I have a wall of great movies, some classic TV, and no connection to broadcast cable nor TV, for going on 20 years now, nor any intention of changing that. I miss broadcast entertainment like I miss going for a walk amidst the radioactive wastelands around Chernobyl.
I've lost nothing but endless inane commercials, and increasingly mediocre programming, plus movies I already own, except cut to ribbons into maddeningly short ADHD segments.
And I don't pay $50-100/month to companies that hate me, my principles, my beliefs, and my entire way of life, and spend the profits from their horrible service to browbeat me every chance they get.
Instead, I cherry pick a random assortment of regular YouTube channels, for programming that is entirely satisfying, relatively commercial-free, or nearly so, and which I can watch as and when I feel like it, pause and restart, or binge watch for hours of internet wormholing.
If you are in any way inclined to any of that, I offer the following gem-worthy finds, for your entertainment pleasure.
This ranking is deliberate, and in my personal order of entertainment value:
1) my little homestead
A family of six (and a new in-law since last summer) building their earthbag empire somewhere in Paradise Valley AZ. Find their earliest forays, and start there. Or watch the consolidated hour-plus marathons of an entire project stitched together. They post weekly updates most Fridays at 6PM PST, and their content goes back 10 years. If there were YouTube Emmys, they should win one annually.
2) Life Uncontained
A couple who sold out of their FL home, moved to the grandparents' ranch somewhere in east-central TX, and are building their dream home, one bite at a time, for just about a year. They expected 2000 subscribers to their adventure. They're now at about 100,000. There's a reason for that.
3) My Self Reliance
Ontario, Canada building contractor Shawn James has been vlogging on breathtaking Canadian travels for three years, and working on his cabin from scratch in the wilds of the Great White North for going on two, since March of 2017. He does it laconically, and then with a what-did-we-learn-today homily at the end. And with food. You will gain weight watching his series. If you can't sit through episodes of This Old House and New Yankee Workshop, and then transition into watching this guy craft a log cabin on dirt from scratch using all hand tools, I don't want to know you.
4) Living Big In A Tiny House
Bryce Langston is a Kiwi travelling the world finding people making small homes fantastic, and documenting it better than the dreck on pay cable. Whether you're thinking of downsizing your life, just starting out, curious for ideas that work in bigger spaces too, or just killing 10-15 minutes at a time, there isn't a single video going back 5 years he's posted that isn't worth the time to watch it. Two personal favorites: Caboose House bed & breakfast cottage in Portland, and the farmer's NZ Hobbit-style Eco Cave house. When I'm building Camp Snoopy (starting this fall, I hope) see if I don't steal some of both ideas before I die.
I visit several prepper channels, most well-known to folks, but no one preps 24/7/365/forever, self-evidently, so their content is spottier.
But sooner or later, everyone builds a house. Or wishes they could.
Man is a house-building animal.
These channels scratch that itch until you can get to it yourself, give you ideas, and something to watch on the days you're too beat to work at it yourself.
We all need some down time.
These are unhesitatingly recommended for your leisure moments, in whatever chunks of time you might devote to them.
17 comments:
You might like this series of photos, when we incorporated a dinning room into our kitchen.
https://public.fotki.com/fastpat/south_carolina_hous/kitchen-den_renovation/
My wife is watches Netflix. It's full, and I mean FULL of propaganda. The Black Male - White Female pairings. The strong independent womyn, the bad guy is *always* white etc
When this TV breaks I'm not replacing it.
Down in the hollow, we chopped off our satellite TV several months ago with no regret. Our two flat-screens are used for DVD-viewing exclusively. Things are quieter now; no blaring commercials for services we don't use and items we don't need. Some favorite internet sites are followed,(including this one) and we have all the news and opinion we need. We still get snail-mail ads for cable/satellite television, but they serve as tinder for the wood-stove.
We live in a rural area.
Wifmann enjoys TV in the evening...for about ten minutes when she stops working and then falls asleep (she works her fanny off).
We cut the satellite dish off a couple of years ago.
She is quite happy with the old re-runs of Gunsmoke and Colombo that we get on broadcast TV on an antenna she requested for her birthday.
She cannot abide the current offers that pose as entertainment on the big three.
She spends most of her limited TV time watch cooking shows.
I check the local weather but otherwise do not watch the news. I have started to use a weather app for most of my weather prophecies.
You mentioned propaganda: the old TV shows from the late 50s and into the 60s contained a lot SJW propaganda.
Even the old westerns tend toward SJW themes.
Star Trek probably did more harm than Harvard to a decade of impressionable minds.
Thanks for the links.
Our internet is not streaming capable (rural area with skinny copper wires from the 1950s is the bottleneck), but some YouTube stuff is doable if one is patient.
Keep on. Some people are listening.
Okay, I loved how this guy went entirely old school, like B.C. old school - you've probably seen it, though.
Primitive House
When the kids are graduated I might just spend my time doing this.
Related: I thought about building my own "Tiny House" company, but I wasn't sure there'd be a demand. Pop up a factory in an old warehouse and start building 'em. Way more fun than work.
You might also like David the Good's channel http://www.thesurvivalgardener.com
Got hooked on "Essential Craftsman" via Van Der Leun at American Digest. He's currently building a spec house but his earlier stuff is great on basics and blacksmithing
Boat Guy
I like Joe Robinet because he (inadvertently) shows the tremendous amount of work it takes to actually bushcraft shelters and camps.
https://www.youtube.com/user/josephallen19
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Thanks for the links, and those from the commenters, will check them out.
We lost TV access when we moved to the sticks 13 years ago. Frankly, we didn't miss it. We had a dish at our previous Florida home but were watching it less and less for all the usual reasons normal people shun such things. We do have internet here, but just barely. A Hughes satellite that is very expensive, very limited in bandwidth, and the dish has had to been moved 6 times because of the tree's growth. So we quickly migrated to watching DVD's during supper, the only time we watch TV at all. We started with the Twilight Zone series, then the Fugitive, Gunsmoke, many other TV series from the 50's and 60's, lots of movies from the 40's-early 60's. The Planet Earth series and many other documentaries. And we're constantly expanding our library. Amazing how much time can be wrapped up in watching TV isn't it? M-F we watch about an hour at supper and on the weekends that expands to 2 hours sometimes. Still, that's 9 hours a week x 52 weeks = 468 hours a year. If those were work hours think how much better off we'd be if we were earning rather than blobbing on the couch.
I have been an architectural designer all of my professional life and for the past 10 years have, in my spare time, been developing the ultimate tiny house that is unlike everything else out there. It is based in common sense, very inexpensive, meant to be built by one or two people that know which end of the hammer is the business end, and meant to be lived in full time by one or two people. 90% of the tiny homes out there are incapable of being lived in full time. They are mostly expensive toys owned by people with too much money, that like to brag about things they've purchased. Many of them end up as white elephants in someones backyard and over time used as storage sheds. The originator of the tiny home movement, forget his name right now, admits that he spends very little time in it. What he doesn't admit is that his tiny home is dysfunctional and almost impossible to live in at all. Whatever....everybody sells their soul for their 15 mins. To design and build a tiny house properly you have to let go of all your previous notions of how a house works and instead, focus on how to change your life in advance so as to make the venture successful over the long haul. If all you want to do is replicate a big house into a small one you have failed already. Good luck with your Snoopy project.
Wife and I married 31 years ago. Raising/raised seven kids with no teevee. Ever. No cable, nothing. Got a monitor on which we watch stuff every couple of days or marathons when we’re snowed in (we’re midway up in the Sierras). Andy Griffith and Rawhide are some of our faves. Frankly, I’ve no idea how in the bleep people find time to watch so much teevee. Btw, my kids are/were all homechschooled and are smart as heck and good with their hands. All shoot well too.
Love this guy too. Doesn’t say a word, just builds everything you could need using Stone Age tech.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA
I don't watch much TV despite having a big screen unit. The latest I watched was a series on the history of the British navy from about 1500 to WW one. There are couple of other shows about history, including some modern history that are worthwhile.
If the sportsball teams counted on me for a living, they'd starve to death.
As if I don't subscribe to enough YouTube channels now. :-) But thanks for the pointers.
If you haven't seen "Cheap RV Living", you might want to give it a look. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj7O3LCDbkIR54hAn6Zz7A
@ghostsniper: Dying to find out more about your Tiny House. Anything that you want to share is greatly appreciated.
I've been following this blog for about a year now and have very much appreciated both the belly laughs and irrefutable logic and experience which has informed and decisively changed my views on a number of topics. Still, knowing how eclectic are Aesop's interests, I was surprised and pleased at the content of this post.
A few months ago I moved into a tiny house I designed that was largely inspired by the "Living Big in a Tiny House" video-- Amazing DIY Off-Grid Modern. My house is not off-grid since it's at a campsite at my gun club where 50 amp electric and seasonal water is included in the $60/mo. fee. During the winter I shower and haul dishwashing water from the clubhouse (75 yds. away).
My tiny house is built out of SIPs (structural insulated panels) so it's incredibly well inuslated--essentially a giant styrofoam cooler. In Southern Michigan, I heat it 95% of the time with one, $40, 1500W, space heater. Recently, it was -13 degrees with wind chills of -27. I unboxed my second space heater which had the house from 61 degrees up to 72 in an hour. I was able to strip down to my undies and pooch and I sunbathed in the pool of light on my sofa. Priceless luxury!
Building this has allowed me to quit my full-time job teaching in a "highly-segregated, disparately-impacted, urban area." Now I work locally for 12 hrs/wk and have tons of time for hawking, hunting, shooting, riding (my horse is my big expense), and running the pooch on the club's 100 acres.
I don't have a blog or FB page (OPSEC!) and. sorry, I didn't have any luck adding a pic to this comment.
Best of luck with Camp Snoopy!
Thank you again for your blog.
@Hawkin'Gal
ROWYBS!
Sounds awesome; you're living the dream.
Glad you enjoy my brain droppings, and thanks for the comment.
Living the dream? I'm almost constantly giddy! And then on Tuesday, the hawk doubles on squirrels, in style and right in front of the landowner and his guests. Walking back to the house, you could hear my "balls" clank! If I manage to shed 20 lbs., I'll be insufferable.
Please look me up if you ever come to Michigan. I'd love to take you hawking.
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