I fondly remember the 2016 Olympics. I was living on Catalina Island at the time, and I would watch it with my host family and roommates after work on a fairly regular basis. They had a TV and a satellite dish.
So I suppose what I more fondly remember is spending time amongst other people, not so much the Olympics. We watched reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. Jeopardy.
I remember in high school, our English teacher was a bit woo-woo, new-age. She was a good person though. Open, caring, accepting. She assigned us a task once, where we had to document how many scene changes, camera changes, and commercial breaks there were in 30 minutes of television. Mindful television viewing, basically. As you would expect, it's a fucking shitload. Television back then was just a rapid-fire mishmash of clips, shortened and sped up to make room for more commercials.
I would tell people to count the camera changes, and they'd tell me to shut up. I was making it disorienting for them.
As a young man moving out on his own, I had a hand-me-down television from my father. I never paid for cable. It was too expensive and I didn't care about most of the stuff on there. I bought a cheap antenna and I would watch antenna television.
Antenna television is interesting. As opposed to a satellite or cable broadcast, it's broadcast locally over the airwaves. All you need is an antenna, there's no fees associated with it. I assume these stations make their money off the advertising.
Usually what you'll find on the antenna is local news, national news, a sports channel (usually something a bit outside of the mainstream), and a few movie channels with either older films of low-budget modern films.
I like that. TV with a slower pace. Curated by a human being. It's strange being nostalgic for television.
Maybe I'm nostalgic for it because I'm sick of choosing what to watch. Maybe I'm sick of content that's designed with algorithms in mind. Antenna television is a good alternative to that. Get the gang together on the couch and eat some Banquet meals like a family again.
I didn't even talk about the Olympics here. Probably because I didn't watch it. I guess I just wanted to ramble like an old man.