He Who Holds The Remote...

"He Who Holds The Remote, Holds The Power"
I think that should have been the catch phrase in Lord of The Rings instead of "The One Ring To Rule Them All". The TV remote control is such a powerful tool in any household I think. What would we all do each night if there was no TV to watch?

I know that in Australia where the population is so sparse, there is literally nothing to do at night once you get home from work. Unlike in Asia when I was on holiday, the streets were still filled with people at night. Two factors make this possible. The first is that there are so many people so that shop owners still find it viable to stay open which attract people to go out. The second factor is that the warm weather attracts people outside as well. It's definitely a different lifestyle than to here. The closest that it gets to that in Melbourne is along streets like Lygon and Chapel where there are many restaurants and people congregate on Fridays and Saturdays. My friend John constantly comments that he would love to move back to Greece because of the lifestyle there. People go outside at nights to the cafes and sit around and drink coffee while philosophising about the world. Sounds like something I could get used to hahaha.

Back on the topic of the remote, I remember that when we were younger, my sister and I would fight for the remote all the time. Nowadays, there are multiple TVs in the house so there is less of that, but occasionally we both still want to watch the main large TV in the lounge so there is some arguments. Back when we were young, whoever physically held the remote controlled what was watched on TV. I was usually the one holding the remote and would have on the sport or some action movie. She would want to watch some other film and there would be arguments. I was also one of those "channel surfers" and would switch between channels during ad breaks. I just couldn't stand the ads and would flick to other things and watch a few seconds of all the shows on other channels. This would annoy the heck out of my sister and she would tell me to stop changing channels.

I read some study recently that generally its the men in the house that takes control of the remote and determines what gets watched. However, now with multiple TVs and the internet, wives and kids have found other outlets to enjoy TV without having to watch what the dad wants to watch.

So who holds the remote in your house and makes the decision on what to watch each night?