Friday, July 27, 2007

Owning a House Has Ruined TV

When we moved in, we thought we'd be frugal and not get fancy Cable Whatever TV. In the old apartment, we split DirecTV with our upstairs landlords, so it was a great deal with tons of channels and TiVo and lots of bells and whistles - it was great, we loved TV. Now that we get many many fewer channels and are forced to watch commercials like total plebes, TV is such a pain in the ass. There's never anything on, we miss the stuff we like, and seriously, who makes these freaking commercials?

We do, however, get a bunch of the channels that cater to the home renovator. We gotchyer TLC, yer DIY, yer Disovery Home. It's a good thing. BUT owning a house has even ruined some of these shows for us. (Well, I should say for me. Ben takes most things in stride, while I yell obscenities at the television.) So last night, we caught an episode of Flip That House on TLC where this brain-damaged couple bought a completely dilapidated house and wanted to Flip it in 3 weeks for $25,000. Now, we just started fixing up our old house, and I know very little about most types of home renovation, but give me a break! There's no way! So it was gratifying to watch the whole thing spiral out of control and cost $40K and take 15 weeks, but my lord did it get my blood pressure racing.

That was followed by an episode of While you Were Out, which I guess I've always thought was completely ridiculous show, so my ire isn't exactly new. It was this episode, where they crap up a couple's deck in Utah. Unreal. Seriously look at that After picture. The stuffed animal bearskin rug? Gross. I kept thinking what a huge waste of time and money it was. Those poor people. Unless they liked it. Then all of humanity is just screwed.

My favorite is still This Old House. A lot of the construction stuff is not immediately applicable to our situation, but those guys rule and I love their New England accents. Tom is my favorite. And this dude's eyebrows are the stuff of legends.


7 comments:

Dulcie said...

Oh, man... I'd totally love to see This Old House. Alas, we don't have any cable whatsoever. So on the one hand, we can be all pretentious and too good for TV, but then we miss out on DIY shows. d'oh! What a conundrum.
(We actually spend all our time watching Netflix anyway.)

Kristen said...

Every time the TV gets really bad, I ask, "So when are we getting Netflix?"

The Litter Box House said...

I'm naughty. My favorite shows aren't even house related:

Top Chef
Project Runway
Survivor
Pirate Master (just canceled)

But I may be adding a reality house show this Tuesday: Flipping Out on Bravo. Looks absolutely hilarious. I'm a bit obsessive/compulsive myself, so I may sympathize with him more than most people!

Sandy and Michael said...

We're talking about not even getting cable to save money because of the house!
For us the house just takes so much time that I started missing my favorite shows. I'm a HUGE Lost fan, yet somehow I missed the last month of the season.
My favorite house-related show is Moving Up, I just think it's hilarious to see the reactions of the old homeowners... and I agree, that While You Were Out is ridiculous - the designs are about as terrible as the ones on Trading Spaces, blech!

Anonymous said...

A friend of a friend had "while you were out" redo his basement/studio.. they painted a rainbow wall! WTF?

Anonymous said...

I got a kick out of your cable post. I jokingly tell people that we are one of three people in Dallas that doesn't have cable! I'm afraid I'd watch TV all the time!
I do wish you could get weekend cable! Wouldn't that be great. I know your thinking how cheap is this woman but it does amaze me how much people spend to watch TV.

Kristen said...

Oh, Lucinda, "cheap" is music to my ears. I was thinking they should let you pay by-the-hour. Like the electric or water bill. I'm always shocked at how much it costs just to get basic basic TV. Do you Netflix?