"I Have Existed for Years, But Very Little Has Changed..."

When my mother and I went to Vancouver last year we walked by a block that had seemingly been reduced to rubble by an extremely localized tornado. It turned out the tornado was an NBC crew, who had temporarily destroyed the block for an upcoming earthquake movie named "10.5." It was impressive seeing the set up close, all the foam rubber debris and such was totally convincing in person, if wasn't for the cameras and crew we never would have known it was fake.

The movie is airing tonite and probably won't be very good, but if you happen to tune in see if you can spot the scenes we walked by, like these mannequins who caught a bad one.

I've been without TV for a year and a half now, and it's amazing how little my life has been affected by the lifestyle change. More than anything I've learned that the tube is so deeply embedded in our culture that removing the actual television appliance from my own life makes me no less a citizen of the TV nation.

I still spend every day hearing jokes and references to the latest hit shows, and even though I've never actually seen most of them, never watched Omarosa or William Hung or Nick and Jessica with my own eyes, I still feel like I get all the jokes, just about as well I did when I was watching along with everyone else.

Don't get me wrong, I'll never be one of those too-cool-for-TV snobs (I have the entire "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" series on my hard drive). But it's been a trip to take a step back for the last year, and get a different perspective by watching from the sidelines.