So, as your fearless consumer reporter, I decided to check out the new feature on iTunes that allows you to buy new music videos. I typed in the names of a few songs whose videos I could imagine myself feeling a sudden Apple-generated Need To Own (namely: "Take On Me," "Hey Ya!," and "No Scrubs"), but none were available. Then I just started looking through their Top 100 sales list, and I saw maybe 10 that I immediately hankered to own (e.g., "Tubthumping", "Maps", "Billie Jean", "Fast As You Can" ...).
I decided, though, to be frugal and just to buy "Goodbye Earl", or, at least, to buy just that and "Tubthumping". I tell you, nothing about watching some sassy women singing about a vigilante homicide to get one's spirit going in the morning. $2 is hardly an expense to fret over, especially when it is so easily justified by my decision not to spend $20 to use my monitor to watch the Hawkeyes-Hoosiers football game on my monitor this afternoon (yes! my two alma maters square off!).* Still, it did seem like the beginning of a spending pattern that could cumulate to Real Money quickly. Fortunately, perhaps, the video playback isn't of particularly impressive quality on my system, so I think it won't be anywhere near as tantalizing as I might have imagined.
I've read that I can download a video on my Nano and then buy some cable or gadget that would allow me to play it at higher quality through the television that I recently claimed in the national press not to own.** I will not be doing this.
* Not to mention also deciding not to spend $240 to perform "Goodbye Earl" myself at karaoke with Constance.
** Okay, it's a time-old philosophical question, but: if a television sits in a cabinet not hooked up or even ever plugged in, do you really have one? Are you really lying if you tell a reporter that you don't?
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10 comments:
yes, you are lying. you own a television. you may not watch television, but you freaking own one. this is simple.
And why do people even brag about not owning a TV? In what way does not owning a TV make someone better than/smarter than/or more "anything" than someone who does own a TV?
TV is not inherently evil or wrong or bad for you. There's lots of good and useful programming on TV -- PBS, critically acclaimed series, news programs -- and a lot of stuff that is pure entertainment.
I hate it when people say that they don't have a TV and act all superior about it. I just want to haul off and slap them upside their head.
I don't brag about not having a TV. It's just my first line of retort whenever somebody asks me how I have time to have a blog.
I know what you mean. I had a TV set during grad school, but I didn't get any reception on it. I used it to watch videos occasionally, mostly when I was sick. So it was easiest to just tell people I didn't have a TV. It's much more complicated to elaborate that you don't get reception (and in the end that's the point anyway).
A propos football games, I don't recall seeing a mention of last week's NU victory over Wisconsin.
I wasn't intending to imply that I thought you (Jeremy) were bragging when you said that you don't have a TV. Sorry if I left that impression.
But Dorotha is right. You do own a TV. And there's nothing wrong with that.
does the TV have to work?
I've thought about removing the innards from the television set I own and making it into an aquarium. Would I still have a television then?
gimme a break. first of all, you should just buy a freaking fish tank if you want an aquarium. second, like hell you weren't trying to sound superior. or, okay, you were just trying to not look as bad as someone who is always on the internet and watches tv, too.
guess what? i have the TV on and i am posting on your blog at the same time. plus, i'm grading papers. and i have a game of spider solitaire open.
i must really, really suck.
You would suck less if you ever bothered to push yourself and play two-deck Spider solitaire instead of always sticking to the too-easy one deck setting.
how did you know? i must wear my one deck suckitude in an obvious way.
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