I was at work, in the middle of a huge order, when the power went out. We lost everything: phones, computers, ovens, air conditioning. Oh, God, the air conditioning. And it wasn't one of those cute power outages where it's dark just long enough for someone to scream. This was the real deal. We ran out of things to do after about twenty minutes (cleaning bathrooms by flashlight? Not fun.), so it got really boring (and really hot) after that. We're a group of people who expect to be running constantly for hours at a time, so an inability to do much of anything is disconcerting. We can only fold so many boxes before we start to go insane. When all was said and done, the power was out for an hour and a half.
Why? Something about a substation. I don't know. All I know is it's fucking annoying because I have to reset all my clocks AND the VCR five days before I move. I HATE resetting the VCR because while it may only take the average person fifteen seconds or so to punch in the time, it takes me at least a week to calibrate.
Whatever time I set has to be relative to start and end times of whatever I'm taping, which is quite a lot these days. I'll spend days tweaking the timer record for Regis and Kelly. I finally figured out just last week the exact run of The Amazing Race, and now I have to start over again two weeks before the finale. I'm sure I'll forget to reset one of the Law & Orders or something, which won't piss me off until I realize it around September. And no matter how hard I try, I can never get Jeopardy right because the local station keeps changing the start time just to mess with my head. Usually I take all this stuff in stride, but I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall trying to rebuild something that will only last until the weekend anyway before I have to start all over again.
Yeah, yeah, I know, why am I making a big hairy deal about my VCR when there are children who don't even have TVs in India, but it's not like I have anything else better to do. Yeah, I have a job, but the power goes out all the time for no reason. Weren't you paying attention before?
And while I'm on the subject of annoying-ass things about television, it's PBS pledge month. Again. I know! These things never end, which wasn't a big deal back when all I watched on PBS was Frontline, but I've developed a taste for BBC World News (because I'm so well-rounded), and they're bouncing it around the schedule like one of those giant balls at Wal-Mart. Grr. What do they think they're accomplishing by turning all these Doo Wop retrospectives into giant informercials? And has anybody seen this Globe Trekker show they have on now? What the hell is that even about? It's always on in the middle of the night and I can never seem to make it past the opening titles. But I swear to God, if I catch so much as a glimpse of another Suze Orman special, I'm putting a boot through the TV.
Without my BBC World News, I have to watch CBS Up to the Minute, but that Melissa girl is on vacation or something and they've replaced her with some boring, monotonous drone. Like, if I wanted to be bored to sleep, I'd watch Elimidate.
I can't wait until next week when I move into the dorm and reconnect with my old friend, precious, precious cable. Of course, the cable system sucks my left nut (what do you mean, NO BRAVO?!) and I'm not going to be able to pay for some decent channels (since when are TNT and Comedy Central extra?), so I'll be buzzin' on some Golf Channel before too long, but maybe I'll get out of my dorm room long enough to make some friends who share my psychotic videotape whatever. Worst case scenario, I break down around January and chip in for Showtime: No Limits. Except my dwindling bank account.
Someone got here by searching for: COMMERCIALS QUIZZES Reading: Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining, that book Judge Judy wrote that got her fired from her first job or something. Yes, that's a total shout-out, R. Listening to: The Rollye James Show. It's back, baby. Watching: The O.C., which is officially my show. Packing: Everything, because I'm moving on Saturday. There's so much stuff, and yet, not really. All I know is I can't swing a dead cat around by its tail without hitting a cardboard box.
