First Pitch: Day Twenty Seven – Binge

28 Dec 2021

It’s weird thinking about how much my life has changed just in the span of running this site.

When I started the site, I was 25 years old.

My normal life included things like watching individual episodes of specific TV shows at specific times on specific nights, broken up every 15 minutes by commercial.

I don’t think this site is older than DVRs being popular, allowing you to skip commercials. That doesn’t help when you’re watching live.

Eventually, I reached a point where I’d not watch a show at the specific time it aired, opting to use the DVR to start when I was finished with all of my expanding life responsibilities.

Then, I’d move on to just watching episodes the next day, allowing me to skip the ads and watch all of my TV in a small block during the day.

Then, I’d hang out with friends or have a busy weekend and get to that episode next week, before it aired.

Then, I’d be watching last week’s episode at 7 PM on a specific night, because I didn’t want to miss the new episode at 8 PM.

Then, I reached a point in my early 30s where I just got tired all the time, and the idea of keeping up with weekly shows just became a complete impossibility.

I mean, I’m already behind on the show. If I want to watch this show, I’d have to spend an entire day watching it. But if I’m going to spend an entire day watching a show, should it be this show? Maybe there’s something more interesting. Maybe there’s a reason I stopped watching this show after a specific point.

Now, I’m to the point where my TV watching is one of two things.

1. The Office, or some other show I’ve memorized playing in the background while I work.

2. Whatever show I decide to watch 3-7 episodes of after precisely 47 minutes of doom scrolling three different apps two times each.

The only thing that really changed was that I got older, got busier, as is unavoidable for any of us, and an experience you might be familiar with on this very topic.

I know this is universal, and it might even be societal, because we have a word for how we consume content now: Binge.

Binge – a period of excessive indulgence in an activity, especially eating, drinking, or taking drugs.

One of my favorite things is eating, drinking, and taking drugs while I binge-watch hours of TV.

I feel like this isn’t a healthy habit to be normalized in society.

And yet, I feel like it’s unavoidable. Who these days — especially heading into year three of a pandemic that is somehow still getting worse — can guarantee X amount of time at the same time for leisure activities every day, every week, every month?

Certainly not 38-year-olds.

Not in this economy.

Eventually, you need to binge.

To live your life,

Or to stop living your life,

For just a little bit.

Daily Links

**Wipeout Slider Makes Justin Meis a Relief Prospect To Watch in 2022

Anthony Murphy makes his debut on Pirates Prospects with a nice look at 2021 10th round pick Justin Meis and his slider. Included in the article is a video with about four minutes of sliders thrown, if you want to binge Justin Meis slider action today.

**One Year Later: Evaluating the Josh Bell Trade

**Are the Pirates OK With Incompetence?

Wilbur Miller follows up on my recent negative-WAR series by comparing how the Pirates stacked up in 2021 to the rest of the National League. The numbers or their NL ranking aren’t surprising.

**This Date in Pittsburgh Pirates History: December 27th, Six Former Pirates Born on This Date