Looking for some resolutions not involving weight loss or deprivation? Join me in my quest to clean up my entertainment behaviour for 2015.
Let's start by purging these five bad entertainment habits and feel renewed, invigorated, and make a commitment to enjoy your down-time this year. You deserve it!
One of the surefire ways to get my kids to put down the remote and get going (out the door, to the table, TO BED) is to tell them we’ll tape the show they’re in the middle of watching. (Yes, this poor, elderly mama says “tape” instead of record, hearkening back to the days when you needed an engineering degree to make sure the VCR caught Dallas when you went out to a party. Amusingly, we’ve passed the term on to the kids, so they ask to “tape” stuff now too.) But sometimes PVR space gets a little dear and I have no qualms about deleting multiple episodes of SpongeBob or whatever weird show caught their fancy to make room for really important content, like dancing shows involving celebrities.
I get it. It’s hard to find a sitter, the price of tickets would buy so many other *cough* practical things, sometimes bands go on late…but hey: bus, plane and bicycle accidents happen. Take yourself out to that rock show. No one has to know you have flesh-tone earplugs in your purse.
It’s totally OK to admit to yourself (and your data storage) that you’re never going to watch that documentary about the disadvantaged kids, or get to the compelling drama all your friends talk about but that made you fall asleep halfway through the first episode. Clear your cache! Use the “delete” button with impunity!
YOU HAVE THE POWER!
Spolier Alert! The Walking Dead Spoiled Their Own Season Finale on Facebook
Because I am an exacting perfectionist with a runaway imagination, I find most movies based on books tend to let me down if I’ve read the book first. So sometimes, I just don’t. It’s totally OK to go all CliffsNotes like you did in college and just watch the movie instead. Or first. Or read the book and never, ever see the movie. They don’t have to go hand in hand. Honest.
Fifty Shades of Grey: Must-See or Must-Skip?
This one makes me long for simpler times, when you just took the movie out of the greasy rental case, popped it in, and settled in with your popcorn. You know those nights where suddenly 45 minutes have gone by as you debate the merits of the latest action flick versus the favoured but well-worn rom-com from your youth as a viewing choice? Or when you say to yourself “how can we have this much choice and still find nothing to watch?” I challenge you to commit yourself to the first thing you find even halfway interesting. Just put it on. Unless you’re the projectionist, you can always turn it off. Or pick up the book you’ve been meaning to read before they make it into a movie.
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