Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Commercial Break Bonus

The invention of the Personal Video Recorder is both a blessing and a curse. Not only can you watch even more of your favourite television shows because they can now be recorded and watched at your convenience, but you never have to take a break for station identification thanks to the fast forward button.

Tonight, I watched a television program the old fashioned way, by tuning in and letting the program run commercials and all. I made a promise to myself to get up at every commercial to do housework. Two commercial breaks and the dishwasher was empty. Two more and all the dinner dishes were done, including all but 2 of the hand washing dishes (since they needed a little soak in hot water before scrubbing). Where I had killed 40 minutes straight the PVR way, I had my same 40 minutes of programming, with a couple of chores done too.

Now one could argue that if I had watched my program a la PVR, I would have 20 minutes to do the same chores afterwards, but would I really? How many of us, upon completing the watching of one program on the PVR, see the massive backlog of recorded programs and think "Just one more". Next thing you know, hours have drifted by and nothing got done. So today, I enjoyed the commercial break bonus.

Now back to your regular scheduled programming.

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