Day 5 - second-hand smoke

The world around me doesn't share my goal for a media-free June. I feel like someone who is trying to quit smoking but that hangs out in smoky bars and lives with a family of smokers.

Inevitably, you breath in some of the second-hand smoke. The level of your resolve is determined by whether or not you take a big breath when walking through the tobacco cloud.

Here are a some of the ways that my world is clouded with 2nd-hand media:

1. Other family members watching TV - usually the kids. I have to confess that I've let my ear linger a moment or two while one of them was watching an episode of Family Guy.
2. My wife does a lot of work with her iTunes. She's putting together a CD of Italian songs for a friend's birthday. Since the computer is in our bedroom, I hear the songs all the time.
3. Visiting web sites. Even though I'm only visiting "business" web sites like eBay, they have advertisements on them for movies and TV shows.
4. This morning a construction worker was parked outside my office blaring his country music from his truck.
5. Billboards on the road as I drive to and from work.
   
6. Magazines everywhere: at the convenience store check out, at the grocery store, at Target, lying around the house. You can't get away from them. So, even though I'm on a media lock-out, I still know the headline that talks about Bill and Hillary's $109M divorce.
7. Eating lunch. Almost every place I eat has music playing and some have TVs on the wall.