Boob tube.

When we first moved here, Husband and I went straight to Darty to buy ourselves a new European TV. If that sentence makes no sense to you, it’s OK — I’ll translate: Darty is the French equivalent of Best Buy. Here’s a tip: Don’t ever, EVER attempt to return something to Darty, unless you want to join lots of cranky old ladies quibbling over 30 centimes in the 7th circle of hell.

And we needed a whole new TV, because American TVs won’t work over here. I don’t know why they don’t work, but my guess is that Sony and Panasonic have formed a brilliant conspiracy to screw expats.

Anyway, we hauled this new TV 10 blocks home, hooked it up to cable and haven’t turned it on since. Mind you, we tried to sit down every night and watch French news, to better our minds. But I kept falling asleep face first in my plate and it turns out foie gras is not good for your complexion.

Then I tried to give some of the other channels a chance. But France seems to offer nothing other than:

1. News debate shows

2. CSI dubbed into French

3. Soccer

Sliiiiiiiim pickins. Although once I did find Eddie Murphy in The Golden Child dubbed into French (highly entertaining) and just last night I stumbled across an episode of Code Quantum (Scott Bakula en Francais anyone?)

Needless to say, we haven’t watched much TV over the past two years. Except now that I’m home most of the day with a baby attached to my boob, I find myself desperately reaching for the remote and hoping that something remotely good will be on one of the 3 sad English channels.

CNN International is good in the morning, but tends to run on a constant loop, so I’ve seen the same “African Voices” segment 30 times. And that Becky Anderson lady’s wardrobe sears my retinas with it’s garishness.

BBC News is very reliable. But so. Incredibly. Monotone. And Boring. They could use some of Becky’s outfits to liven things up a bit.

That leaves BBC Entertainment. Which sounds entertaining, right? And it would be, if they didn’t show Eastenders at least 4 times a day. I know it comes on 4 times a day because it’s right after The Weakest Link and my all time favorite, Doctors. Doctors is kind of like ER, but it all takes place in the fast-paced world of family medicine. At a clinic. In the suburbs!

So, to sum things up: I am totally justified in downloading all 7 seasons of Entourage and 3 seasons of 30 Rock from iTunes. And when Husband’s head explodes when he sees our credit card bill reflecting that TV spending spree, I would kindly ask you to point him to this blog post. Thank you.