Wide World of Sports

One of the major changes we have had to adapt to is the abrupt end to our television watching habit. I wouldn't say that Kelly & I watched alot of TV in Florida, but we did watch TV everyday at some point. We had our regular shows that we watched every week if possible, but we weren't slaves to the idiot box. Especially after the invent of the DVR feature with our cable, where we could record shows and watch them whenever we wanted. (we were never VCR users) Even on busy days, we would sit down and watch a little TV to wind down at night....and end up staying up later then we should.

We are out alot, but when we come home, one of us inevitably will be on the one laptop we have...checking email, blogging etc.

The other person is then presented with the option of reading (Kelly) or watching TV.

We have 10 channels. 10 channels. thats it...10. There hasnt been a point in my life, where I had a TV that I only had 10 channels. Even basic cable is more than 10 channels ! I could get more than 10 channels with an old TV and a wire hanger ! The best part is, we get 21 channels....there are just two of every station. If Friends is on channel 3 its also on channel 18. So when youre flipping through the channels, you get to see everything twice !

Here is the blistering lineup we get to choose from :

One channel plays reruns of American shows like Friends, CSI, Charmed, House, ER...etc


Another channel is the Gaelic Language station...which can be interesting.


There is a channel completely devoted to the reality show Big Brother. Crap.


We get the British News station, SkyNews...which is some sort of FoxNews / CNN hybrid in appearance. The news repeats every 10 minutes, so you cant watch that very long.


We get the Discovery channel, but the programming is limited to American Chopper, The Deadliest Catch and a few others. Those shows are great, but how much of that can you watch ?


So what do we end up watching?

Sports.

Sports has been the saving grace of this television wasteland. Not just any sports either. Sports that we would never watch and sports that we had to learn all the rules to ! It's been great.

Hurling - One of the gaelic sports. The Irish are crazed with it. Its actually very similar to lacrosse but you cant hit / check...oh and everyone swings those wooden hurleys with complete disregard and reckless abandon. Its very fast paced.

Gaelic Football - The other Irish sport. Scoring is the same as hurling. You can kick the ball thru the uprights for one point or into a socer goal underneath for 3 points. You can use your hands but if you carry the ball you must bounce it after 3 steps. If you carry it three more steps you have to throw it down and kick it back to yourself. These guys do it running full speed. Very entertaining. Oh and you can grab each other, just not tackle. You can also pass the ball by hand, but you have to bump it, like in volleyball....cool huh? Makes for an interesting game.

Rugby - Kill the guy with the ball.

The other day we found ourselves watching Cricket.....yawn...boooooorrring.

There are entirely too many rules and things to learn about Cricket. We didnt know what the heck was going on so I hopped online and pulled up the rules so we could get up to speed real quick.. HA ! What a joke...go ahead, check it out :

Cricket

Needless to say, we gave up on Cricket for now.

Besides, Wimbeldon just started, its on 4 channels.


-Chris