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I gotta git me one o’ these outdoor TVs!

Mary Gray

Mary Gray

July 7, 2013

While reading the latest issue of US Better Homes and Gardens, I stumbled upon a new (to me) trend in outdoor living: Outdoor Televisions! Phew! It’s about time. I was getting so bored and fidgety just sitting out on my patio with, like, no electronic devices whatsoever, wasting lazy summer evenings in quiet conversation with family or watching the birds and butterflies.

Have a fancy beach place? I am sure you are sick and tired of staring out into the azure sea, letting the rhythm of the breaking waves rejuvenate your spirit. Those days are over, my friend, because now you are free to ignore the beauty of God’s creation and tune into The Kardashians on your very own al fresco TV set!

http://www.skyvue.com

http://www.skyvue.com

 

Now that’s LIVING!

Growing weary of the happy splashing and laughter of kids playing outside in the water? Hey, no problem, that’s nothing an 80-inch LCD screen installed poolside can’t fix:

http://www.mysporttrac.com

http://www.mysporttrac.com

 

Your kids will be sedentary and mildly depressed in no time!

I like this next set up a lot:

http://www.ohgizmo.com

http://www.ohgizmo.com

 

Hot-tubs are no longer about such things as “romance” or “intimacy” — no, your hot-tub experience is not complete unless you have a giant digital television peeping up at you over the hedge. Make sure to position it so that it looks like it wants to get inside the tub with you and appears sad that you’re not inviting it in.

Here’s my favorite:

http://www.flasales.com

http://www.flasales.com

 

Why watch The Big Game on your embarrassing little 90″ screen in one of the sixty comfortable rooms of your giant white mansion, when you can watch the action on a fifteen foot screen out in the blistering sun in the middle of your featureless grounds? This TV is a bit steep at $620,000 but they throw in the trained Irish Setter for free to make you appear a bit more humanized and less like the materialistic and vapid creature that you are.

Woo-hoo! Let’s hear it for Trends in Outdoor Living!

 

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Catherine Stewart
Admin
11 years ago

Urgh. I once had to write a story extolling the virtues of outdoor televisions. It was a real exercise in creative thinking and I wish I’d been able to write a different version, like “Can’t get kids off the couch and outside to play? Now they can take the TV with them. Bored stupid listening to your noisy neighbours? Now you can drown them out with an outdoor TV. Sick and tired of that in-your-face 3 dimensionality of the real world? Smack it down to a more manageable 2 with an outdoor TV!”
It reminds me of that great Leunig cartoon of the boy and his father marvelling at a brilliant sunset on their TV, when outside the window is the very same sunset.

Mary Gray
11 years ago

Ha-ha. That is one of the great things about unpaid blogging, isn’t it? I can tell the world how I REALLY feel!

Kim Rabbidge
11 years ago

I agree – pollution in what should be a beautiful environment.

Maybe the only exception that’s legit – in Far North Queensland I’ve seen TVs outside in large family areas undercover – only because that’s where they live most of the year – preferring to be there rather than inside where it’s even hotter – and they don’t like using air-con unless it’s just too hot.

But otherwise – it’s tragic not to enjoy the ‘here and now’.

Mary Gray
11 years ago
Reply to  Kim Rabbidge

I can see that situation, Kim. In areas where truly the majority of a person’s life can be lived outdoors (like parts of California) I can imagine lounging around on a furnished patio and tuning in to Downton Abbey. Where I live the weather is seldom ideal, so all of my outdoor time must be uncorrupted by electronics!

Jennifer Stackhouse
Jennifer Stackhouse
11 years ago

Or look at it this way. It’s got to mean more work for TV repairers and home insurers when the storms, UV, gales, pool splash or cricket ball finally do their work. Actually scrub the last one as the kids will be watching not playing.

Mary Gray
11 years ago

One of my fellow bloggers told me about this guy in Dallas who put a huge indoor TV out in his giant outdoor living space. It had been a chilly evening and so he cranked up his giant fire pit and the quick temp change made the most epic CRACK on his TV screen! Oh, the humanity!

Amanda Mackinnon
11 years ago

Love your post Mary, very funny and so true. Outside TV’s would be my worst nightmare.

Mary Gray
11 years ago

Thank you, Amanda, mine, too! I already hate how TVs influence interior design, including at my house. Everything in our family room, for example, is centered around the TV, all the chairs pointing to it and whatnot. I can only imagine trying to design a landscape around a TV.
🙁

Phileppa Doyle
Phileppa Doyle
11 years ago

I particularly appreciate your blog Mary Gray and absolutely agree with the sentiments of all who have posted a comment here. How appalling to extend the inside out where we’ve become lovers of the outside in concept.

Judi New
11 years ago

OMG, horrible thought!!
Why have a garden at all…
Thanks, Mary for a wonderfully funny article. The sad part to me is that some people will be falling over themselves to get an outdoor TV!

David
David
11 years ago

Thank you Mary for this early warning (it takes a while for some trends to arrive in Melbourne (Australia). The sound of children splashing in the pool can carry for blocks on a warm summer’s night – the prospect of adding the amplified screams and squawks of the Simpson family to the mix hardly bears thinking about!!! And what happens when neighbouring families have different tastes in television programmes?

Peter Nixon
11 years ago

Go Mary Gray … connected to this kind of outdoor accessory is a certain kind of person I have come to know of, who thinks the apex of contribution community, is the auto shut “snap click” sounds of security gates, garage doors and hermetically sealed high security apartment doors. This bleak prospect appears encouraged in all kinds of outdoor electronic creature comforts, COMPLETELY at odds with the intention of most Garden Designers to bring closer connection to the natural visual & sounds of nature …. no ? (silent scream)