electricity pays, because I use way less then that guy! ;)
The Direct TV service was supposed to be turned off on April 6th, so to celebrate, Marine and I and some friends went out on Sunday to raise our glasses to the end of TV in our home [of the two friends, one has no TV and the other has no cable, just a TV for when she wants to watch DVDs.] When we came home the DirectTV was still on. I thought about calling and reminding them, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then the next day it was on and the next till I turned it on today and it was gone, just gone. I don’t know who reading this has a DVR, but there is a list of saved shows you can watch, so Marine and I filled it, that way when they turned off the actual service we could slowly wean ourselves off the boob tube. I thought that even without the service you could still watch the saved shows, but I was incorrect. Now, I am like a drug addict forced to go cold turkey without any warning, but like that drug addict I know that if I stay off the crack, life will only get better.
I am excited to see how it changes me.
Crack is whack!
-Cara
————————————————————–
Fish and shellfish farming, or aquaculture, is no less disruptive to the environment than taking fish from the wild. Shoreline pens replace mangroves, that is, the habitats where wild fish would otherwise reproduce. Some farmed species will not breed in captivity, so fish farmers must steal juveniles, who never get a chance to reproduce, from the wild. There are numerous cases where farmed fish have escaped into the wild, corrupting the genetic purity of native species and spreading disease. Indiscriminate biomass fishing for fishmeal threatens ecosystems. Feed-to-flesh ratios soar in some farmed species to 25 to 1. Nitrogenous waste poisons the seabed floor below cages that hold fish in unnatural densities.
The Day After An Inconvenient Truth 
What Did You Say?