Downloading television?

Yesterday when I commented that we were running low on hard disk space Heather commented that we should download BSG as that would probably take up a good 4GB. Maybe she didn't understand what I meant when I said that we were taking up too much space with our pictures and music. BSG for those who aren't as cool and hip as Heather is the new Battlestar Galactica series, and apparently they really enjoy it and they pushed us over the holidays explaining that it was that good and that we needed to start watching it.

But downloading it? That seems wrong. I'm not sure the rules on these things and we do know a lot of people over here that are always downloading the latest movies and television shows. We prefer to wander over to our local DVD shop and see if they have it, and since it was highly recommended, we did pick up a box set of the first 3 seasons of BSG for the more expensive box set price of 30 kuai (4.5 USD).

We have purchased several series and we are slowly working through them. Since we've been here we've watched seasons 1&2 of Dexter, 1-4 of Weeds, 1&2 of Dead Like Me, and all 4 seasons of Rescue Me together. Tina has spend the days working her way through Rome, House, CSI, The Tudors, Sex & the City, and some of the series Dirt. The last week we started on Mad Men, and we are about half way through the first season. Sitting at home most nights we've become that lazy old couple that just watches the television...

When our friends Jose and Edlin left we ended up with stacks of their DVDs, and we still have some that we bought way back when we fist arrived. So, besides all the movies we purchased, we also have - Family Guy, Benny Hill, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Hogans Hero's, Cashmere Mafia, Prison Break, The Wire, Numbers, 24, Will & Grace, and I'm sure some others too - I'm too lazy to go and look.

So, with all of that available at nice China pricing and without the time required to download them from the computer and transfer them so you can watch them on the television, why would anybody download shows? Because some shows you can't find here in China, and since we have been back we have taken to downloading some shows and now have on our hard drive WKRP in Cincinnati 1-4, The Inbetweeners (we would recommend this one), the complete Yogi Bear cartoon series, Automan, Spin City season 1, Good Eats (1-4, 8 and 10), No Reservations 2, and we are about 60-70% done with downloading The Greatest American Hero and Buck Rogers...

That's a lot of television watching. Luckily we know enough to pull ourselves away from the television once in a while and head out to a local bar...