To clarify my post on television viewing a little:
I never intended to say that television was good or bad, worthy or unworthy. That’s a different argument, and one that–since I don’t often watch–that I’m not really qualified to make.
What’s weird to me, and sometimes awkward, is that television is assumed. The default for many people is that what I do most nights is of course to watch television, and therefore I’ll automatically know what they’re talking about. It’s the fact that I don’t that doesn’t seem to register, because … well, I think because the idea of not having current TV as part of one’s general consciousness is not something everyone understands–even though they do understand that not everyone rides horses, or reads books, or maintains a blog, or fixes up model cars in their spare time.
Few things have the sort of assumed universality that watching television does.
Also: I liked the responses some of you posted over there as to what you say to people who are puzzled by your low-volume viewing!