Blogs

After years of intense self-improvement, I can proudly claim that only about nine major vices dominate my life, one of which is watching too much TV. Using the boob tube as a break from work-related writing and reading, it chiefly functions to distract my naughty but nimble noggin.

The prob? I consider most TV programs to be a dreary bore and my thoughts float away. Thus, my distractor distracts me. And that's sooo distressing.

I've often referred to my mind (affectionately) as The Wayward Wanderer. Thanks to TV and the dullness it induces, I've lost my train of thought dozens of times. Even more times than I've lost the same 10 pounds. It's just that most entertainment shows move at a tortoise pace.

As for newscasts, they rate as sacred in our house. Forever obsessed with a need for information about the world around me, I hate missing the slightest informative moments. And, as fate would have it, in recent years, mod tech has blessed me with a new hero: Mr. Anthony Wood, the person who invented the DVR.

Before the advent of the DVR, damn near each individual news item would throw me into deeep thoughts, intense speculations or insane ragings. Consequently, I would miss many of the subsequent news stories of a single newscast. During such rantings, my bristling brain used to speed off on a journey of its own, over-analyzing each item. I'd be grunting, grumbling, sometimes gnashing and grinding my teeth or laughing maniacally at something a politician was quoted as saying. Then, I would be furious with myself for having missed most of the other items of interest.

Nowadays, thanks to Mr. Wood and the DVR, I can pause, rant and rewind. In short, I can obsess to my heart's content. The downside? Listening to a half-hour newscast can take me upwards of an hour and a half. Good thing I've got more time than money.

I even find the entertainment fare itself more tolerable with the aid of a DVR. In addition to flashing past the commercials of my recorded programs, I can pause and rewind even live shows and replay them - as many times as it takes for my meandering mind to grasp a particular point.

Here's my conundrum: I review plays in New York and nowadays, as I sit with pen and pad poised, looking as much the dignified critic as I can muster up, I constantly catch myself idiotically reaching for a nonexistent DVR remote, fruitlessly intending to rewind a live stage performance in order to grasp a playwright's point or simply rehear what some mush-mouthed actor has stated.

Instantly it sinks into my brainpan that a DVR is useless during a live stage performance. (Ma didn't raise no dumb kids). However, I sometimes can't help daydreaming about how sweet of a treat it would be if Anthony Wood could expand his invention of the DVR to include not only live stage shows but everyday activities. I say, if you're going to invent something, go all the way.

I realize that my idea is far from original. Collective thought (and movies) have surely considered the advantage of a 3-D LIVE DVR remote that would "mute" various people, put others on "pause" or surf "channels" containing subway, bus or airplane passengers until you found just the right crowd to ride with.

Oy! A startling thought just crossed my cranium: have I had my head in my ranting sandbox while such a device has actually come into use? Did I miss that news item? Have I myself unwittingly been paused, rewound, muted? Has someone changed channels on the subway to avoid me?

I should just throw in the tech towel. What with my earlier piece weeks ago on the horrors of closed captioning and now with the DVR issue, I should probably give up on these newfangled TV features altogether and revert back to using the radio.

I wonder if Fibber McGee and Molly is still being broadcast.

- Steve Eskew

Retired businessman Steve Eskew received master's degrees in dramatic arts and communication studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha after he turned 50. After one of his professors asked him to write a theater column, he began a career as a journalist at The Daily Nonpareil in Council Bluffs, Iowa. This led to hundreds of publications in a number of newspapers, most of which appear on his website, eskewtotherescue.com.