Is there something in the Ontario water that causes this? Is it that the radio sucks so badly? Is it Cheeveresque or O’Neillian fear of the family tensions that play themselves out more confrontationally in conversation than in silence?
Why does everyone in Ontario enter their house, remove their shoes and, before even taking off their jacket, turn on the television?
And what is the last thing they do every night? Read a bedtime story to their children? Hit the singles chatroooms? Enjoy a snifter of brandy and a wide-ranging discussion of the physical substance of the various ranks of angels? No.
They turn off the tv.
If there was something we used in Vancouver this much, we’d just have it on a timer or a motion detector, although given the propensity of people to become motionless in front of a television, perhaps that wouldn’t work. Yeah, they could use some of these morning shows to immobilize the enemy, particularly now that the Geneva Conventions are considered unconventional for Americans.
Timer, timer is better. On at 7am, off at midnight.
I have a couple of friends who came from the West but who now live in Ontario, and they, too, have succumbed to this bizzare and disturbing fetishistic behaviour. This, plus the fact that I haven’t the slightest hint of it and my gene pool basically sloshes up and down the Ottawa Valley for the last three hundred years like water in a bowl, is what convinces me it’s something environmental.
And you can bet it’s not the quality of the broadcasts. After two days, that possibility has been thoroughly ruled out.
Now, maybe it’s something in the air of BC, but we out there have a marked tendency to passive-aggressiveness of an almost pathalogical order. Would we ever tell you off? No, perish the thought. Would we see you every day for drinks after work and brunch on Sunday and tell everyone in our running group how much we hate you?
You bet. Much more polite.
So I have developed a unique coping system for visits from Ontarians. You always try to make the place nice for your guests and show off the many ways your town is different from where they live, so that they go home with the definite sense of having actually left home in the first place.
So the first thing I do is I hide the remote.
raincoaster 
I had a friend who came out to Portland from back east last year to stay with me for a while; he didn’t have much going on at home, so he decided to spend the summer in Oregon because he really hadn’t left Alabama very much over the course of the previous few years, and I thought: okay, this will be cool, I haven’t been here long myself so we’ll get out and have some fun and see and do some things that I might not otherwise be that motivated to do, you know?
WRONG! Now, I don’t even have a television in my apartment, because I refuse to and because I can see virtually anything I’d want to see online. But this guy went out and bought an old used TV from a thrift store. The kind you have to hit every few minutes to keep a picture. I have cable because it comes with the internet, but I don’t use it. And every day when I’d get home from work, he’d be in the back room (’cause I wouldn’t have it in the front) and he’d be watching the same g.d. TV shows he could get back home. And I’d say, “Well, let’s go have a beer at X or Y or let’s go do Z,” and the response would always be, “Yeah…..no, that’s alright.”
So, I’m like: why did you come here, space invader? What has my kind to offer you?
My parents, dear souls, are the same way. My dad works all through the week away from home and then comes home on weekends. He’ll spend maybe a few hours doing chores or catching up with grandkids and what not, but whatever else he does, for the whole weekend, simply has to take place in front of the big screen. And my Mom makes stained glass lamps and windows and does a lot of landscaping and construction projects, but every free moment she spends interfacing with FOX News and Oprah.
It’s so scary.
We keep the babble box in the basement for a reason. We laugh at “primitive cultures” who fear that the camera steals a bit of your soul. Then we go watch people behave like total idiots on “Survivor”, and did it end there it’d be okay.
Unfortunately I am inclined to lounge about continuing to watch “whatever’s on”–although in fairness it’s along the top end, quality-wise (no “reality” TV, for a start).
So since the TV’s in the basement I’m now free to waste my time reading and commenting on blogs :-).
I live in Ottawa and I don’t watch TV :)
Not having cable helps a lot. I do have a tendancy to watch things on DVD but that’s more of a concious choice of “what do I want to do now” then opting for the passive state of “do nothing and veg”.
But, Ottawa culture is definitely one of passiveness and sitting on your ass and doing nothing.
You’re in OTTAWA? I’m in Nepean this week. Drop me an email (lorrainedotmurphyatgmaildotcom) and we should rendezvous for lunch or something; I head back to the Wet Coast on Saturday.
To me, DVDs vs TV are like novels vs US Weekly.
But yeah, Ottawa’s big on doing nothing, which explains our government.
I’ll let you know how the week goes, I’m giving it a 20% chance of happening. It would probably end up being around thur/fri.
Just the time I’ll probably be in Barrie. Oh well, maybe next time.
Re. Ottawa and doing nothing: in view of the active, expressive government “over the people, under the people, around the people” going on Down There, I’ll take King Log over King Stork any day.
Ah, and our military is superior as well. Did you hear about Operation Moosehead?
Operation Moosehead
I’d feel better about Moosehead if 1) it was something from Sleeman’s or Okanagan Spring and 2) if the Canadian Forces hadn’t abruptly removed our greatest tactical advantage: beer in the field.
After all–you’re not allowed to have sex in the army anymore, so how else to remember what you’re fighting for?
Okanagan Spring and Sleeman’s are far too Western; everything in the Canadian military, like everything in Canada, has to come from the East, right?
What do you mean you’re not allowed to have sex in the army anymore? They just mean you’re not allowed to have sex with OTHER PEOPLE in the army.
Duh.
Too bad we can’t meet up, but this is such a bad time for me. I’m in the final week of a two year project at work and things aren’t going well.
Well, best of luck with it. I’ve only EVER worked under a brutal deadline, so I’m not the best person for advice.
Perhaps next time. See you in four years. Or ask for a reward retreat at Whistler!