Dispatch from the Forbidden Zone - I want my MTV!
Actually, they do have MTV out here in the Oklahoma wilds, where we find ourselves this week, but it’s kind of interesting what the local cable system doesn’t have.
Before we left Fayetteville I called to arrange to have cable in the house, as we will be making several trips in the next few months to work on the estate, and to prepare the house either for sale or to rent out. I asked the young woman at the cable company about what channels might be offered in Elk City.
Bravo? No.
Comedy Central? No.
BBC America? By this time, I think she may have been close to tears, as she told me that she had never heard of such a creature. For one wild moment I thought of asking if they offered Al Jazeera, but didn’t feel like having police surveillance on the house while we were there, so I didn’t.
So instead, we got basic cable.
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But this is what they really want to watch in Elk City
The guy who installed the cable, phone and Internet was friendly and professional, and we had a good talk about the town, and his frustrations with some what might be considered “old fashioned” business attitudes in the city. He told ne that in some ways the city was very progressive, but in others it still had to catch up to the 21st Century.
Of course, I had to whine about cable channels. Hey, he was the cable guy, after all.
He sympathized with the fact that Comedy Central was not offered, and that others felt the same way. He said his boss was trying to get the channel offered to subscribers.
He also said that the number one cable channel requested by Elk Citians is something called RFD - a channel devoted to all things rural, including lots of shows about tractor pulls. To read more about RFD:
http://www.kten.com/Global/story.asp?S=7144018
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Walmart News,. Oh boy!
It’s always good to know that wherever you go in this great land of ours, you can click on the website of the Northwest Arkansas Times and find a section called “Walmart News” - I suspect this is a carry-over from their owners, the Arkansas-Democrat-Gazette.
A lot of the news goes back a year and a half.
Why the special treatment for Wally World, and no other companies? Why not Tyson News? University of Arkansas News?
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An American Life on Mars - will it be as good?
The premiere of the ABC version of Life on Mars begins tonight, and I am curious to see what it may be like. Tracy and I were big fans of the original BBC series, and we’ll be watching this one, to see how it compares.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars_(TV_series)
It’s always a crap shoot, translating an English show into American, so to speak.
Till Death Us Do Part became All in the Family, and Steptoe and Son became Sanford and Son. Both were big hits, as well as The Office.
But then we have the awful version of Coupling - the less said about that, the better, I think.
Life on Mars is on against another retread, an American verison of the great Patrick Stewart series, The Eleventh Hour, on CBS.
I just hope we never see on American version of Doctor Who, or Torchwood.
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Quote of the Day
Everyone is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. - Elbert Hubbard
