Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Not much bread but plenty of circuses

As crap as CNN is, I haven't changed the channel for months. This is a pattern with me. When I lived in New York, my fingers knew only 1 button on my remote control: the ON/OFF button. "ON" meant NY1, totally repetitive and in some weird way, soothing. While CNN is not so soothing, especially lately, the truth is I haven't watched TV like a regular person since I was an undergraduate.

I'd just returned home after some important errands, one of which was picking up my potassium cyanide (I mean potassium iodide!) pills, which I was able to get because I have access to the US base here and they're handing them out now (just in case). In all likelihood, they will go into my emergency back-pack "stash", next to the champagne, thus filling an important lacuna in my survival toolkit.

After making sure I knew what these pills were all about, and miming putting them in a climate-controlled container that will maintain them at the recommended temperature, I found myself channel surfing in an attempt to get away from the gloom and doom of the news. Am sure it's just in my mind, but could swear some CNN announcers looked as if they were suppressing the kind of joy that I associate with discovering that it's Christmas all over again while reporting that smoke was issuing from two reactors in Fukushima. But they are consummate professionals, so I know it was just me being peevish.)

Changing the channel was perhaps a mistake. I ended up watching an "isn't it wild and crazy what people with nothing better to do decide to video for our viewing pleasure" show. Particularly impressive was the segment featuring a guy in spandex shorts throwing a lap top towards another guy--also in spandex shorts, who "caught" it between his butt cheeks multiple times. TV is always surreal here, at least to me (dang language barrier!) but tonight's piece (of ass) took the cake. Lesson of the day: as much as possible, stick with your established routines.

In other news: Still working my way through boxed wine -- which predictably tastes exactly the same as when I opened it almost a week. Do have champagne chilling though! Think it's time to go hunting for a remote that meets my needs: ON/OFF.

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