Turned Off

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

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Reason 54 from, 101 Reasons Why I Am Vegetarian:

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.

Living With Ed

I’ve been going through the green change lately, reading about it, writing about it, living it, etc., but one of my favorite mediums has been neglected…television, tv, the boob tube…I love it…but using all that juice just to watch it, I thought, how can I give back? HGTV [Home & Garden Television] to the rescue. This informative channel is a favorite in our home, it is always on. One day an ad came on for “Living With Ed“. I remembered Ed Begley Jr. on St. Elsewhere from way back in the day. I remember hearing some gossip about him, people saying he was strange to work with or just strange or that there was something different about him…I don’t remember exactly what…but I was curious to check out his show. I set up the Tivo to record “Living With Ed“, and after a few months of procrastination, I finally watched an episode and loved it. In fact I just watched three episodes in a row earlier and guess what…by the end I had the great idea for today’s post. :P GENIUS!!!

 

 

The show is awesome. It is Ed and his wife Rachelle, who seem to be people with passion for something good and are intelligent as well, which is fresh. Given the show is more what rich people of California can do to green their property by paying pricey specialists to come in their homes, then paying other people to install said updates, but in the process, we pleabians learn for free why compact halogen lights are better. It is a win/win situation…Right now I can’t afford a house much less solar panels and windmills, but it is a good way for people to learn about the options that are available and of course for people like me who will one day be drowning in riches, I will luckily already know what to do to be the greenest human I can be! :P That’s living…

:)

Cara