Those Conveniently inconvenient Commercial breaks

I don’t normally watch live TV. I record it and then watch it later, so I can

zoom commercials, or I watch it on my computer where the ads are all removed

before I ever get there.

Tonight I was bored. I was tired of sitting in my computer chair, so I went to

the TV.

Three days ago I found a bunch of promo channels added to my listings, so I went

through and took them out. On the way I noticed I had a few new channels, so I

did a thorough sweep and added a bunch of new channels. To be sure, they’re HD,

so I can’t record them – they just take up too much room. But I can watch. Plus,

most of them were either movie channels or things like History or National

Geographic. Not a lot of ads on those channels I thought to myself. With all

this reasoning running loose in the back of my head I figured I could watch TV

for awhile tonight. I sat down, grabbed the remote, and down the rabbit hole I

went.

Started off with the Graham Norton talk show. He’s funny. Less than 2 minutes

and it goes to commercial, so I flip through the sports channels and come back

to it. Just in time for Mariah Carey. Not just Mariah Carey, but Mariah Carey

doing Christmas stuff. I almost set the remote on fire getting off that channel.

I started working my way through the list – movies, sports, news, comedies,

reruns, it didn’t matter which channel I went to I had no more than 2 minutes

and it went to commercial. Unbelievable! Football went to ads. Lots of football,

so I flipped. Ads. Watch the news. Channels from New York, Seattle, CBC from

Ottawa, Chicago, Los Angeles, Calgary. Not even in the same time zones, and all

ended up in ads very quickly.

At some point I dozed off, for about 45 minutes is my best guess.

I finally opened my eyes a bit – commercial. I closed my eyes and dozed off

again.

Woke up, this time for real. Football was on. For a few seconds – then it went

to commercial break.

I’m thinking this is stupid, I must be on some kind of streak, so I tested it. I

spent 15 minutes or so flipping from one channel to another, and every one I

stopped at went to commercial in 2 mintues or less. Every. Single. Time.

I love my PVR, I love my computer. I’m sorry I left them. It won’t happen again,

I promise. At least not until my hair grows back

Thanks, Daryl!