EVEN WITHOUT A TV, SHE'S ALL SET.Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer I don't own a TV. When my last set broke, I thought about replacing it, but in the end I decided quiet evenings at home beat channel-surfing. Sure, you miss all the new shows, but the only time it becomes an issue is around the water cooler when the conversation turned to what was inside the hatch on ``Lost.'' No one knew just how isolated I was from prime-time culture. At least, that is, until watching TV shows online insinuated itself into my life. Genesis of an addiction It started last May with Google, a high-speed connection and one of those free movies the search engine was offering. I was on maternity leave maternity leave n → baja por maternidad maternity leave maternity n → congé m de maternité maternity leave maternity n , and it wasn't always easy to get out. Harder still was filling the void between feedings and my next Netflix arrival. So, as the baby slept, I sat at the computer and began exploring the outer reaches of Google -- groups, news, shopping -- when I noticed old movies available online. I shared this with my husband, who came across a movie he first saw years ago. It was ``Carnival of Souls.'' In a nutshell, it's the story of a woman who is dogged by ghouls after a car crash. Granted, it was hokey hok·ey adj. hok·i·er, hok·i·est Slang 1. Mawkishly sentimental; corny. 2. Noticeably contrived; artificial. hok . But something about it grabbed me, and it made for a credible popcorn flick. Plus, it was free. The resolution was awful, and the screen occasionally pixilated pix·i·lat·ed or pix·il·lat·ed adj. 1. Behaving as if mentally unbalanced; very eccentric. 2. Whimsical; prankish. 3. Slang Intoxicated; drunk. , but watching a movie online was kind of addicting. The ritual expands Soon we were looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. other freebies. We saw a documentary on backyard wrestling Backyard wrestling is a loose term used to describe the controversial practice of professional wrestling as performed by untrained fans in an unsanctioned, non-professional environment. , several Charlie Rose interviews and the granddaddy of zombie A computer that has been covertly taken over in order to perform some nefarious task. It is estimated that millions of PCs around the world have been compromised and, under the control of a third party, routinely transmit messages unbeknownst to the user. movies, ``Night of the Living Dead'' -- a step up in production values from ``Carnival of Souls'' and a lot creepier. Watching TV through the computer screen had become our weekend ritual. Then, over the summer, ABC ABC in full American Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. announced it would make ``Lost'' and ``Desperate Housewives'' available for free online viewing. I was primed. As it turned out, my online flirtations were just another gateway to the inner circle of mass culture, commercials and all. Like everybody else, I, too, got lost in ``Lost'' and delighted in episode after episode of ``Desperate Housewives.'' Then along came ``Ugly Betty'' on ABC and some CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. offerings. In fact, nowadays you can watch a lot of prime-time network television online if you don't mind a smaller screen and can endure commercial breaks, which there's no way out of. Sandra Barrera (818) 713-3728 sandra.barrera@dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: no caption (laptop) |
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