Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
Telemarketing
24Feb2003 Filed under: EavesdropperMe: Hello?
Telemarketer: I’m calling from ComCast to see if you’d be interested in a month of free broadband cable internet!
Me: …Maybe.
Telemarketer: Great, ma’am! We can offer you a month of free broadband cable internet as part of our new cable television package —
Me: I don’t have a television.
Telemarketer: …! You mean, you don’t even have a TV set?
Me: No.
Telemarketer: You don’t want to watch TV?
Me: Not really.
Telemarketer: What do you do then?
Me: Lots of other stuff.
Telemarketer: Wow. Ok. Well, thanks for your time.
I’ve gotten this question before: What do you do then? The answer, of course, is “stare at my computer screen.” Regardless, it’s strange how, despite how most everyone hates the quality of contemporary TV, everyone keeps watching it. Mysterious!
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10 Responses to “Telemarketing”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, is in bookstores now.
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Echo
February 24th, 2003 at 3:20 pm
My ten-year old cousin asked me the same thing when I told him we didn’t have cable. bah!
greta
February 24th, 2003 at 4:13 pm
ah yes… we get this all the time. we do have a tv set, but no antenna or cable, so we only watch movies. and YES, we like it that way. YES, it’s on purpose. we used to have tv, but we always found ourselves watching it when we didn’t really want to, and felt like we were wasting our lives. so, when we moved we decided that we would only use our tv for movies. now we do all those other things that so many other people seem to have forgotten — like having a conversation, reading a book, playing a game, or being creative. when we feel lazy, we rent a video. we do occasionally miss watching particular tv shows, but overall we’re quite happy with our non-tv life. i just wish that all the office talk didn’t revolve so much around the toob…
anyway, sorry to babble on, but i just wanted to add my little ‘right on!’
on the humorous side, we keep getting telemarketers trying to get us to refinance our home. problem is, we don’t own one of those either!
Eric
February 24th, 2003 at 5:56 pm
Tell ‘em you just stare at the wall.
Tumbleweed
February 24th, 2003 at 7:09 pm
You know, I find it fascinating that people without TVs constantly comment on the quality of what’s on TV. How would they know?
Let me tell you something - there is some AMAZING stuff on TV, as long as you have cable tv. Some of the best dialogue I’ve ever experienced (this includes novels, movies, and tv) is to be found on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Despite of the problems I have with the title character and the actor who plays her, the writing on this show is flat-out amazing. And the musical episode kicked my ass. And if you don’t have a crush on the character Willow (be you male or female), well, there’s just something seriously wrong with you. The West Wing is pretty fantastic, but can make you wish real life politicians were like that. This is, I think, what Frank Capra would be doing if he had been born much later. Either that or “Mr Sterling.” And speaking of social commentary, you aren’t going to find anything quite as spot-on and fearless as the collective wisdom of “The Simpsons.” There’s tons of stuff out there, if you take the time to look. If you want to spend less time but still catch some shows, then get a TiVo.
Ariel
February 24th, 2003 at 7:33 pm
My dearest contrarian Tumbleweed, I certainly don’t make any conjecture to know what’s on TV these days…but if I have to listen to one more person bitch about how bad it is, I’ll lose my mind!
That said, I have watched almost every episode The Sopranos on either DVD or a friend’s television. I know there’s good stuff out there, but not enough to warrant the investment. We just watch DVDs instead.
Jodi
February 24th, 2003 at 8:32 pm
Same here, Ariel. I don’t have TV, and I absolutely love it! I would much rather be a slave to my computer than to a television.
Dave
February 24th, 2003 at 8:36 pm
Ahh television. Friend. Mother. Secret Lover…..
Tumbleweed
February 24th, 2003 at 8:49 pm
Am I really your _dearest_ contrarian? Aww, I’m touched!
Sopranos is good stuff, but not worth the investment in pay channels, for me. I’m just glad Stargate SG-1 moved from Showtime to Sci-Fi channel, or else I’d be hurtin’.
As for people bitching about how bad TV is, whenever I hear someone doing that, they’re usually talking about some show that’s truly abysmal. Well, yeah, there’s always going to be bad tv shows, just as there are always going to be bad movies, bad books, bad plays, bad music, and bad art. Condemning the entire thing based on its worst examples doesn’t seem too logical to me, but hey, we DO live in the land of President Bush (shudder), so clearly there’s a serious lack of logic to be had in this country.
I combine my web-surfing with with tv time (I can see the tv from my computer chair), so it’s easy to have CNN or something on when I’m surfin’ da net. Now I just need an IV drip.
I also wonder how much TV ratings are going to suffer when so many entire series are on DVD. MASH is out or coming out, and lots of other cable standbys. I know I’d love to have all of MASH on DVD, Stargate SG-1, and all the other stuff I’m willing to watch over and over.
Wow, how strange - after you preview a comment, it pokes HTML tags in the text field. Tres bizarre…
Tumbleweed
February 24th, 2003 at 8:51 pm
Jodi - the computer is your friend. Trust the computer.
(A bumpersticker I saw on a car in a Microsoft parking lot.)
kim
February 27th, 2003 at 9:30 am
it was really strange getting a roomate for the first time because he watches tv all the time. i’m not used to the sound of the tv being on. it makes me feel nervous and ill at ease. pixel (the cat) is fascinated by it and sits watching it since she’s never seen it before.
laugh tracks make me feel weird and unhappy.