Living Beyond the Television

Tonight slipped away before I even realized it.  As the afternoon wasted away, my roommate sat reading homework while I considered doing laundry or dishes.  We had discussed going to a restaurant or bar to watch the second half of the football game, Green Bay Packers vs Chicago Bears.  It's not that either of us is a huge football fan; but I'm from Wisconsin, she's from Illinois and this is only one of two games a season that we can agree to disagree.

Note: we need to go to a restaurant or bar to watch the game because we don't have television.  We have a television for DVDs, PS2 and such, but we don't get cable, dish, etc.

Then, it happens.  Up until this point we were following the game and score by checking online every so often, but this was to keep us in the loop before we got to watch some of it.  However my night was ripped away from me when the headline pops up on the computer screen about Taylor Swift winning her first moonman just to have Kanye West interupt to tell the world he thought Beyonce deserved the award.



Susan, my roommate, and I spent the next two hours surfing for performance videos, articles on the drama at the VMAs, checking the battle between the Pack and the Bears, trying to see more videos, checking Twitter for celebrity responses, checking the score, reading headlines...you get the picture.

It wasn't until the Pack finished off the Bears and the VMAs came to a close that I realized this whole evening ties into my Web 2.0 blogging series.  We were completely entertained with two televised events without having television.  The internet served as a venue for connecting with friends, catching up on the news, connecting with those at the events, seeing different videos and so forth.  I was actually able to gather more info via the web than I would by watching one of the two events on a television at home or out at a restaurant.

Tonight reminded me that even when I'm absorbed in my Web 2.0 world, I may be learning and experiencing things in new ways without even realizing it.  Without it I would still be catching up on headlines now after returning from watching the game, and really having no depth of understanding of the VMAs.  On that note...Go Pack!  Go Taylor!  And, honorable mention for Beyonce.  I'm not a fan and not sure of your motives, but no matter what you handled tonight with class.