Time is tight

We’re up against it now, time is slipping through our fingers like sand and we have to make the most of what we have left.

In other words the Digital TV recorder and TV are going next week! We got the letter in the post with the return address for the digital recorder and it has to be returned before the end of the month.

Of course this means that this weekend is potentially the last time we’ll have the joy of watching complete and utter, time sucking, mind melting, life absorbing crap on the box. I can’t say I’ll miss the 95% of the stuff I watch but there’ll be a few things I’m going to pine after.

Top Gear for instance, a new series of Spooks has just started, Heroes is reaching the climatic end of the first series, Later with Jools Holland has just started up again and of course Christmas would not be complete without The Sound of Music and Indiana Jones.

So this weekend is going to be frantic for numerous reasons. We’ve got dinner plans every evening, I’ve got to work for a few hours over the two days and so I plan to record as much as possible and watch everything I can before we post off the box.

As an aside, if anyone has any tips for hacking acquiring material from a Digital recorder so we can download what we’ve got stored on it(numerous films and the like) onto an Apple MacBook, for arguments sake (cough), then I’d appreciate the advice!

Losing a limb…

Not an actual limb, you understand, more a psychological limb. We’ve canceled our TV contract. I’m just going to let that settle in before moving on…

See what I mean? It’s a big move, I wouldn’t say were addicted to TV in Chez Nous, but we do like to watch a few programmes.

The decision was made because we’ve lived with and without a TV and we much prefer the without option. In Scotland we lived for nine months without a box and it was bliss. Your life isn’t controlled by the TV schedule, you have so much free time to do stuff and you can arrange your room around something other than where the aerial connection is. In Dundee we had a very kitsch 80’s style fake fire with glowing glass coals and two bars on the front. It was a great talking point!

We got the TV here because it was a little bit of home and helped to settle us in. We could get BBC1 and 2, ITV 1 and 2 and a few other English speaking channels to take the edge off the move and the fact that everyone around us was speaking German. But now we find ourselves getting sucked into watching series of reality, ballroom dancing with celebrity chefs, in the jungle type singing contests that are a complete waste of time. I should have been watching the German channels to get up to speed with the language but that was too much like hard work.

So, any time soon, it’ll be gone, out of my life and I’m gong to have to cope with having lots of time to read books, brush up on my German, write blog posts, meet people for pints, do a bit of study and relax. I realise that for most of the day I have media of some description on in the background. Radio in the lab, iPod in work, the laptop is always on and then I come home to the TV! I think it’s time to cut down on the digital drowning and get back to basics.

Of course, this all sounds kushty now, next week when I have to miss the latest episode of “America’s wildest police celebrity dance challenge factor”, I’ll be going up the wall or rocking gently in the corner of the room somewhere. But it’s all for the best, right?