21 days without television for NewMexiKen — 3 weeks. None. Total abstinence.
It started by accident. I just wasn’t around TV for a few days while traveling. Then, when I got home I didn’t even turn the surge protector back on for more than a week. Now, I don’t even think of it much.
Other habits should be this easy to kick.
Among other things instead over the weekend, I read Buzz Bissinger’s Three Nights in August. The book is subtitled — “Strategy, Heartbreak, And Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager.” The manager in this case is Tony LaRussa and the three nights in August were in August 2003 when LaRussa’s Cardinals played a pivotal series against the Chicago Cubs.
Bissinger, who wrote the outstading Friday Night Lights, sees Three Nights as somewhat of an antithesis to Michael Lewis’ Moneyball; the humanists vs. the statisticians. Whatever, it is a good story (if you like inside baseball) very, well told.
“[A]s so much of pitching, like love, is about feel and as elusive as it is beautiful.”
“In his multiple roles of Doctor Phil, Doctor Ruth, and Doctor Seuss, La Russa wondered ….”
“A pitcher’s head is far more precious than his arm and far more inscrutable.”
“Lofton nails it. He tags it, drills it, creams it, drives it, powers it, powders it, smokes it, kills it, commits every baseball cliché of hitting and then some.”
Meanwhile, I’m sitting here thinking I need to add OLN to the dish so I can watch non-Avalanche Stanley Cup playoff games.
This month, my husband and I are “celebrating” eight years without television! When we see CNN occasionally in a public place, we realize how calm our household is without TV. Our friends and relatives think we are aliens, but we enjoy reading a lot. We talk a lot. There is no looking back.