For the Thanksgiving holidays, Apple was kind enough to give all of its non-retail employees this whole week off. While I didn’t get enough notice to make plans with my family back east, I was able to get a flight out to Los Angeles to spend the week with my girlfriend. She and her roommate are unique compared to most people in that they do not own a television. While some television shows are still watched by the two of them, television viewing is directed (watching DVD episodes or web streams on a laptop) rather than idle channel surfing.

My first observation after only a few days here is that I have a lot more time to do the things that I want or need to do. It’s only 7 pm and I’ve already accomplished everything I set out to do today and had dinner. There is an empowering feeling that the evening is my oyster to enrich myself through reading and writing in my journal or to do any other of myriad activities. To be clear, I don’t think that television programs are a bad thing - I enjoy watching several, including almost nightly viewings of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I do, however, want to do away with the notion of surfing the channels to pass the time until bed. My Tivo has already helped a great deal to reduce my surfing, but some of it has been replaced with watching reruns or “suggestions” that the Tivo picks up for me.

I think one of the first things I do when I get back to San Francisco will be to turn off Tivo Suggestions to rid myself of the temptation of low-hanging entertainment fruit. Similarly, shows like House that I Tivo could just as easily be picked up on DVD and watched in a binge on a sick day. My hope is that one day I won’t be scared of the prospect of not having a dedicated device in my house to record television for me - I’m getting steadily more confident that I’m not missing out on anything other than life.