Comment: Not Bowled Over

Growing up in Canada, we didn’t have a football team. No cheerleaders, either. So the whole SuperBowl thing just doesn’t do it for me. I guess I’m just not the sports type, although for many years I avidly followed whoever Phil Jackson was coaching, because he coached for Chicago (where my husband grew up) and then moved to Los Angeles (where we lived for 10 years).

Once Kobe Bryant got involved in all that nastiness, I lost interest in the Lakers, and frankly now that we don’t have TV it wouldn’t matter if I loved them, I’d never see them anyway.

What I’m saying is, I know that right now a whole lot of people are eating chips and guacamole and watching football on a massive screen. It’s like watching “Football: The Movie.” I’m still not comfortable with those big screens. I get over-stimulated, what with all that flashing and blaring.

In fact, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I couldn’t even watch TV at all. I was so nauseated so much of the time that commercials literally made me throw up. I could sometimes squeeze in a Seinfeld rerun, (I’m not made of stone) but whenever the flashy commercials came on, I’d have to look away. Seriously.

Now don’t think that I’m looking down on football or TV; I’m mad for pop culture, love the pop; I just get mine in Entertainment Weekly or online. I know that coming up there’s some big change in the way TV is transmitted. It’s going digital, and everyone has to get ready, but I just don’t care. With YouTube and Facebook and all the networks with free online shows, why would I pay for cable or a dish or whatever you need to make your TV go after February 1?

And I just heard this story on NPR about how in Japan, cell phones are so ubiquitous that some people have three each. And they email, text, book train tickets, read the news and watch TV on their phones.

So who needs a TV? I’m with Japan. Technology is so fabulous, I’m just going to wait a little longer until having an IPhone is as easy and inexpensive as owning a decent-not-designer pair of shoes. I may have to wait a bit, but that’s okay. After all, I watch TV online with a tiny screen on a very slow computer.

I’m a patient woman.