The idiot box

I watch way too much TV. Way too much for my own good. I am sure I watch more TV than the average person. I may even watch more TV than the whole population of Newfoundland. (On a tangent, D finds it fascinating that I have studied the geography of Newfoundland, when the Nuffies, as they are called, are generally a national joke in Canada).

For now, Tuesday is my favourite day. Not Saturday, when the Tilburg town centre is heaving with clubbing Uni students. Not Friday nights when The Grass Company (local posh Coffee Shop) has cheap pasta and uhm, space brownies on the cheap ( I have heard). It is Tuesday because the TV lineup goes like this: Charmed rerun, Friends rerun, SATC rerun, Gilmore Girls, SATC final season, and the OC. On Tuesdays, I get home by 7pm as usual, but instead of sitting my on my comfortable chair (see pic above) with the remote strapped to my wrist to make it easier to channel surf, I just press No 8 on my remote, rush to the kitchen to stick some meat and veg in the oven while Charmed is about to go on, run down to stick cooked meat and veg on a plate during a commercial break, grab some beers from the fridge..and spend a few mind numbing hours in front of my trusted companion.

Why do I watch so much TV here ? I don't think I watched that much TV in KL. I did not have Astro in my room and I hardly used my cheapo VCD player. Oh, but I was hardly at home... There are 29 terrestrial channels available to me here, but I can only watch a few, such as BBC 1 and 2, CNN, MTV, Discovery Channel, and a few others on Channel 5, 9, and 8 (my fave), as they have quite a few English programmes. I don't really bother with the others as they mostly have Dutch programmes. I know I should tune in to try and improve my non-existent Dutch, but heck, life is too short for me to spend 30 minutes trying to figure out the Dutch version of ER. Maybe I watch more TV because there is always something interesting to watch. With less channels, I spend less time surfing. With more channels, I tend to get this feeling that there must be something better on the other channels. So, with my limited choice I am able to convince myself that I MUST tune in to that Discovery programme which will teach me how to survive in Arctic conditions, how to build a fire, how to hydrate myself...because God knows, if ever I am lost in the mountains of Norway, that knowledge will save my life. Btw, I also know how to survive in desert if my car breaks down while offroading and how to survive in the plains of Africa, Masai style. As I said, I watch waaaayy too much TV.

I put it down to guilt. I mean, I feel guilty when I read a book. Strange, but true. My work now comprises reading and writing. Not the fun stuff though, the boring law and economics stuff. If not reading a journal article, I should be writing an analysis of article. If not writing, then I should be looking for more articles to analyse. To be honest, I am so very sick of the words venture capital and private equity. And I wish I could go home and snuggle up under the covers with a good book. But when I do, I am always thinking that I should be reading that article I downloaded from SSRN, or that new chapter my supervisor wrote for his book. So what do I do, I switch on the TV to drown out those voices in my head telling me to read "Personal Insolvency Law and the Demand for Venture Capital by John Armour". So I blame my addiction to the idiot box on my job.

My younger brother works in Switzerland. He has 60 channels at his disposal. If he is lucky he may be able to get one movie late at night which is not dubbed in German/French. I am so glad I am in Tilburg where MTV, CNN and the wonderful Discover channel is Free.