You are currently browsing the Dinhternet posts tagged: Television

One (Hundred) More Thing(s)

January 1, 2008 Life, the Universe, and Everything
9 comments

New Year’s is a time to look back at the past year and look ahead to the year ahead. But see­ing as this Decem­ber was so momen­tous for me, I decided to look ahead not only to this year, but to my whole life. Like I said in a pre­vi­ous post, I wanted to make a list of 100 life goals. How­ever, as I was mak­ing my list, I real­ized that a big part of what I wanted to do was to travel. In fact, more than fifty of my goals were places to visit. So I split the list in two and made a “100 Places To Visit” list and a “100 Things To Do” list -

Places

  1. Great Pyra­mid of Giza (only Won­der of Ancient World left)
  2. Stone­henge
  3. Colos­seum
  4. Cat­a­combs of Kom el Shoqafa
  5. Great Wall of China
  6. Porce­lain Tower of Nanjing
  7. Hagia Sophia
  8. Lean­ing Tower of Pisa
  9. Taj Mahal
  10. Cairo Citadel
  11. Ely Cathe­dral
  12. Cluny Abbey
  13. Chun­nel
  14. Empire State Building
  15. Itaipu Dam
  16. Delta Works
  17. Panama Canal
  18. Machu Pic­chu
  19. Bali
  20. New Zealand
  21. Angkor Wat
  22. For­bid­den City
  23. Bagan Tem­ples
  24. Kar­nak Temple
  25. Teoti­hua­can
  26. Sere­genti
  27. Gala­pa­gos Islands
  28. Iguazu Falls
  29. Ama­zon Rainforest
  30. Ngoron­goro Crater
  31. Great Bar­rier Reef
  32. Vic­to­ria Falls
  33. Bora Bora
  34. Cap­pado­cia
  35. Mount Ever­est
  36. Aurora Bore­alis
  37. Aurora Aus­tralis
  38. Lake Baikal
  39. Chicken Itza
  40. Syd­ney Opera House
  41. Antarc­tica Dry Valleys
  42. Jerusalem
  43. Tibet
  44. Mau­soleum of the First Qin Emperor
  45. Hoan Kiem
  46. Maha­bodhi
  47. Masjid Al-​Haram
  48. Spi­ral Minaret
  49. Parthenon
  50. Sis­tine Chapel
  51. Statue of Liberty
  52. United Nations
  53. Bar­ringer Meteor Crater
  54. Mat­ter­horn
  55. Ayers Rock
  56. Kil­i­man­jaro
  57. All 50 states
  58. All National Parks
  59. Rio for Carnivale
  60. Munich for Oktoberfest
  61. Blar­ney Stone
  62. Run­ning of the bulls
  63. Swim all oceans
  64. Vieques, Peurto Rico (Biol­umes­cent Bay)
  65. Car­ni­vale in Venice
  66. Ice­land
  67. North Pole
  68. South Pole
  69. Mardi Gras in New Orleans
  70. Alta Igloo Hotel
  71. Kola Superdeep Bore­hole (Well of Hell)
  72. Her­i­tance Kan­dalama Hotel, Dambulla, Sri Lanka
  73. Dhoni Mighili, The Maldives
  74. Green Magic Nature Resort, Ker­ala, India
  75. Mirador Hotel, Cop­per Canyon, Mexico
  76. Easter Island
  77. Walde­mar Jul­sred Museum
  78. Cuil­cuilco
  79. White Pyra­mid of China
  80. New­port Tower, Rhode Island
  81. Ring­ing Rocks Park, Pennsylvania
  82. Big­foot Cave, California
  83. Krem­lin
  84. Hampi
  85. Tas­sili n’Ajjer
  86. Ilulis­sat Icefjord
  87. Hue Tem­ples
  88. Nin­tendo HQ
  89. Bora­cay Island
  90. Pearl har­bor
  91. Dubai
  92. Istan­bul
  93. Tim­buktu
  94. Cas­bah (Algiers)
  95. Hanoi Tem­ple of Literature
  96. War Rem­nants Museum – Saigon
  97. Da Nang
  98. Nha Trang
  99. Phu Quoc Island
  100. Ba Den Mountain

Things

  1. Start a suc­cess­ful business
  2. Start a suc­cess­ful and help­ful non-​profit
  3. Remove all debt
  4. Save one mil­lion dollars
  5. Give one mil­lion dol­lars to charity
  6. Skydive solo
  7. Save a life
  8. Com­fort the dying
  9. Front page of Digg
  10. Book pub­lished
  11. Game pub­lished
  12. Build a clock
  13. New York Times Fri­day cross­word in ink
  14. Build a house
  15. Write a sonnet
  16. Die gal­lantly
  17. Be on television
  18. Hike Half-​Dome
  19. Outer space
  20. Read every book on ALA OBCB
  21. Solve Rubik’s Cube
  22. Solve Gor­dian Knot
  23. Play piano
  24. Play gui­tar
  25. Ride motor­cy­cle
  26. Fly plane
  27. Fly heli­copter
  28. Conn boat
  29. Speak French
  30. Speak Span­ish
  31. Speak Ger­man
  32. Speak Ital­ian
  33. Speak Russ­ian
  34. Speak Can­tonese
  35. Speak Man­darin
  36. Sign lan­guage
  37. Jeet Kune Do
  38. Krav Maga
  39. Muay Thai
  40. Brazil­ian Jiu-​jutsu
  41. Capoeira
  42. Butcher a pig
  43. Dance
  44. Draw
  45. Meet Dad’s side of family
  46. Pro­pose to someone
  47. Change my child’s diaper
  48. 10% Body-​fat
  49. One-​armed pull-​up
  50. Run a marathon
  51. Iron­man Triathlon
  52. Six-​pack abs
  53. Attend Olympics
  54. Swim with dolphins
  55. Extra in a movie
  56. Dis­till spirits
  57. Stomp grapes to make wine
  58. Brew beer
  59. Try mead
  60. TV Game show
  61. Ship in a bottle
  62. Stand in waterfall
  63. Night in haunted house
  64. Sleep under stars
  65. Jug­gle
  66. Hot air balloon
  67. Hole-​in-​one
  68. Bar­tend
  69. Uni­cy­cle
  70. Surf
  71. Restore clas­sic car
  72. Drift
  73. Snow­board
  74. Ski
  75. Run for office
  76. Name a star
  77. No TV for a year
  78. Knit
  79. Cro­chet
  80. Shake hands with President
  81. Spelunk­ing
  82. Polar Bear Club
  83. Rock­climb
  84. Sea kayak
  85. River raft­ing
  86. Horse­back riding
  87. Watch opera
  88. See show on Broadway
  89. Bungee jump
  90. First aid/​CPR certified
  91. Win in Vegas
  92. Hang-​glide
  93. Give 50 gal­lons of blood
  94. Kiss under mistletoe
  95. Nav­i­gate by stars
  96. Live in another coun­try for at least a year
  97. PeaceCorps
  98. Build a treehouse
  99. Veg­e­tar­ian
  100. LASIK

I’ll refer back to this post as I accom­plish the things on it.

Television - The Drug of the Nation

June 21, 2005 Archives / Education / Politics / Television
2 comments

Just heard this song on WOXY​.com. (The more I lis­ten to that sta­tion, the more I like it. And I just found out they have a “vin­tage” cast, too!) It’s really good. And very thought-​provoking.

It reminded me of this Calvin and Hobbes strip, too. Note that the open­ing gag is almost iden­ti­cal. This kinda stuff is why Calvin and Hobbes is my all-​time favorite Sun­day comic. As a kid, I just enjoyed all the adven­tures that those two had, and ignored all the big words. Com­ing back now, I pick up on a lot of stuff that com­pletely flew over my head as a kid, and I get to enjoy each strip twice as much.

But yeah, get­ting back on topic… I think I wasted a lot of my life in front of the TV. (Not that the com­puter is that much bet­ter.) I’m just sit­ting here imag­in­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties if I had actu­ally gone out more and just inter­acted with real peo­ple more. Man… I was a stu­pid kid. And in a lot of ways, I still am…

And as for the larger mes­sage… TV *is* a hor­ri­ble influ­ence on “the masses.” Not to be a cyn­i­cal bas­tard, but every­thing on TV so biased. Everyone’s try­ing to sell you some­thing, whether the hottest new toy, an ice-​cold beer, or a polit­i­cal agenda.

TV teaches us that to be happy, we have to live as deca­dently as pos­si­ble, and that vio­lence is the way to get every­thing you want. Sure, the bad guys fire their lasers first (because bul­lets are bad, but kids can han­dle death from lasers just fine), but they always miss. And the hero doesn’t. And maybe he’ll be nice about it and only maim them or beat them into uncon­scious­ness instead of killing them.

TV teaches us that if we drink a cer­tain drink or chew a cer­tain gum, throngs of the oppo­site sex will chase us naked through the streets like the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Day parade.

TV teaches us that even drug-​abusing crim­i­nals can be elected into office, as long as you are rich enough to make your­self appear bet­ter than your oppo­nent in some small way. (Hav­ing a hot wife and/​or daugh­ter wins you big points. More points if she doesn’t wear bras. And if you have twin daugh­ters, you might as well write your accep­tance speech now.) Char­ac­ter assassination’s got­ten so bad, it’s not just can­di­date vs. can­di­date, or party vs. party. It’s cable net­work vs. cable net­work now. Who gets more eye­balls on their 24⁄7 stream of propan­ganda? And they don’t counter with facts, any­more, they have their legions of lawyer nin­jas attack with their attaché cases full of old scan­dals (which may or may not be true), friv­o­lous law­suits, and poi­son darts. And you can do what­ever you want once you’re in office, because TV doesn’t cover what you sign for the next two or four years, depending.

Just some­thing for you all to think about dur­ing those com­mer­cial breaks in between sum­mer re-​runs. (And I don’t mean to be preachy… I know I’ll prob­a­bly end up in front of the boob tube as well.)

Newer Entries →