Spoiled Rotten

OK, if I were a true blogger at heart, I would have posted about this weeks ago, but what can I say?

Did you hear the news about Philips applying for a US patent that would allow broadcasters to "freeze" a TV channel during the commercial? In theory, the viewer wouldn't be able to surf off to a different channel during the commercial.

I won't go into it all here. Just Google Philips patent commercial, and you'll get all kinds of results from blogs and techie Web sites complaining about the story. Here's an interesting comment I read about how this is the kind of thing that might make people push for the socialization of media organizations. Hmm.

Anyway, the point of all this is to give you my take on the whole thing (else why are we here?). Right after I heard the story, I was in Houston for a few days for the Texas Library Association conference (yay!), and an interesting experience gave the Philips story some personal relevance for me.

As everyone knows, a hotel stay isn't worth the money if you don't spend at least one evening 1) sleeping or 2) eating junk food and watching TV. Thursday night, I opted for #2, and settled in with a bag of mint double stuff Oreos (not as good as I hoped) to watch Without a Trace (I'd already exercised option #1 earlier in the week).

Well, I'll just say that all the commercials were a rude shock to my lazy, spoiled rotten, DVR-watching self. These days, I rarely watch any shows as they're broadcast, because it's infinitely preferable to record it on the DVR and watch it later when I can fast-forward through the commercials.

This led me to reflect upon how truly spoiled we are by much modern technology. My grandparents were my age or older before they even had a television. Forget all the obscene options in viewing and recording we have now.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm ready to give up the DVR anytime soon. I'm willing to accept and admit that I'm spoiled. I mean, why better myself if I don't have to? Besides, I have an appointment with the DVR right now to watch last week's Lost episode. ...Sans commercials.