Back among the T.V. watching hordes...

You may recall that I'm always on about how -- when I moved to France seven years ago -- I gave up dependence on the car. (If you missed it, see here and here.) Well, it's a lesser-known fact that in the same fit of bourgeois bohemian purity we also gave up the oh-so-twentieth-century habit of television in favor of the Internet and just watching DVDs on the computer.

Why?

Mostly because the Internet is my imaginary friend and to a lesser degree because of my theory that T.V. is the root of all evil whereas the Internet will save us all. (And if you somehow missed that one, it's here. Me and my wacky theories -- how did I forget to make a "my wacky theories" subject label?!) That and I don't like to have McDonald's marketing crap-disguised-as-food directly to my kids.

We were such purists! In fact, the last time we stayed in a hotel my 4-year-old Léo pointed at the T.V. and said "Mommy, can you put a movie on the computer?" That was cool. Sadly our freakishly T.V.-free lifestyle has come to an end.

Here in Zürich, we've temporarily moved into a furnished apartment, and no living room can properly be called "furnished" without a flat-screen T.V.!! (Not in Zürich anyway.) Note that our living room back in Bordeaux was not "furnished" in any reasonable sense of the word, even though Nico did help us decorate a bit:


Grandma drew the calendar and Nico provided the hand-penciled "Wiggles" logo.

Actually, back then I tried to avoid posting (or even taking) pictures of the inside of our house because it looked like this:


I like to call this one "We're trying not to raise him too close to godliness..."

But what the heck, now that we've used up that old house to the point where we had to abandon it and move, I guess I can post one more photo of it:



This is, of course, why we used to spend all out time outdoors:





But I digress.

Back to this crazy T.V. thing -- I have to admit it's much more entertaining here where all the programs are dubbed into German. Which I don't understand. (But I'm working on it!)

So, I admit it -- the other night my kids and I were basking in the warm glow of the boob tube, mouth-open-mesmerized trying to comprehend the Germanized version of "Hannah Montana." It was kind of interesting. It's simple enough that you can kind of figure out what's going on even without understanding the words, and I'm not sure I missed much. Given the loud and obtrusive laugh-track, I'm guessing they have to clue people in to which parts are funny because it wouldn't be obvious otherwise.

Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to watching "Bob der Baumeister." :D