[Poll] Some of your favorite things?

[thefourthvine]

A few weeks ago, Best Beloved was at her library talking to a patron. The patron explained that she was in a big hurry to go out and buy a new TV, because her main TV had broken, and she had another TV that was just as good, but she felt weird not having a backup. (Keep in mind that this patron lives alone.)

Best Beloved was surprised by this. When she relayed it to me, I was also surprised. But then, we are not exactly normal in our relationship to television. (For Best Beloved, it's like an old friend who she's always happy to see, but rarely actually does see. For me, it's like an acquaintance who leads a fascinating life in a distant land and occasionally takes a break from it to come to my house and punch me in the mouth.)

Fortunately, I know a large group of people who have, if not a normal relationship with television, at least a more normal one. So I thought I'd ask you about this backup TV thing. Plus some other nosy questions about technology, because I care enough to be inappropriately curious about your life!

[Poll #1419179]

Comments

[thornsilver]

Seriously, who on Earth keeps a back up TV? I'd have a back up computer, if I can afford one, because I will die horribly otherwise.

[terriaminute.livejournal.com]

Actually, although there are six TVs in this house, none is really a backup except the one in the guest room/library. There are seven people here.

And hey, there was no "zero" choice for # of kids under 2. Mine hasn't been 2 for ten years! :-)

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

I don't own a television. I feel so liberated.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

It's nice to own a TV for DVD watching purposes (on those occasions when we get the chance; our TV has not actually been on since I watched my Yuletide source back in November), but a lot of the time I stare at the large amount of space it occupies and think, we could put a bookshelf where you are.

Do you watch TV on your computer?

[barbed-whispers.livejournal.com]

I only have an actual tv because a friend had an extra one and felt sorry for me because I couldn't play the one video game system I own (which I was given by my brother who felt sorry for me because I couldn't play the one video game I enjoy). If I HAVE a tv/cable, I have a disturbing tendancy to plant myself in front of it and watch the food channel for 8 hours before I realize I've wasted a large chunk of my life. As it is, I only turn my tv on if I want to lay on the couch and watch a dvd instead of laying in my bed and watching a dvd. I lead an exciting life sometimes, let me tell you.

(I download most of my tv shows & movies, and I take a lot of dvds out of the library. By putting effort into everything I watch, I am no longer able to just lazily watch stuff for hours on end. My inability to control my own laziness is also why I don't own a microwave. Sigh.)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

If I HAVE a tv/cable, I have a disturbing tendancy to plant myself in front of it and watch the food channel for 8 hours before I realize I've wasted a large chunk of my life.

I have never seen the food channel, but I hear it is VERY compelling, so I can sort of understand this.

My inability to control my own laziness is also why I don't own a microwave.

Every time I hear about someone who doesn't own a microwave, I want to ask, "But where do you hide your bread so your dogs can't get it?" And then I realize probably those people don't have dogs. *g*

Extra info....

[joannindiw.livejournal.com]

Um. One of the first people to answer this. I have lots of fancy stuff for a TV, but I have gone months without watching the TV.. and just started watching a bit because I need to exercise... (as in, I'm bad enough that 10 min at a time is about how much I managed to exercise today).

... and I have four TVs. Sat TV with DVR. A game console courtesy of a friend just recently installed. In all major rooms of my house. (not guest bedrooms, but, still. I have a dust-covered TV in my bedroom).

... I also have five computers (four of which are currently on - one is my music, and hooked up to good speakers, one is linux that is on for chat, one is Mac os for refreshing firefox so I can read up on the Iran updates, and one is Windows Os so I can (in theory!) catch up on my work). Computer graveyard would bring the total up.. um, much higher.

not a luddite but only semi-literate in computer stuff....

Re: Extra info....

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I have lots of fancy stuff for a TV, but I have gone months without watching the TV.

See, we also go months without watching the TV, but we don't have the fancy stuff. I am fascinated by the combination of fancy stuff and not using it!

Computer graveyard would bring the total up.. um, much higher.

We do not think about the Computer Graveyard. It is better that way. (I'm afraid they might be, like, breeding back there, or rising from the dead to become zombie computers. BETTER NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT.)

[jillsjourney.livejournal.com]

you might want an option of 0 for how many people are under 2.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I was seduced by the default option on that one, and it became one of those things where you realize juuuuuust to late to edit the poll. Sorry!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

If I was in a situation where a backup TV was feasible (space was not at a premium, and I knew I would not be moving), and my second TV died... I would wait until someone I knew was getting rid of an old TV, and claim that one.

Actually, everyone in RL I know who has more than one TV in the house has at least one TV they got as a hand-me-down.

(Also I clicked "13-15 hours a week" but actually I put on Countdown and Rachel Maddow and the Daily Show and Colbert on a web browser window, and then tab away and do something else while I listen to the audio. So my actual looking-at-picture time is less than that.)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I would wait until someone I knew was getting rid of an old TV, and claim that one.

This is a highly reasonable strategy!

Actually, everyone in RL I know who has more than one TV in the house has at least one TV they got as a hand-me-down.

*ponders* I don't think I actually know how most of the people we know got their additional TVs.

[blackletter]

I said I have two functioning computers, but it's more like one and a half. I have one nice desktop computer that I use most of the time. And then I have a decade old laptop that I keep in my office at school, which takes 10 minutes to start up, grinds to a halt whenever I try to run a virus scan, weighs 15 pounds, requires an external wi-fi card, and will surely die one of these years. Maybe. It's like the Bob Hope of computers.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

On the bright side, anyone who steals the laptop to you will probably return it the next day with an irritated note. That is some fine strategizing!

[tangleofthorns.livejournal.com]

For "TV," I think there's a really qualitatively different experience between watching tv as in entertainment programming, and watching news or sports. Just thinking.

[indywind]

How is sports different from entertainment programming?

[daydreamer.livejournal.com]

I was unable to confirm that there are zero people under the age of 2 in my dwelling, but lo, it is true. Also, I sort of have a TV in every main room in the house because I have one TV in a studio apartment, but there's no TV in the kitchen, which is kind of a different room even though there's no proper door, and I didn't think I qualified based on the spirit of the kitchen.

Also, technically the TV belongs to domtheknight because her relatives gave her one and she already had one and didn't see why she needed two, and I have issues committing to purchases greater than $30, so hers is on indefinite loan to me, to be terminated at any time by either party.

[abbylee]

See, and to me, the kitchen is the one place where I *would* put a tv. Well, or maybe a computer without a keyboard? So I can laugh at IRC and read my flist but not accidentally cook on the electronics.

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD. You have inadvertently hit a hot spot for me, which is that my husband likes to leave the TV on ALL THE TIME as background noise, but it's giving me ADD, because when I grew up, you only had the TV on a) as a special treat in order to b) watch a specific program and then TURN IT OFF AGAIN. So having it on all the time is super, super distracting for me. AAAAAAAAHHHH.

I didn't own a TV for the v. v. brief period of time when I lived alone and I LIKED it that way. It's the thing about being married that drives me craziest.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD. I used to live with a guy, waaaaay back in the dark ages, who was like that, and I put a stop to it. I just could not deal with that: a TV on. In my HOME.

(I am a demon about the thing where people leave the TV on, because the TV makes me crazy, and I see no point in being crazy if no one is even watching it. If you need background sounds, THAT IS WHY WE HAVE MUSIC, people. Also, when I get crazy like that, I tend to take it out on other people, so after a while they would rather have it off, too.

True story: I once spent a summer babysitting a baby and her ten-year-old brother from 7:30 to 5:30, in a house where the TV was on all the time. I walked in the first day and turned off the TV, and the boy stared at me in puzzlement: "It's okay to have it on," he said. "It's always on. My mother lets us."

"She might," I said. "But I don't. While I'm here, it's off." And he accepted that, although he clearly thought I was the weirdest person ever. And, hey! His reading improved a whole grade level that summer.)

[crimsonkitty88.livejournal.com]

I watch more tv on my computer than I do on my actual television.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I can see that! I've never tried it, but it seems like it would be easier to follow and more contained.

[ladysorka]

I do have two televisions, but my secondary television is not hooked up to cable and is old enough that if my main one broke I would end up having to replace it because my secondary won't support a cable box and doesn't have enough input/output things. It's pretty much exclusively devoted to the Wii. Well, and the old VHS player's in that room if I feel the need to hook it up.

I also leave the tv playing a lot during the day simply because I live alone and it's nice to have voices sometimes. It gets left on things like HGTV a lot.

[bleedtoblue.livejournal.com]

No one in my house is under two, thank goodness. I don't even have teenagers anymore! Again, thank goodness.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

I don't own a TV right now, but I watch some TV shows through other means.

I found the "which would you give up" question almost impossible, because I'm online primarily because of fandom, and I wouldn't be able to participate in fandom in the way I prefer without access to the source material. There are non-TV fandoms, of course, but my main fandoms at the moment are all TV shows.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I found the "which would you give up" question almost impossible, because I'm online primarily because of fandom, and I wouldn't be able to participate in fandom in the way I prefer without access to the source material. There are non-TV fandoms, of course, but my main fandoms at the moment are all TV shows.

Amen. I think I'd rather have the internet as a method of communication and news consumption, but giving up stuff produced to be consumed as video? That's harsh.

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

We DL or stream everything we watch. I have days where I'm so glad we don't spend hours watching the Food Network, and I have days where I desperately miss being able to watch shows when they air.

[brooklinegirl.livejournal.com]

I LIKE my TV, but I don't LOVE my TV. we own two, but we RARELY turn on the one in the bedroom. And the TV-watching depends - we watch a few hours a night, but we're online at the same time, as well as having cuddling/dinner/antics time. and omg, I CANNOT STAND the TV being on when we are not ACTIVELY watching something. We turn it on to watch specific things, but it's off ALL other times.

I COULD live without it. I just enjoy being passively entertained at times. <3

[ignazwisdom.livejournal.com]

You live with five people under the age of two?

[deepsix.livejournal.com]

There should be an option of 0 for how many people under the age of two.

I do not understand why anyone would need more than one TV. We technically have two (one is a computer hooked up to the cable), but no one ever watches the other one. Then again, we have 8 computers to 4 people, so we're not so normal either.

[reflectedeve.livejournal.com]

Some of my answers are definitely skewed because of my roommates. Each owns his own TV (I don't have one that's explicitly mine, but there's a communal set with dubious ownership), each has at least one video game console, and one has at least two computers (actually, I think he might have three).

I watch an awful lot of TV these days, but since I am usually using it as background entertainment while I draw, I like to think it counts . . . less. /o\ This odd guilt is probably the remaining influence of my technologically-conflicted English teacher father, who likes to rant about "screens" and wouldn't allow my family to own a TV until I was 14. (This lingering parental influence fails to extend to computers/the internet in any way whatsoever, oddly.)

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

As long as I could still have music and internet, I would give up TV. And I watch a lot of TV.

[geeklite.livejournal.com]

We have two TVs, but only because we bought a cheap crappy one when we first moved here, and then boything wanted an LCD screen TV and then we haven't gotten rid of the first cheap crappy one because the boything's vintage game consoles plug into it and not the new one.

When I was a kid, I watched no TV. OK, sometimes 30 minutes a week. My mother would make me watch as punishment. These days I have some shows I watch that I like, and some I watch for sheer wtfness.

Also I think we have 7 computers. Sometimes it is 8 depending on whether boything's taken one of the laptops to work or not.

[general-jinjur.livejournal.com]

i needed a zero both for "how many people under the age of two" and "how many TVs". we had a tv until about a year ago, but when it stopped working, we didn't replace it. we use a roku box connected to one of the computer monitors, which is very very *like* a tv, but since you asked for number of computers as well, i figured i shouldn't count it that way.

i hate that there aren't enough hours in the day.

[wintercreek]

Do DVDs count as hours spent watching TV, or is "TV" defined as only things that are broadcast/streamed and not pre-recorded?

If DVDs don't count, the total hours of TV descends to 0-1 for me. If they do count, than most of those hours are made up of the TV episodes on DVD that we watch most nights (and extras on the weekends, sometimes).

[marag.livejournal.com]

Our second TV is almost 20 years old. ::coughs:: Dude, were TVs even color then? ;)

We do have a DVR, which is 95% composed of children's programs, in case we need to sedate Yael with Sesame Street.

OTOH, we both have brand new CrackBerries Blackberries, he has an iPod, and I have a Kindle.

[enyalie.livejournal.com]

I claimed 9-12 hours a week, but I often have the tv on in the background while I work on my latest cross stitch project, although I have recently discovered audiobooks which work just as well.

I would have a backup computer if I could afford one.

[sasha-davidovna.livejournal.com]

I said I can't imagine a situation in which I'd have a backup TV, but it's not quite true. My parents used to have one in the basement for tornadoes, but we're talking a tiny (like, smaller than my laptop screen), ancient thing from the late 70's that got about two channels until it finally died a few years ago. Under no circumstances can I imagine having a backup TV of the same quality as my main one. I watch most of my TV online anyway.

Also, I have cable internet but not cable TV, and a kid who IS 2. (2 1/2 today, in fact! She was a solstice baby.)