Media Consumption Log (1/5/09 – 1/12/09)

As like any busy person, my media consumption tends to vary in times of increased workloads. However, even with classes being back in session I am surprised to find the amount of media I have still managed to fit in. Here is the breakdown for the third week of January:

Television:

• Scrubs – “My Jerks” & “My Last Words”
• Dirty Jobs – Bologna Maker
• Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations – Mexico
• SNL Neil Patrick Harris/Taylor Swift s.34 e.648
• Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern – Philippines

DVD:

• Arrested Development – Season 2

Web:

• Gizmodo – CES coverage
• Various Lifehacker articles

Print:

• This month’s Wired Magazine
• Chicago Red Eye
• Terry Pratchet – the Light Fantastic

Audio:

• Podcasts: This Week in Tech, KATG, SModcast, & No Agenda
• 97.9 FM the Loop Johnny B Mornings

Out of all these various forms of media I usually consider the most wastefull to be television programs because they usually are mindless and not educational except for the occasional History/Discovery channel program. My audio consumption passes through my ears during long commutes to and from school, work and home. I feel like it would be a waste not to use the time I spend on the CTA wisely. It also helps to drown out the noise but, unfortunately, not the smell of the notoriously stinky red-line.

The most important of all the media I’ve absorbed this week has to be Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel channel. I don’t normally watch this show but I have a particular interest in Filipino culture and experience with the various foods involved. The premise of the show is that this food critic Andrew Zimmern travels to various destinations around the world and samples their most exotic cultural cuisine. In this episode he travels to the Philippines where he tastes some of the most interesting food they have to offer such as balut (fertilized duck eggs) and coconut grubs. I’ve been to the same areas that Andrew Zimmern goes to in the episode this last summer so I was able to relate to the experience. Through the show I even learned more about traditional Filipino food than I had through my visit to the country.

During the summer of 2008 I traveled to the Philippines with a Filipino friend and his family to visit his relatives and to tour the country. It was my first international experience and having no Filipino background myself, I found the experience to be eye-opening and enlightening. At first I experienced culture shock but as I became accustomed to the Filipino way of life I was surprised to find many aspects of American culture all around me. I never worked up the courage to eat most of the foods Andrew Zimmern ate but those were what the local people ate on the streets of Manila. By the end of the show, I was missing the freshly caught fish and warm tropical climate that I had enjoyed so much.

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One Response to “Media Consumption Log (1/5/09 – 1/12/09)”

1. Anatoli says:

   January 13, 2009 at 12:08 am

   Nice, and you have to do this every week? Now that i think about it, my media consumption would be at least three times as large as yours… hell, I need to cut back on TV.