Why I Like the Disney Channel

Up until a couple nights ago, I had only really recorded things (shows, movies, etc) from the Disney Channel on my new VCR/DVD-Recorder. But then I wanted to record The Mask of Zorro onto DVD, so that I'd have it. I only had The Legend of Zorro, since my parents were the ones with the first movie before I moved.

Mask was on ABC Family a couple nights ago, and I wanted to record it without the commercials, so I watched it while it was recording.

Oh my gosh, it took FOREVER!

See, on the Disney Channel, no matter what you're watching, there's never more than 3 or 4 commercial breaks. And for movies, the first commercial never comes before the first half-hour is up. But ABC Family, while it was showing The Mask of Zorro, had commercials every ten minutes! It made a 2 hour and 10 minute movie into THREE HOURS! That just made me all frustrated, because I couldn't even really go downstairs and do something else between commercial breaks--heck, I couldn't even read in my bedroom at that time, because a commercial break could come up while I was in the middle of a sentence!

GAH. That just made me appreciate the Disney Channel even more than I already do because of its good, clean, fun shows and movies.

Last night, Patrick J. came over to watch Smallville, and I forgot that I wanted to record A Cinderella Story (which was on ABC Family) while it was on, so I didn't get that movie.

I don't know whether to be bummed that I missed getting a copy of the movie for myself, or relieved that I won't have to worry about sitting through the commercials when I re-copy it later to VHS and then back to DVD without commercials, like I'm going to have to do with my recording of The Day After Tomorrow.

Before he left, Patrick and I got to talking about books and things, and he told me how he would try to read 7 or 8 books at a time (from the library) and then get all burned-out on reading. I told him how I tried that a couple Spring Breaks ago with the Dragonriders of Pern series and reading 8 books in 8 days. That experience pretty much ruined me for reading more than two books in a row. And I still can't read for hours on end like I used to be able to--I have to take a break from minutes to days in length between groups of 3 or 4 chapters before I pick a book up again.

Anyway, I told Patrick about the Song of Ice and Fire cycle by George R. R. Martin, and he thought it sounded cool, so I let him borrow my copy of A Game of Thrones. If he likes it, then I'll probably let him borrow the other books in the series as he gets to them. As soon as LibraryThing is back up and running, I'm going to make a note in the tags for GoT that Patrick is currently borrowing it.