hogglestock

As most of you know, back in May 2007 I made a list of 40 things I wanted to complete by the time I turned 40 in August 2009. One of the things on that list was to go a month without watching TV. Well, August 2009 is right around the corner and I haven’t gotten around to this one yet. So the month of June will be the month without TV. I will admit a few things are being TiVo’d this month so that I can watch them in July (like the HBO “Into the Storm” about Winston Churchill and Kathy Griffin’s “Life on the D-List”). But otherwise TV is off limits for the next month. No Netflix for the month either. I am allowed to go to a cinema for a movie though.

Lately I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the news and politics websites I spend way too much time on and all of the political discussions that tend to dominate converstations here in Washington, DC. I have been feeling for a while like I wished I could tune all that out as well. So I am taking my no TV for a month a step further and I am not going to look at any news or politics website. If I want news I will have to read it in a print newspaper or maybe listen to NPR. This means I won’t be able to wear my glasses at the gym–too many TVs on with news programs and closed captions. All those talking heads get me too wound up. Need to to tune those out as well.

I am still going to use ‘the Google’ for legitimate research purposes (weather, background info on authors, flight times, etc.) but I am not going to surf the web randomly or with the notion of filling some time. But this also made me think of the ways I waste my time on the computer. So I decided to knock out Facebook as well. So I will be silent there for a month. And that made me think of the other timewaster, FreeCell. The obnoxiously addictive solitaire-like card game that comes pre-loaded on new computers. So that is off the list as well.What is all of this “deprivation” going to achieve? Well, for one I meet my 40 by 40 goal. But I will also gain time to work on projects, read, think about my next career move, maybe write a letter or two. It should be brilliant.