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Friday night TV Wars....

Seems odd to be writing about this now, as today is the first Friday night in weeks that there hasn't been a TV war.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been doing my best not to drink beer and, since I haven't been upcountry for a month or so, every Friday night has gone something like this..
- leave school
- bum around at home for a bit, checking e-mail etc...
- take the ferry over the river and visit the guys from my old work
- get home (9pm-ish...)
- fetch my laptop from upstairs
- try and watch a TV programme called Chris Delivery...
- play around on the net for a bit. Update this weblog.
- go to sleep.

It's normally pretty quiet and uneventful except one bit. The "try to watch TV" part. I say 'try to watch' as trying to watch a TV program in the place where I live is not that easy. The actual 'watching' bit goes something like this.
- check to see if no one else is watching the TV
- turn channel over
- hear some people bitching in Thai about the fact that I've turned the channel (which they weren't even watching) over
- hear cleaners bitching very loudly in Thai (rhetorical question of the day:- why do the cleaners where I live find it impossible to talk quietly amongst themselves?) about the fact that I've turned the channel over
- turn volume up slightly (so I can actually hear the TV instead of the cleaner's wingeing)
- sit down and try to watch
- listen to other people start to bitch about why on earth the foreigner has put a TV program on when she can't even understand it.
- watch someone else turn the channel over to the crappy soap opera on channel 3.
- say 'Excuse me - I was watching that !' to whoever turned the channel over. Change the channel back.
- Listen as even more people bitch loudly in Thai.
- Watch as the channel is changed back over.
- Go up to TV and change the channel back again.

Repeat infinitum until around 10pm (or, for any other program that you may want to watch, until the program ends...)

I normally end up going to the program's website and watching the entire show again online, just so that I can hear it...

This has happened every Friday night for the last month or so. I'm used to it now... But, this time things were different... There was no TV War.
Today things went something like this.

- got home around 9pm
- Sat and chatted to my friend T
- Turned channel over ready for Chris Delivery. Turned volume up.
- Watched a bit of the program
- Listened to some ask to turn the volume down. They're trying to read and it's too loud for them. They can't concentrate.
- Watched the same girl who asked to turn the volume down start watching the program.
- Notice that 4 or 5 other people where I live are watching the program too.
- Walked past the cleaner during the commerical break
- watched the cleaner's 'I'm really p*ss*d off but I'm not going to show it' grin. She couldn't complain about missing her Friday channel 3 fix, as other Thai people were watching the program too. If she had bitched about them, they would have understood every word.

It was bizarre. I managed to watch most of the program OK. For the 1st time ever. At the end one girl came up to me and asked me whether the program is on every week or not.

I'm still in shock.

Create Date : 07 กันยายน 2550

Last Update : 8 กันยายน 2550 0:05:18 น.

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