TV on TV

I was thinking today about some changes in technology we've seen in the last few years. How many people still watch TV on TV? That is to say, how many people still sit in front of their television, flipping channels? When I was a teenager, my family had shows we watched together, and we'd bring all our blankets and snacks into the living room at a set time every week.

Now, I download episodes of the series I watch, and watch them whenever I feel like it. I either send them wirelessly to my Xbox so I can watch them on the flat screen, or I watch them straight on my computer. My sister and mom stream them on their computers, and I don't think my dad really watches TV anymore. He's talking about cutting off our television service because none of us use it anymore.

I think it's an interesting change. I guess it's similar to the change in the way I use phones. When I was a teenager, I used to actually talk on the phone! My friends would call, and I'd lie on my bed with the phone pressed against my head—twirling the chord in my fingers! Now people don't even call our house. Everyone in my family has a cell phone, and my sister and I don't even talk on those—we just text. Now my dad is talking about disconnecting our land line!

I guess we're at some kind of technology crossroad.

Holidays

We’re in for the home stretch now—only a couple weeks of papers and exams left, and then we’re free for the holidays! What kinds of plans do you all have? I for one will probably head back to the salmon farm I work at, and get a shift in before school starts up again in January—pad up my budget for the next term. My family doesn't celebrate Christmas, so I've always been the one to pick up shifts for other people who need time off. There will, of course, be a dinner with my grandparents—we all do have the time off, after all—but it’s not really a Christmas thing. I think everyone will probably bring a casserole.

Whatever your plans are for the holidays, I wish you a good one.