TV Turnoff Week

I read that the week after next is the so-called "TV Turnoff Week (April 19-25)". I guess the advocates for this movement think people waste too much time watcing TV. Technically speaking, I think it is hardly to ask all of us to turn off the boob tube for a week, let alone keeping up doing it forever. I can't even imagine what our lives will be like without TV because we have already centered our lives around wathcing it.

so-called 所謂的
advocate 提倡者
Technically speaking 技術上來說
boob tube 電視機
let alone 更不要說
to center one's life around 以...為生活重心

Here I want to share a true story about myself. As my kid grew up, I found he had spent too much time in front of TV. At his age, he watches a lot of cartoons on number of channels. One day I told him if he kept watching them without taking a break, I would disconnect the service. My warning seemed not to work very well as he always turned a blind eye to me. Few days later, I called the cable company to call off the service. After about a few days whining, he eventually found other way to entertain himself creatively such as reading and studying. I supposed that my strategy had really worked.

disconnect 中斷
turned a blind eye to me 沖耳不聞
call off 取消
whining 抱怨
eventually 最後
strategy 策略

Ironically, I ended up getting my wife's complaint about no good TV programs to watch. We only had four channels to watch then since they were all wireless TV programs -- free for antenna users. I started to realize that there was no free lunch in the world. You just got what you paid for. From time to time we even turned this into arguments, which was the outcome beyond my expectance.

Ironically 諷刺的
ended up 到頭來
complaint 抱怨
wireless 無線的
antenna 天線
turned something into arguments 造成爭執
outcome 結果

Therefore, it was time that I must find an alternative solution to the problem. Frankly I was kind of reluctant to re-subscribe to the cable TV after it had been phased out by me. I really wanted my kid to live healthier and do better in school. We still couldn't live without TV, however. Eventually I turned to subscribe to a digital TV service powered by my ADSL provider. The technology behind it is that all the TV program get signals from the internet modem-- both the TV and ADSL share the same cable. Good news that it offers only one cartoon channel and some other programs are mostly educational-- at least not that violent now compared to the cable TV before. Plus, I nearly pay no extra fee to the digital TV service since it is bundled with in the internet sevice. It really pays off, I will say.

alternative 替代的
reluctant 勉強的
subscribe 訂駛hased out 淘汰
signals 訊號
modem 數據機
be bundled with 與...結合
somthing pays off 某事是值得的

Watching no TV really makes me feel like I'm missing out on something. I have given up on the idea of being without it because I couldn't go cold turkey.

miss out on something 錯過某事
give up on something 放棄某事
go cold turkey 戒掉習慣/cold turkey 另有冷傲之人之意