Busy Work Programming

When I have some tedious task that I can't put off any longer, I can't do it in silence. I'm normally not the type of person who has to have the television or radio on all the time. I like the silence as it helps me mentally focus. But when it's a task that I can pretty much do on autopilot, then my brain is going to want something to occupy it while the rest of me works from muscle memory. That's where my busy work programming comes in handy.

My current programming of choice is The Big Bang Theory. I've watched every episode and have the first four seasons on DVD. When I've got something annoying but necessary to do, I'll just pop in a disk, hit the play all, and get to work. Since I've already seen the episode, I'm not compelled to watch or really pay attention. It's like going on a long car trip with my brain in the back seat with a DVD of Finding Nemo. I get the job done without my brain interrupting every five minutes to ask me "Are you done yet?"

Play All

If you've ever bought a television series on DVD, you know that the "Play All" option is a modern marvel. Rather than have to press a series of buttons every 22 or 44 minutes, you can simply hit that button and enjoy four to eight episodes right in a row. It's a fantastic feature, but alas, it's not always included.

What happens when you eagerly unwrap your series, pop it in, and discover that you can't hit play all? That every time you want to watch a new episode you have to hit the back button once or even twice, wait for the menu to load, navigate that menu to the next episode, hit enter to bring up the title screen, wait for the next screen to load, hit enter again to bring up the episode screen, then wait until you can navigate to the "Play episode" button.