Media Overload

 

One thing about living on land that's both time-consuming and sometimes overwhelming … access to too much media. When we're aboard Nine of Cups, we're quite insulated from many world happenings and even local occurrences sometimes. We rarely give a thought to politics or which famous people have died. Out of sight, out of mind. Ignorance is bliss ... and all those other overused cliches apply.

So here we are 20 minutes from Boston, USA and we're absolutely overloaded with news. On the boat we have limited internet. We pay by the byte and we're cheap … no time is wasted surfing or following a thread somewhere … or nowhere. Here we have unlimited internet and, oh my, do we ever use it. It's almost embarrassing how much time we spend on our computers here, instead of performing boat chores or walking to the grocery for tonight's dinner or doing something more productive when we are on the boat.

Oh sure, on the boat we like to know if we're at war with any country we might be visiting and it's good to know about major world catastrophes, especially if they're nearby like earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis. We can usually figure out hurricanes/cyclones on our own as long as we download the weather daily. But do we really need so much other information clogging and cluttering our aging brains? Not that we retain much of it, mind you.

We haven't had a television for more than 14 years. At the moment, however, we have cable which offers a mere 300+ channels. Rarely do we find something worth watching although Bea likes to watch the evening news followed by Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and, yup, I'm right there on the couch beside her trying to solve puzzles and ask Jeopardy questions. This I find is a colossal time-waster. I could have my nose stuck in a good book or be writing a blog post or doing a myriad of productive things, but instead ...

We do like watching movies and watch lots of them on the boat on our laptop computers. We snuggle up on the saloon settee, pop some popcorn and watch movies uninterrupted to our hearts' content. It's easy to avoid watching commercials for feminine hygiene products, car insurance and the latest in probiotic yoghurts and how good they are for our digestive tracts. Here, we're inundated with advertising every few minutes… the newest drug releases (nothing recreational) and their requisite side effects and cautions, more feminine hygiene products and the latest in new car releases … not to mention political mud-smearing from time to time.

Now we find ourselves watching weather reports and paying attention to the heat index and the rain forecast, but worrying less about storms and winds. We read the Boston Globe daily and get caught up in the vagaries of the stock market, who's being tried for what crime, what President Obama eats for breakfast (4-6 eggs, potatoes and wheat toast … yikes) and what political blunder the local representative just made. Oh and there's usually some world news, too.

We're not used to having current magazines available (although John on Active Transport usually sends the New Yorker to me for Kindle viewing). Even the doctors' offices have current magazines, believe it or not, and we've visited plenty of doctors and dentists during our time back here in States. Time, Newsweek, People, Good Housekeeping, Golf Digest (ick), You and Arthritis … we read them all. They're there and we read them.

The positive side about too much media? If nothing else, I always have plenty of ideas for blog posts (or rants).