Midnight Woes

As previously mentioned and/or implied, i do not have cable. I'm usually okay with this. I'm even more okay with this now that a little black box of amazing, called the "Digital Converter" has been invented. As long as it's not storming, or accidentally unplugged, the DC provides me with a pretty impressive collection of free channels. Besides the regular network ones, i get a bunch of fake NotCable channels, which offer how-to-sew shows, cooking with a norweigan chef, and educational childrens' programming. There are also quite a few spanish channels and some god channels (neither of which are my cup of tea, but it's free, and beggars can't be channel choosers).

My only problem with NotCable (if you have, or have ever had, NotCable, get ready to identify with me...), is that I always forget the one channel, created specifically to destroy me. I call this channel the BadChannel. This is the channel that gets my hopes up, and then crushes them like a mortar and pestle crush toasted coriander seeds.

The BadChannel is the one you'd most likely come across some time after midnight when you had tried every get-sleepy trick, but not one of them has worked. Now's not the time to do any of the activities reserved for daytime (working, calling a friend, going for a jog, etc). The only thing that walks the line between acceptable to do late at night and acceptable to do when you are wide awake, is watch tv, but nothing seems to be on...

You'd probably have flipped through all of your channels by now, but found nothing worth watching except maybe the documentary, already half-over, and not looking like it's going to give up any clues about what happened in the first half. You'd decide to flip through all of the channels one more time. (The 'last flip through' strategy works the same way as the one that involves driving around the same block hoping a parking spot will open up RIGHT in front of the restaurant, knowing it won't but hoping it does.)

During your last flip-through... it happens. You see William H. Macy. You say to yourself "that guy's a pretty good actor. I wonder what this is, how far into it is, and whether i am actually awake enough to watch the whole thing if i get into it." You're about to turn up the volume, when you realize that he's wearing a brown puffy coat. And there's something outside the window in this scene--something... White. Snow? Snow! This is--could it really be... And in walks... Frances McDormand! Where's the toy remote?! WherE IS the toY REMOTE!??? IT'S FARGO! I LOVE FARGO!!!! FARGO IS ON NOTCABLE AT MIDNIGHT!!! I HOPE I HAVE NOT MISSED THE WOODCHOPPER SCENE!!!!!!! WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT FUCKING REMOTE!!?!?!

Then you find the remote, and, because it is a weird notcable remote, it takes you a while to find the volume up button, which is not in the place where one would assume a volume button would be.

You click on the Volume Up Button. You Hold Down on the Volume Up button

Suddenly, and with very little warning, your hopes are coriander'd.

Fargo. Is. Not. Supposed. To. Be. In. JAPANESE!!!!!!!!!

You, my notcable friend, have wound up on the BadChannel (NotCable HELL, where the Devil is probably Clint Eastwood with the high-pitched voice of a young Chinese lad--since BadCable gets off on good things dubbed in bad languages.)

The BadChannel was created (not sure by who yet) to teach a lesson those of us that refuse to grow up and pay cable. They play the best movies when we need them most and we've run out of options. They dub said movies in every language BUT english (I suspect they employ a JRR Tolkien type to make up languages and dub movies in them just to piss us off). They don't even have the courtesy to dub in spanish, which many of us know at least well enough to watch Fargo after midnight.

If this ever happens to both of you again, I'm probably up. Feel free to call me. We'll pick up our respective toy remotes and work through blocking the BadChannel (and the god channels) together. Or we'll talk each other into finally ordering cable.