James Leach TV log 11/2/08

Last Sunday my television viewing habits were irregular compared to my viewing habits the rest of the week. I usually watch television a couple of hours a day because of other obligations I face with work or school. But on Sunday I had neither to deal with which resulted in me watching eight hours of TV starting at around eleven and ending around nine. My only break from sitting around was to take a nap and eat; watching TV wears you out! After the nap which helped me to get away from the cowboys loss I was ready for more. But after six hours of football, I was done for the day. I remembered the new Family Guy was going to be coming on that night and didn't want to miss it. Unfortunately, it is shown after The Simpson's and King of the Hill. Besides a few occasional chuckles, The Simpson's is a show I found to be annoying and just not funny while King of the Hill has its dull moments. But I didn't have anything better to watch and these shows were on before Family Guy so I ended up having to sit through another Simpson's Halloween Special. "Damn block programming got me again," I thought. Fox has a classic example of block programming or "Animation Domination" as Fox calls it is there Sunday night 7 to 9 television spot that includes Simpson's, King of the Hill, Family Guy, and American Dad. I did DVR the family guy as well just to note but it is an automatic recording that I set up in case I miss a show.

I didn't watch any TV shows that weren't logged; ex: on hula.com or NBC.com. I also didn't watch any TV at a friends house unless you count looking over at a TV on ESPN News that is on mute for an hour or so. I didn't think it watch TV but more like looking over at it occasionally while doing something else. I would occasionally look over and catch some scores running across the bottom of the screen. I did watch a DVD called The Promotion that I downloaded and burned to DVD.

Having to write down every show I watched was strange because of the reflection process involved. I realized I was a bum all day Sunday. After reviewing, what I watched that day I realized I could have done a lot more like this assignment for instance. I had a different TV day than some of my classmates because when I watch football I don't flip back and fourth much like an average viewer might. Therefore I didn't find myself changing channels too often and never found that my TV viewing was different to fit into fifteen minute increments. I did figure out that I watched a lot of television on Sunday, but I kinda figured I would do that anyway. I think these journals aren't completely reliable because people are lazy and that's a part of why there watching TV. Therefore they won't want to fill all this stuff out extremely accurately and will cut corners in order to ease the process. An example would be that they might "forget" to write that they flipped to a show the flipped back because it would be easier to write on the sheet that they watched one show for an hour that writing that they flipped back and fourth. Also some might not want to confess there dirty TV secrets like the fact that a guy watched a whole episode of Sex and the City. So people could lie on this log sheet or just not be accurate for many reasons.