Monday, February 28, 2011

Schwang Manor: Dogs and TV

With the excitement of the Oscars, and the unwelcoming snow and cold weather outside, it was fun to spend the weekend inside with the pooches along with some movies, root beer floats, and brownies. See, it's kind of a big deal for us to watch things because we don't actually have a television. We actually use a projector which we hook up to our computers and view on our big wall. And the pooches actually watch it.
E and I both had TV's before we moved in together, but we decided to sell them.
Part of it was a space issue. I think it's so much nicer, and conversational, to have the two couches than to have a television be the focal point of our space.
Part of it was a financial issue. We do save a lot of money each month by not subscribing to cable.
And part of it was a time issue. After realizing how I was sucked into watching terrible, awful shows just because I left the TV on (The Girls Next Door', anyone?) I thought making TV more inaccessible would cause me to make more conscious choices. Though much to my own embarrassment, I still do consciously watch 'The Bachelor'.
 The pooches actually enjoy watching the movement on the wall. When Miss M sees us setting up she settles right into a space on the floor between us and watches the movement on the screen.
I guess part of not having TV is not being able to see movie trailers, so we're super-behind on our movie viewing and we actually hadn't seen any of the Oscar contenders.We did really enjoy The Education, which was just well-acted with amazing '60's style. And we liked The Brothers Bloom which was a bit Wes Anderson-ish. We also just finished watching all four seasons of Mad Men.
We're obviously super-behind on our viewing, but does anyone else have any good movie recommendations?

25 comments:

FANCY the Red Standard Poodle said...

Hi Y'all,

My Humans use the TV to watch business channels and listen to music.

Today I'm not sharin' spring so much as given y'all the Sylish Blogger Award.

Y'all come by when you get a chance and pick it up!

Y'all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog

Elaine Pritchard said...

I don't watch TV at all - but my family does. I agree with you that there are far better things to do with your time than watch a haunted fish tank.

The Lady Of The House took the Boy to see Gnomeo and Juliet last week during school half term and they thought that was a great laugh.

Maybe not the movie recommendation you were looking for. But Hey ho!

Love and licks Winnie

orange sugar said...

If you haven't seen Office Space you should definitely watch it!

orange sugar said...

And How I Met Your Mother is a great show to get hooked on.

jen said...

We don't spend much time watching TV here either, actually I should say I don't...the hubby does.
I think its great that you opted to be tv less:)

TheQueerBird said...

I love this post. Your living room looks so cozy, and you make some really good anti-TV points. We've been on the fence about getting rid of our TV (and cable, though we only have the basic 12 channels) for quite awhile. Thanks for the post!

Anonymous said...

We definitely could never get rid of our tv. We would experience some major withdrawal! Flash and Ollie could care less though since all they do is sleep!

dw said...

The only one of the movies nominated in any category I'd seen was How to Train Your Dragon. I totally enjoyed it, but then again it's by Chris Sanders who created Stitch, whom I adore! I've got the Social Network sitting here from Netflix and hope to get a chance to watch it this week. On my Netflix queue is The Hurt Locker, Letters to Juliet, Inception and Waiting for Superman. My friend's dog loves to watch Animal Planet and will put his two front paws on the TV stand to watch or sit in the middle of the floor staring at the TV, barking at other dogs on the screen! I love how Miss M watches the wall!

Brenda said...

I'm a huge movie buff, but more than half the time, the winners for best pic and best acting leave me scratching my head and going "huh??" But this year I thought they were right on. The King's Speech is amazing and definitely deserving of the best pic award. But don't expect a thrill a minute type movie - it's a slower paced but intelligent and moving film. This weekend I saw The Fighter. Christian Bale nailed that part, it was awesome. And geesh, what a crazy family. The woman who played the mom got an Oscar too, and she deserved it. Two really great movies in my opinion.

RED said...

I have a love/hate relationship with TV. I used to NEVER watch it - I was the girl who could not comment on any TV show, my friends just stopped talking to me about it (maybe the fact that my eyes would glaze over at the first mention of 'did you see xxx?'. When Gabe and I got married he got his one 'man wish'- a big flat screen TV. I bought it for him. So I started watching TV to make sure I got 'my money's worth' from the big purchase (and our high def premium cable package we were/are paying for). I hate that I get sucked into a TV warp and I lose HOURS in no time (and I won't answer the phone, get irked when Gabe will, you know, TALK to me! (it's bad)). I love to settle in on the couch on a Friday night (my favorite night to stay in) and watch movies without worrying how late it is/getting up early the next day. I still prefer to watch TV shows via Netflix once they go to DVD, I can't stand commercials. I was super late to the Mad Men party and I'm now officially OBSESSED. Love it. Loved the Boardwalk Empire series, last fall. Saw 'the Fighter' and loved it, but I love any/all movies relating to drugs, mobs, violence, etc. maybe not all at the same time.
I actually think I would LOVE to drop the cable package and get rid of our TV, but I do enjoy watching sports on TV. Gabe loves TV too much to not have one in our living room. Would never happen.

Of Pit Bulls and Patience said...

Parker and Skye don't seem to care about what is happening on the TV (unless there is a cat meow), but they do love when everyone settles on the couch to watch something. It is prime cuddling time for them. We're more of a movie family than anything, but lately we've been hooked on re-watching the seasons of Lost, you can never go wrong there.

http://friendsagaink9.blogspot.com/

Kate said...

I'm usually way behind on movies too, so I haven't seen most of the Oscar nominees/winners, but I really liked Inception. Very cool concept.

Corbin said...

Dad couldn't live without cable... Mom on the other hand could care less. We usually dvr everything and watch one night of TV to catch up. We haven't watched any super great movies lately... but Life as We know it with Katherine Heigl was pretty cute :o)
-Corbin

Kari in Alaska said...

I have gotten a lot better lately about not getting sucked in. I rarely watch something that I haven't recorded on the DVR or am streaming on NetFlix

Kari
http://dogisgodinreverse.com

Two French Bulldogs said...

Sounds like a terrific weekend. We love the projector idea, it's like movies in the park, BOL. Those Oscars were a big flop. Thank goodness for movies
Benny & Lily

Road Dog Tales said...

Hey, Mom & Dad cut off our cable, too, for the same reasons you did. We only watch movies at home, too and they don't even go out to the movies anymore 'cause they would miss us too much! - or maybe it's the cost?! They loved The Education and The Brothers Bloom. Have you seen Burn After Reading? It's pretty entertaining!

The Road Dogs

The Daily Pip said...

The projector is a cool idea. We don't watch much TV either, mostly a time issue. Though sometimes,I think blogging takes the place of TV!

Unknown said...

We definately enjoy tv :) We are more a movie watching family but we love when we can catch a new Office episode or Parenthood. Boss will definately sit with his big nose nearly touching the screen and follow the images around, but he quickly retires to sleeping next to the TV. Defiance is a fantastic movie that we just watched, definately recommend it!

Chris said...

Our female, Lily, loves tv. She knows all the commercials that have a dog in them just by the opening sounds or music and will coming run from the other room to jump at the tv. Luckily it is a big on and high up, otherwise I'm sure she would take it down and those nasty dogs that invade her house.
Love your blog!

houndstooth said...

Morgan will watch dogs on TV. It cracks me up!

I guess good movies depends on what you like. I loved the new version of True Grit. I really enjoyed reading the Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the sequels) and the Swedish versions of those books are really good, if you don't mind reading subtitles. No way will I watch the Hollywood versions of them, though.

A Confessed Pit Bull Addict said...

I'll stand with you: I've been known to watch Girls Next Door.

That said, we do like a lot of the Showtime series, which are like TV without the scheduling commitment. (And higher brain power is required than many TV shows.) Rome was especially good. We also really liked The Wire - addictive! We like Dexter. And we're considering adding The Tudors to our Netflix list.

Like Houndstooth, we really liked True Grit this year. (We don't go to the theater often, either.) We watched the original True Grit last night on cable - also fantastic if you like Westerns...though I don't recommend them back-to-back.

Daisy Dog said...

Both The Kings Speech and The Social Network I thought were worth viewing. I am the same way, I refused to put a TV in my living room, fortunately I have an extra bedroom that I turned into a den, so it has the tv and some comfy chairs and love seat. I watch less tv,since it is not the focal point of the living room.

the booker man said...

that's actually a really cool idea to hook up a projector to your laptop like that!
my husband and i are thinking of dropping direct tv and just getting netflix since we have a wii. we don't really watch much on tv, but i have to admit that i'm somewhat addicted to hgtv. :)
as for movies, i recently saw "the young victoria" (2009) and enjoyed it. inception and the king's speech (oscar contenders) were good, too.

the booker man and asa's mama

Patty said...

Rusty loves the Toyota commercial with the squeaky toy! Otherwise lately we've watched: Up; 24; Inception (good - definitely watch it 2x!); The Social Network (too funny because the first thing we did after watching was check our facebook feed); and I've been watching Grey's Anatomy, Shameless and (this is shameful) Off The Map.

Anonymous said...

I think I've mentioned to you before that we too don't have a tv, and we too project onto our wall from the computer. Ben loves the movies so we do see a good number of them, but my favorites are still the oldies -- especially the ones that I love half for real and half sarcastically: point break, roadhouse, princess bride . . .

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