Going slightly nuts
On the 29th of December I decided to purchase seasons 1-5 of The West Wing. It was one of those spur of the moment purchases that I might've regretted. I've watched the show, but didn't make it a permanent fixture each week and thought for $32 and $25 for the 1st, a calculated gamble. With a long weekend coming and a staunch opposition to New Year's Eve parties, I was all set. Additionally with a quiet patch at work, days were pretty short.
The following is quite tragic:
17 days have passed (408 hours) since the purchase
9 of these were work days (Assume 5 hours free time per day) (45 hours)
8 of these holidays or weekends (Assume 10 hours free time) (80 hours)
Total free time 125 hours
I've motored through 86 episodes. At approximately 40 minutes per episode that adds up to 3440 minutes or 57 hours. When I say that out loud that's pretty bad... and what's worse is its more TV I'd watch in a couple of months... From my calculations I've spent around 46% of my free time watching The West Wing.
I'm now not only addicted to the show, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do once I've finished the 5th box set. Also, as there's a gap between 5 finishing and what they're showing on the ABC now, I'm lost with some of the plot lines. The writing is amazing and while the dialog is at times too fast for this brain to digest, has kept me interested from start to finish. The characters are likable on many levels and makes one think about how much stuff happens on the other side of the fence. Speech writers and press secretaries now have a new found appreciation from me...
So for the few that read this blog if you were wondering where I've been, well, I haven't been doing anything constructive or social. My personal hygiene is ok, I'm having trouble constructing sentences and frequently been imagining a job at the oval office. Well, maybe not with the current administration...
Also in those 125 hours, I've been subtly noticing the ABC2 guide. The New Year's Day programming included:
The Doves: Live At Eden 2002, Bloc Party: Live In France 2005, Franz Ferdinand: Live In France 2004, Placebo: Live In France 2004, Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Live In France 2004, PJ Harvey, The Bravery: Live in France 2005, Radiohead: Live in France 2003, The Pixies: Live In France 2004, Blur: Live, The Vines,
The Audreys: Live At The Gov
I almost cried knowing that I'd missed all these shows, so I decided to get a SD set top box. While the above probably occurs once a year, there seems to be a regular batch of music each week and interesting documentaries. The only set I caught from the list was The Audreys which was repeated at a later date. It included some short conversations with 2 members with insights into the development of the band. An interesting note was that they tried to play a different cover at each gig on this recent tour (30 dates). On this occasion it was 'In Between Days' by The Cure. When we saw them it was Neil Young's Hurricane and a Dolly Parton song.
I promise to get out into the daylight, do things involving other human beings...Maybe just one more episode...
posted by Jonno @ Monday, January 15, 2007
5 comments
5 Comments:
Ah, I know exactly how you feel, only for me it was Futurama(and maybe the Goodies and the Muppets)-watch the remaining episodes sparingly because once they're gone... you will feel the void as you fall into the depths of melancholia. (O! If only they'd bring back Bender, Fry, Morbo & Kif!)
Good to see your back to blogging!
ah i got a case of the me-toos too! I did the same thing with the fifth season of the gilmore girls (stop gaffawing m's nemesis, its a compelling show, alright!) -finised 22 episodes (~45 mins each? works out to around 16 hrs of viewing time!!!) more or less over a weekend. I also raced through 1st and 2nd seasons of northern exposure and with the 3rd series still in its wrapper, i'm afraid i may experience a loss in time again if i dare to free them discs from their case!!!
uh-oh ... it's a relief that there's someone out there who's become as anti-social as me thanks to a TV show. back in May my mum bought me the entire first season of Deadwood and it's only in the last week or two that i've had the chance to sit down and watch it. despite the gratuitous violence and swearing, i'm hooked - the writing is brilliant. needless to say, we mowed through the 12 episodes pretty rapidly and if it wasn't for the tennis, the 2nd series that i picked up last week would probably already be half-watched.
and as for ABC2, how does france manage to get so many big names performing there???
They used to say television has shortened kids attention spans but in my case, the Internet has done this. I can barely sit and watch an entire TV show, let alone an entire series. Before I got such a short attention span I think my record was watching the entire sopranos season 1 in a day.
I did that for all my Star Trek dvds. I was never into The West Wing but over the holidays, I caught a few episodes of it on TV in Hong Kong. It was the only English show on so I watched it. I found that it was excellent and was about to go out and buy the dvds too. By the sounds of how much you watched them, they must be good. I'm going to get them now.
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