I have power and internet in my home again, so life is reverting back to normality. Also, I have cable TV back and all its attention and productivity sucking properties. Maybe this TV thing really is the bane of human thought. I had forgotten what it is like having a different bright, flashing scene popping up every second or two.

Try this next time you watch TV: Snap your fingers (or clap your hands if you can’t do that) every time the scene jumps on a TV show or cartoon. It’s about a second or two, sometimes even half of a second.

It’s hard to not look at the screen when it is in the room; it’s taken me all of “Family Guy” to just write this much of this post.

I just got up and turned it off now. Wow, what a difference. Suddenly I am somehow able to type more than a word a minute.

Maybe I should stop watching TV… it sounds like a bizarre pledge to make, and I guess I don’t have to do it forever, but when I spent those three days unable to watch TV I think I started to come out of a slight mental stupor.

Of course, I have plenty of other things I do that might be a bit mind-numbing, and a person should have a good time now and then and just relax, but I remember feeling genuinly tired from not watching TV, as if somehow the act of watching TV has caloric content. It was trying me physically to not lie on the couch and watch TV.

Here’s some interesting links on the topic:

http://www.tvturnoff.org/

http://www.familyresource.com/lifestyles/mental-environment/television-opiate-of-the-masses

http://www.43things.com/things/view/1474

http://nvnv.essortment.com/tvwatch_rcuo.htm

http://frugalforlife.blogspot.com/2005/10/no-tv-for-one-week.html

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