At home I was a typical boy with regard to my TV viewing requirements. Basketball, Football and Breaking Bad and a chunk of pretend violence with WWE Wrestling. Add to that a little SpongeBob and Walking With The Dead. Now that seems to be the perfect blend of TV entertainment for me. Of course my parents would not always share my TV viewing so lucky for me I had a great widescreen TV in my room at home.
I also download lots of torrents on my PC too of old Stallone films and any good action kill and thrill style of films. When not watching the screen as a passive viewer I will connect my games console to the set and play as a zombie killing games as I can get my hands on.
When I had to live at my new college I was as thrilled as could be when I saw the room. It was really comfortable and only a year old. Great bed, furniture and stuff. But the best thing for me was a great wall fixed flat screen TV with FREE cable. Heaven from home, what could be wrong with this situation?
Lucky for me too there was only two beds here so I would only have one guy to share the room with. I met him an hour later and Simon is a great guy. He is the sort of guy that girls would love to mother but never date. He is a very intelligent guy but not in any way a geek. He is a great conversationalist and is so quiet to. Perfect!
Nope the utopia was blown out of the water when we sat in on our first night. He and I kept taking control of the TV remote. He would click to the History and Discovery Channel. I would click back to a game show or live basketball. He would click over to a documentary on some long dead composer and I would want the Simpsons. We both realized on our first night that our understanding of TV entertainment was completely different. We seemed to have nothing in common.
As the week went on we sort of shared the evening hours between his shows and my show. Whist he watched the monotone documentaries I would put my headset on my MP3 and do homework and essay editing. When I put my shows on he laid on his bed reading but continually tutted at what he thought was more loud TV volume. I asked him to put a headset on. He tutted again.
By the end of the week we were getting on each other’s nerves with our TV habits. So we had an emergency meeting and decided that we could not share the room. This TV problem was splitting us up and neither of us felt we could compromise any further. So at the end of the first month he moved out and I am waiting for his replacement. When there is nothing for me on TV I start my essay editing with the History Channel in the background. I hate to say this now, but I actually like some of the shows.
About the Author
Liam Toot is still watching the History Channel.
