Evolution of a Couch Potato

When I was renting a room, I didn't spend a lot of time watching TV. My roommates had cable and I had a small TV/VCR (yes, VCR!!) in my room, but I only got the most basic channels and I didn't watch any of the shows my roommates liked ... so I just stopped watching. When Sam and I got the apartment we decided that we didn't want cable, since neither of us watch much television, and we used my tiny combo to watch movies. Eventually we decided the old 13" wasn't cutting it and we got a bigger TV, placed on a rolling cart, since we didn't want to orient the furniture around a TV. We also got an Apple TV so we could buy the few shows we do watch on iTunes, and rent movies too.

When we decided that we wanted to stay in this apartment until May we felt compelled to rearranged our furniture. It felt so temporary, and we wanted to feel at home for the next six months. The room used to be wide open, with all the furniture pushed up against the wall. We decided to turn the couch to "float" in the middle of the room, and the TV moved off the rolling cart and into it's permanent place. We got a new bookcase, cleaned up our desk areas, and ditched the mini-fridge, all of which lent a sense of permanence and homeyness the the apartment. I mean, nothing says temporary like rolling the TV out every time you're going to watch a movie! We were still ok without cable ... and then most of Southern California caught on fire (again) and we found that the internet news we usually rely on wasn't very up to date on the local fire info, and had NO INFORMATION on freeway closures, causing me to be late to work and my chemistry midterm ... so we've caved. We got cable.

They installed it this morning. I'm already in love with the HD HGTV channel ... I like home improvement shows. I don't think this will change much. Having a DVR always increases hours spent watching television ... of course, I'll always prefer the company of a good book!