Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Hi All!

Where have I been?

Nowhere really. I just haven't made the time to sit down and blog lately. I've thought of a dozen witty, opinionated posts while walking through the grocery aisles and scrubbing the toilet, but they have just disappeared from my mind (like most of my thoughts) the minute that I sit down to type. Despite the loss of these irreplaceable nuggets of joy and wisdom, the world will have to continue turning, lol!


What I do have for you today, is a bit of a review. A television review, no less.

We constantly have these silent battles about TV in our house. My husband loves it and cannot function without it's blue, brain-sucking glow in the background at all times. I personally could chuck every set we have out the window. We don't really argue out loud about this, but there is much sighing and huffing by both parties. It's always been like this, he is a watcher and I'm a reader. We accepted each other's frailties with mostly good grace and life was good.

That is, until digital cable came into our lives.

Literally 1500 channels pumped into our house at an exorbitant price just so we can watch "The Jetsons" in French and die laughing at 3:00 AM. The deal also came with one of those DVR's (digital video recorders) that allows us to "Pause, rewind, and fast-forward live TV at the touch of a button" and makes it insanely easy to record any show including "Gilligan's Island" four times a day.

You can imagine my chagrin.

So, while I silently fumed about the new, electronic mistress in our home, my husband was in couch potato heaven. He even started recording things that he thought I might be interested in and sending me emails to let me know about my recorded itinerary. This made me curious to see just what he thought I might like to watch, so I sat down with the "Royal Scepter of Control" (which, by the way, has too many buttons) and began to peruse the list. There was very little that I wanted to watch, but I made a discovery that has changed my idea of children's television.

A lovely little channel called "Noggin".

This channel is a joint venture by Nickelodeon and PBS, but it is tailored completely for preschoolers from dawn to 6:00 PM. It's completely commercial free and I have yet to find a show objectionable or even overly saccharine. The programming is wonderful, and includes a few foreign shows that we wouldn't get to see otherwise, and it is truly educational and fun.

Peanut's favorites include a hand puppet show called "Oobi" that uses actual hands as puppets and has me mesmerized watching the skill of the puppeteers. Plus the storylines are so sweet and family oriented that I have found tears in my eyes on more than one occasion. She also is crazy about "Jack's Big Music Show". I love this show! It features all sorts of music from Jazz to Folk and you will find none of that Barney-fied sappy kids stuff either. We have added a few new CD's to our collection that the whole family likes because of this show. We always end up dancing and singing!

The best part is, thanks to that dratted DVR, we can record the shows when they are on and watch them when it's convenient. It makes me feel less tied to the "brain-sucking" machine.

Yes, humble-pie was forthcoming on the menu.

3 comments:

Kate said...

*shrugs* I still don't think it's worth it. Waste of money, time and life. I've been so enriched not having TV.

Now, for my humble pie....while I bash the TV, I type away on the internet. Ummmm....same thing? I think so. It's one of those splinter in one's eye, beam in mine sort of things.

Maeve Bradbury said...

Gosh - the great TV debate rages on in this house too... so far I have managed to keep any cable or digibox additions out of our lives by explaining to Oldest Son that the 'wires' don't stretch as far as our village... I do like the sound of your new discovery though - my littlies would love it. Maybe I need to drag myself kicking and screaming into this century? (Into the last century would be a good start...)

impromptu-mom said...

Trust me, if it were my choice, we wouldn't have cable. But when a dusty, bookish creature like me marries an up-to-the-minute techie, consessions must be made, lol! I always have the evenings to myself around here, so to compensate for the daytime electrical noise, I turn off all of the lights, light a few candles and read for at least an hour. It calms my soul a little! :)

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