The recent Writers Guild of America strike has been great for gaming. Well, my personal gaming anyway. I watch a lot of TV. I didn’t really realize how much TV I watched until the writers strike happened. It seems like the record light on the PVR turns on nightly for at least an hour, sometimes more. The thing is, every time that light turns on, I am ultimately going to give up some of my precious free time to another episode of The Office or 30 Rock or whatever. PVR technology has allowed us to essentially eliminate commercials from the mix, saving us a few minutes per hour, but once I tally up all the time spent just watching TV, it’s pretty staggering.
Sure, the writers strike is over and done with. I’m glad that the writers ended up getting what they waned. After all, the strike didn’t really affect the games industry. I’m not aware of any cases where games were delayed because a writer was on the picket lines. That being said, we still don’t have all that TV goodness back yet and actually, I’m okay with it. I don’t know what Dr. House is up to or whether or not Hiro Nakamura will save us all and that’s fine with me.
I’ve replaced that void with gaming. I haven’t logged this much time on the consoles since college. I love it. Perhaps when all these TV shows do finally return in late spring or even in the fall, I just won’t watch them. Not because I’m angry about the strike and I’m purposefully retaliating against those who brought it on…it’s just that I have found something else to do with my free time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch last night’s SNL…
It’s pretty sad when something that you voluntarily do with your free time becomes a chore. TV has reached that point for me. One afternoon we added up all the shows that we watch in a week, and it was something like 18 hours of television. Per week. Then we started whittling away at our viewing schedule, dropping shows we don’t really, really like. Even then, the total was pretty high. It’s not that I don’t enjoy watching my favourite shows when they’re on, because I do. On the other hand, when I look at my free time in pie-chart form, it seems that as far as TV goes, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I feel like someone who’s adopted more cute puppies than I can care for, and now I have to give some of them up. I don’t want to, but it has become necessary. My free time is precious, and I don’t have enough of it to spend 15 hours a week staring vacantly at my television. Unless I am moving my thumbs and controlling what I see. That is another story. Our non-stop game-fest that started when the writers went on strike has been great. I just hope I can resist the urge to watch all those shows when they come back on.
