Static

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I have no channels. I’ve got a TV, yet I can’t receive any broadcasts. Ever since the satellite company decided to change their setup, my channels are gone. They did it because a lot of people were watching illegally at the time. I guess they had a point, at least in my case. It has been almost two years now without television for me.

They did warn me though. By the time the first two channels disappeared I got suspicious. I finally took the time to examine the flashing green light on my satellite-receiver. It was flashing for a week or two now, but everything still worked so I never took notice. Until now. The flashing green light turned out to be a message saying I had to upgrade or else I wouldn’t be able to watch anymore.

Now upgrading costs money and I had no job. This meant no money, which came down to static on my TV.

The hardest thing about having no channels is that you have nothing to zap between. This might sound weird, but it’s what I miss the most. Just laying down on my couch in lazy-mode, zapping through the channels. I’d travel from nifty Tell-Sell products to call-game gals whose sheer intellect made me move on to talk shows and reality-TV. Know what I mean? I’m talking about the feeling you get when you realize everything you zap to is even worse than where you zapped from. I miss that feeling. It made me feel superior.

“Order NOW! You won’t regret it, this is the only stuff you’ll ever need! Order NOW and you will also receive…”, ZAP!

“Call NOW! This money could be yours! But you have to call NOW! Just…”, ZAP!

“So how was it to enter that clubhouse, being the first black member of the ku klu klan?”, ZAP!

“Keep on watching Anal Island! After the break Betty gets her first double enema and George discovers his g-sp..”, ZAPZAPZAP!

It’s good to be king.

But now I’m a king without a country. The only thing I zap through at the moment is static and my underwear. Sometimes I even zap static through my underwear, but that’s a very different story. A funnier one too, probably…

There are also benefits. I now have the time to do other, more constructive things with my life. For example, I became a level 56 darkelf thief in the computer game ‘Morrowind’. I also saved the country from vampires. I also re-invented the nap.

However, I do get something out of it. I’m no longer being brainwashed and irritated by commercials and how they interrupt films in TV-land. This is what it boils down to folks. I’m not a slave to the media anymore. I have a friend who found this out years ago, he doesn’t watch commercials out of principle. Now I understand.

But it also means that I can’t have ‘normal’ conversations with some of my colleagues anymore: “Hey, you know that commercial with that silly dog? Then that guy wipes his nose with the thing and then…” – “I can’t receive any channels on my TV at home, so…”

(insert very questionable look on person’s face here)

By now this person usually turns around if anyone else has seen it. Someone always has. Then they share the joy of reminiscing the funny thing they both saw, which effectively ends the conversation for me. This is when I look around with the standard face-expression of a domestic cow emptying its bowels while chewing grass.

I’m not into sports, so no harm done there. Some of my friends would need adrenaline-shots to get out of bed every morning if they couldn’t watch sports. I’m not kidding, they are really into it. One of them once threw a pair of scissors towards his television when his favorite team was losing. We had to watch TV with a hole in the screen for years.

Another friend has a LCD-screen in his kitchen. He has too much money.

But now I make enough money, I could go to the satellite-shop this very day, and buy hundreds of channels at a reasonable price. I just don’t do it. I’m afraid of losing my television-independency again. Never watching anything means I can’t miss anything. Freedom is what counts.

And it’s always fun to freak people out with the fact that you didn’t see the last Idols episode because you can’t receive any channels at home. You can actually hear their brain cells trying to make new connections to cope.

Zap zap zap…

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Opgeslagen onder Columns [English]