I’ve given up bad movies

A few months ago I read an article by a guy named Gerald Celente. 

 The guy is a forecaster of trends and has been doing it for a long time.  In it he talks about how violent movies are.  His points really struck me and made me think of some other things I’d read and thought and had even written myself and so I decided that I wanted to be the change I wanted to see in the world and stop supporting those movies that really didn’t represent what I believed and wanted to see in the world.

In the same vein of giving up TV, giving up my movies is in part to free up my time and follow people like Ralph Little in my previous post and make some big leaps forward in my life.

One thought I had was whether or not the type of movies (pg 13 even) that are coming out now will still be coming out during the Millenium when Christ is ruling personally on earth and my answer to my own question was no.  I don’t think there will be gratuitous violence, deaths, tortures, sex, swearing, etc.  I don’t participate in those things now and don’t want to support them either and that is a big reason for ditching those types of movies.

What we did with our movie collection is gave away a lot of them to others who wanted them.  I would’ve been fine just throwing em out, but whatevs.

Previously I was renting one, sometimes two or more, redbox movies a week.  In the last several months I think I’ve probably rented 5.

Summer blockbusters and youtube.  I loved them both.  I’d watch a lot of upcoming trailers for all the newest movies.  I’ve cut way back on my youtubing and that has helped with the transition.  Watching tv also sucked when I made my switch to no bad movies cause they were constantly being advertised there.  Now that we don’t have the antennae plugged in and will soon sell the tv outright the draw will be even less here soon, which I’ll be grateful for.  It has sucked hearing about how action packed and cool the new movies looked when they first came out, but now that they’ve been out and the buzz isn’t around I don’t miss the movies and am not looking forward to them coming out on redbox.

What I’d like to do is start replacing movie time with more family/friend time and make more memories that are in person and where we connect and do something memorable.

Books have also replaced a lot of my movie watching.  I finished reading the following books lately/since I’ve kicked my movie habit.

I'm currently reading this one

As info I visit this site for movie reviews to check that it doesn’t have anything that doesn’t agree with me.  http://parentpreviews.com/  You could also try www.imdb.com if you wanted, but I find they have some sketchy stuff on their site and so I try to avoid that one.

Like my previous post on quitting tv I'll try to remember to provide updates on how its going for me and new things I'm doing that I wouldn't otherwise do.

We’re quiting tv land…forever?!?

As part of my post indoctrination life, i.e. time outside of the schooling system and public/American way of thinking in general, I’ve learned about things like government being jacked up like here, internet being a “poor” source for legit information like here, or less is more here.  

One thing I’ve come across as something I’ve toyed with in my head with embracing is getting rid of our tv.  

I wanted to do it only if there were positive reasons and not negative ones.  I didn’t want to do it to show that we were/are whackos, to prove a point, or to make any feel bad or awkward.

There are many reasons I love tv.  I love that it is a very convenient release from thinking about life and owning up to what I really want to do, but not doing it.  I love pro sports and especially playoffs of the NBA and NFL.  If fills my free time when I can’t think of anything better to do with it.  However there have been some things though that I’ve thought about and come across over the last year or so that have made me think that tv maybe isn’t the best idea for me.

I don’t know if any of you know anyone like this, but my dad sleeps six hours every night and has for years and years and years.  Man how nice would that be?  Who would I be were I able to do that?  One way I could do that, at least partially, is by cutting out tv.  I gotta think my dad is many leaps and bounds wealthier in many aspects of his life due to this extra free time whether it is financial knowledge or means, car knowledge (he’s good at fixing cars), spiritual knowledge, business knowledge, design knowledge (he knows photoshop really well), and a whole host of other things I could mention were I to spend more than 5 seconds thinking about it.

Another guy I think about is a guy I don’t even know.  I think I shook his hand once or maybe even just head nodded towards him at church after my brother introduced me to him.  His name is Ralph Little.  Guy hasn’t watched a movie in years.  Not that he doesn’t own a tv cause the truth is he might, but certainly his not having seen a movie in years has certainly aided him in using his free time to engage in one of his many business endeavors instead of consistently engaging in beta wave trancelike hypnosis each week by watching tv all the time.  My brother is constantly telling me how Ralph thought of another multi-million dollar idea that is so simple and stupid its crazy.  That story alone was a big reason why I stopped watching some of the movies that I did.

There have been three main things lately that have turned me onto the idea of giving up the tv forever though.  First up is this guy.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/06/mmm-challenge-cut-your-cash-leaking-umbilical-cord/

He and his family don’t own a tv.  They do however love Netflix and Hulu and the whole host of ways you can watch tv/movies for a fraction of the price/time these days.  They just hook up the laptop to a projector when the need arises.  Often he talks about one great effect of not owning a tv and that is he and his family actually DO things and have hobbies.  I mean think about it.  What would you do if you just had 28 hours a week extra to do what you wanted to with?  You’d be forced to find new hobbies or blow your brains out with boredom from staring at the wall.

Next up is the documentary I watched a few weeks ago called “No Impact Man”.

link to free viewing if you're interested

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/no_impact_man/

  It chronicles the journey of a man and his family going a year w/o making an impact on the environment and it was pretty entertaining.  Part of the experiment is getting rid of their tv, which for them was scary as the wife fully admits that she is addicted to reality tv.  They said at the end of the movie that at first there was a literal painful withdrawal from not having tv (I’m not looking forward to that), but that once they pushed through that they…went outside.  They made other new hobbies and had new experiences they otherwise wouldn’t have had.  That is what I want.

Last up is a post I read just today from....

  I’m loving the whole blog actually.  Here it is

http://advancedriskology.com/how-to-add-8-years-and-133369-to-your-life/

This post was crazy to me in that if you're paying for tv your blowing so much money.  Then comes the time wasted, which is even more shocking.  The craziest part is that all his number are conservative, i.e. he uses smaller numbers just to make his point.  The average reality is much worse in America.

Read it and…weep like a sad woosy girly man if you dare. 

So we're gonna cut tv, but I'm still gonna watch sports and tv in general should I be over at somebody's house and I won't be a snob or anything.  I even imagine that'll be a bit of fun to splurge in those occasions and enjoy the time wasted if that makes sense.  Maybe I try and do some updates on new things we get into once we're done with tv so you can see what is going on with us.

Some unexpected events becoming enjoyable due to being in shape

If you read this blog you know I work out twice a week or I owe my brother $10.  Since I’ve implemented this bet I haven’t missed except one workout session cause I tweaked my back nicely working out once.  I’m not going to do an update on my progress, though I am making it even with just my last session showing me needing an increase in weight in both bench and squat, but I wanted to do a short post on surprising things that have happened with working out consistently.

First off: a 5k.  My brother invited myself and others to join him on one he signed up to run.  I’ve run a marathon before and knew I probably needed some training runs to make it through w/o stopping.  Due to general laziness and procrastination and packing to sell my first house to make $17,090.10.  I did not do ONE training run.  Not even one WALK.  I did however, jog the whole 5k w/o stopping once due to being winded.  I did stop once to retie my shoelaces.  I credit this to my legs being in good enough shape to handle it.

Fireworks.  We have this amazing spot we go to each 24^th of July to watch fireworks and to get to the spot we have to hike uphill probably about ten minutes at a good 15-20% incline.  I remember last year my calves being goop/wobbly, but this year…nothing.  I think the next day though my calves were a little “sore”.  It wasn’t a painful sore, just a tired sore.

Recovery time.  When I first started I was sore for days after working out.  Now I’m not sore nearly as long.  I worked out Friday night and it is Monday afternoon and I’m not feeling any sort of soreness anywhere, which is fantastic.

There’s my post.  Maybe if I have some more interesting experiences where I’d expect to be sore, but wasn’t I’ll add them here.