I've come to the conclusion that it's not only 'cool' to be up-to-date with movies, current affairs & the latest new 'indy' band, one should also have a vague idea of whats currently considered a 'good' tv show. Which means burning dvds for your friends & they burn some back, or going to each other's houses with a USB stick. Apart from the news & Masterchef (which I don't watch; I was absolutely HORRIFIED when my Mum started getting addicted 2 weeks ago...then some chick called Marion got voted out & we started watching the 7:30 report again THANK FUCKING GOD), nobody watches real tv anymore yeah? Apart from Gossip-Girl re-runs on Go. My guess is that dvds of tv-shows have gone up (in price as well as popularity), and so its not that uncommon to buy whole seasons of tv shows without even watching an episode.

In the last few years I've accepted that 'good' tv shows basically means anything on HBO: Sex & The City (the movies were obviously not crash hot, but remember the first few seasons when it used to be on Channel 9 after ER on Thursdays/Eddie bloody Maguire?), Weeds (♥ ♥), Entourage (I can't get into it, but its well liked), Six Feet Under etc are all on HBO. Because I'm a hoarder, and because I love having 'the whole set' and can't help but feel peer pressured into knowing what people are on about when the discussion turns to tv shows, I must confess that I've bought myself
- Season 1 & 2 of True Blood (haven't watched)
- Season 1 & 2 of Mad Men (haven't watched apart from 4 eps of Season 1)
- Big Love Season 1 (I started watching it Season 2, I love the show but find it really hard to understand & figure for free (buy 2, get 1 free at JB) I could do with some background understanding).

The pattern here is that I've basically bought all this stuff but have yet to watch it. Thankfully, I like Mad Men so far. It's a bit slow, but I love the characters & I remember Peggy from when she was in Girl Interrupted (like one of my favourite movies of all time). I've read the first book by Charlaine Harris so I'm totally clueless. However Mum was alarmed at the number of dvds I have in my room (because I keep them there until I've watched them, at which point they return downstairs to the family collection, which is basically my dvds + Dad's burned dvds of car races that the kids at work have given him) and reminded me that in 10 years there will be no such thing as the dvd, everything will be a different format etc etc & now I feel really guilty.

In short, uni starts back next week & I've got a shitload of dvds I STILL haven't watched. I aimed to read 20 books in the last five weeks off (I've read 4, and I'm on my third, the new Lionel Shriver book 'So Much For That'), I've added more cds to my collection that I'll never find the time to lose myself in and I've accumulated more dvds and less space.