Monday, November 27, 2006

And there was much meretricious superficiality

A bit of excitement has entered my life. If losing my job, and finding a new and improved one were not excitement enough, on top of chasing down the 4 cats and 3 kids, we just got cable after 5 years of living in a 5 channel universe. The rationale was simple, the plug that we stick our trust our trusty old rabbit years into had some sort of a short in it, making a wicked and tremendously annoying GZZZZZZZZZT sound every 3 minutes or so. So shocking that it took the fun out of the 2 channels that we already watched. Eric spent a good two days doing research on the wacky sort of plans that the company offers, the one that charges you an arm and a leg for a hundred channels of shite - I didn't even get A&E or TLC. Now that I have cable, I am glad that I didn't beg and whine for the extra channels. Did you know that A&E is now the 24 hour CSI:Miami channel? I swear, every time that I surf by its luring blackness, CSI:Miami is scheduled. And TLC turned from a channel with fascinating historical and archaeology documentaries to alot of meretricious superficiality rife with car pimping and make-overs. Gah! But I get to surf! And to know that I have missed absolutely NOTHING these past 5 years...except now I get to pine and titter and watch House and not have to squint throught the poor reception snow and the annoying Gzzzzzt's. Of course, the commercials have been a great source of entertainment, since I am really out of the loop as to what our American compadres are transmitting to millions of households. Lets talk about the inanity of the morning talk show. Good Morning Boston! Not that I particularily enjoyed them at any point in my television past, but now its all about Shopping....buy this, more that bigger and better gizmos, heres whats happening at the mall. It's all surreal...like you think you ought to be watching a biting satire but know with certainty that these programs are dead serious. And then when Eric and I were hunkered down to watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the Rick Mercer report, we get a PSA from the trusty new government of Canada. Promoting this flyer. Eric and I promptly looked at each other and said WTF? And then we remembered, that our new technicolored 135 channels of drivel is within the new Canadian conservative era. Yay for us. Now I have to go and prepare my emergency survival kit. I mean the commercial said that hundred and oodles and gaggles of Canadians, grinning with day-glo veneers, with their perfectly pressed kid, obedient and clean dogs would also be getting prepared. They are all doing it! (I took a peek at the pics in this flyer and they look frighteningly similar to the photos taken in the '50s of kids being trained for a nuclear missile attack).
You just never know...as they say. Smell that? Smells like


fear.


4 comments:

Arwen said...

OK, I will say in the US our emergency preparedeness is usually only one page: get water, batteries, diapers and bread... and a weather radio. Got that? ok, you're all set.
The rest (of TV) is shlock. except House, that's good. And Dr Who. and Weeds. and Dexter. I think I might watch toomuch tv.

Hotboy said...

I didn't know you had earthquakes in Canada, or typhoons. Learn something every day, eh? What you really need is a lobotomy to improve the telly! Hotboy

TrudyJ said...

Wow, I saw the ad for emergency preparedness too and thought, "That's odd."

We still haven't succumbed to cable though. Given my opinions about the Decline of Western Civ I'm pretty sure being exposed to the entire panoply of what's on TV would just make my brain explode.

Anonymous said...

where are you? have you been sucked into the world of cable TV?