You know you're a TV anorak when...

It's a while since we last had a thread like this, and I'm bored this afternoon, so thought I'd start one.

You know you're a TV anorak when...

1. You know the names of regional news presenters for regions other than your own.

2. You book a day off work because a favourite channel is rumoured to be getting a new look. When you find it hasn't relaunched, you spend the rest of the day looking through video-tapes of old idents and news titles.

3. You can't remember family birthdays, but you do know the date when News 24 relaunched last.

4. You correct the aspect ratio on friends' televisions when they're not looking.

5. On a trip to Birmingham with your partner, you suggest visiting The Mailbox because you have "heard that there are some nice shops and places to eat there". In truth, you want to go to the BBC and buy a Midlands Today mug.

feel free to add...

6 You know the official names of idents (i.e. BBC Tapdogs / Channel Four Alien Invasion)

7 Your hard drive is half-full of RealMedia files from TVHome, TV Room and TV Ark, all renamed, catalogued and dated

On that note, why do tv's let you watch pictures in the wrong aspect ratio? It annoys me to see peopledo this! (mabe thats just me )

1) In case a source material is being broadcast differently - like last night's football or the olympics. Why watch BBC1 in 16:9 on a 4:3 TV when it's a 4:3 picture being broadcast in the 1st place?

2) So that you don't have to keep switching ratios if you're watching DTT via a RF loop - Setting a 16:9 TV to "WIDE" and then switching to Sky News - which is 4:3 - produces a distorted picture.

You hope for 60 second countdowns on News 24 at the top of each hour, and that the bloke does not talk over the music on the top of the hour on Sky News.

9) Your computer is filled with clean music files from various channels.

10) You happen to pass by a BBC building and pull up to collect your copy of Aerial (the BBC's in house magazine for staff)

11) You stay up late to watch the Ceefax with elevator muzak playing in the background.

12) Your roof is covered in satellite dishes and you have about 5 different satellite receivers and a bank of TV sets to watch presentation from various TV channels worldwide.

You have some form of ident/news/television music on your iPod

The first website you visit when you log onto the internet is TV Forum

You try weaving TV presentation topics into everyday conversations with people who don't have a clue what an ident is.

16) You buy a copy of the BBC News at 50 DVD...

4a. You intervene when you overhear a Dixons shop assistant telling a customer that "when you have a widescreen TV you get used to people's heads being chopped off" when the customer queried the range of stretched, squashed and cropped pictures displayed on the bank of televisions in front of her, NONE of them correctly configured. And the assistant didn't know how to change the aspect ratio on any of them.

[Happened to me yesterday]

Good for you. The revolution starts here!



...which reminds me...

17. You've made an animated .gif of a TV ident which you use as a mobile phone screensaver. You also have the matching jingle as your ringtone. [Not that I'm speaking from experience, of course! ]

18. When you have a mood swing if you miss an ident that you see everyday.

19. The only reason you watch a news channel is for the presentation

When your watching TV with a group of people and suggest them turning over to News 24 just so you "can see the headlines", but really you only want to see the countdown