So, I haven’t had cable or satellite television for over a year and a half. I didn’t miss it for the longest time, but recently I’ve been thinking it would be nice to have it back. Watching tv is one of the cheaper alternatives when I’m bored, and it’s pretty inconvenient to “borrow” other peoples’ couches if there’s something you really want to see. However, since money’s as tight as my weave* I won’t be getting cable anytime soon.
Nevertheless, when talking to my boyfriend on the cellular mobile phone yesterday, I heard Wheel of Fortune in the background and became jealous. I jumped to action! I reconnected my digital bunny ears to my tv, and set it to start searching for channels. I waited and watched, quivering with anticipation. Would any channels show up? The scan percentage ticked by, 25%, 52%, 86%. I was stoked to find that I had 10 digital channels and 1 analog. I crossed my fingers that I’d soon be watching Wheel of Fortune, guessing letters and sharing with the contestants’ annoyance over their horrible excuses for clues.
Clue: “Thing”
_ _ _ _ D_ _
_ _ _ K _ _
_ R _ _ B _ _ _
“Ahh! ‘Holiday cookie crumbles’! I should have known!”
Worst. Clues. Ever. I still love it.
Anyway, as it turns out, I have two channels below channel 18, and these are channels 5.1 and 5.2, which I’m pretty sure only exist in some robot’s fantasy. Of the other channels I can get in my apartment, three are Korean, one is Armenian, one is I’m fairly certain in Yiddish, and at least three are in Spanish. As it turns out, I’m a little rusty with my Korean, Armenian, and Yiddish. So my options are turn on one of these stations and white-noise-tune-out, or try my hand at the Spanish and English stations. Of these stations, one is a strange, B-level movie channel, a few seem to be local public access, and one is a Spanish channel that frequently shows “Top 5” lists that show 5-second clips of songs in between commercials, and has English MTV shows in Spanish closed caption. Clearly the latter was my best hope.
I made myself dinner, a fine leftover/hot pocket/watermelon combo, and turned on and tuned in. What was on the telly? None other than “16 and pregnant”. I recognized this girl on the show because recently on some gossip sites there have been clips of her beating the shit out of her baby daddy. I was intrigued. What could have precipitated this shocking display of violence towards someone that’s shared her Lady Garden
Anyway, I finished this television experience feeling a little dirty and a little disgusted. Kind of like my television had just sexually harassed me, but I was still too confused to report it to my HR rep. It reaffirmed my previously held belief that tv shows today are mostly shit. I certainly can and will give respect when respect is due, but most reality shows today are simply awful. And they are everywhere. It feels like writers just gave up. “Why write something witty and entertaining when I can just put a camera on this asshole and they’ll douche it up like there’s no tomorrow? You know, because if there was no tomorrow, who wouldn’t want to go out swinging like a dick-face?! Now that’s entertainment!”
*sigh* So as long as these are my only television options, I’ll probably continue to not watch much. Either that or I’ll learn Korean.
*I don’t have a weave. But it would be awesome if I did because a) waiting for my hair to grow out when I’ve cut it short, sucks and takes for-ever and b) then I could say cool things like, “My weave is sweatin’” and be sincere. Also, I’m fairly certain this would be my ticket to looking like Kim Kardashian.**
**No, it wouldn’t.
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