International Woes

Here at TV Sluts, we are always on the lookout for a roving reporter. First we had Cheryl, reporting on the Glee tour from Dallas, and now we have someone giving our blog a little international flavor. Specifically, letting us know what a giant pain in the ass it is trying to watch American television in another country. Here's an update from Pete, currently living in Switzerland (mmm...chocolate), who took some time to update us all on the trial and tribulations of a fanboy who lives abroad. PS: It's also Pete's birthday today, so a big Happy Birthday goes out to him from across the Atlantic!

Hi everybody, my name is Pete, a college friend of some of you all. Right now I am stationed in Europe taking data for my dissertation. For those curious, the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen Switzerland has the best Pion beam in the world. Since I study pion decay, here I am. For the uber curious I am studying radiative decay modes using the stopped beam approach with a 3pi-steradian pure CsI calorimeter. (Editor's note-you lost me at Pion. Also, "pion." tee hee hee!).

While data taking is way more fun that it sounds like (in actuality it's not) I can't spend all of my time in the experimental hall. When I get home I want to unwind and relax. But there is a problem. My place here does not have a tv! So what am I to do? Watching no tv is simply not an option. Hulu? Not a chance, when you try to load a video a nice mesage appears:

Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States

Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtaining international streaming rights. Know that we are working to make this happen and will continue to do so. Given the international background of the Hulu team, we have both a professional and personal interest in bringing Hulu to a global audience.

If you'd like, please leave us your email address and the region in which you live, and we will email you when our videos are available in your area.

Having been thwarted by the mothership I had to resort to drastic measures. Back home I have a friend who built a tivo (it's a mythbox for teh nerds out there). He puts the files of my favorite shows up and I can just rsync them to my net book.

Now that I can watch any TV I'm set to go, but wait. With whom am I going to discuss/make fun of the episodes? I don't know if you have ever watched an episode of Dollhouse or Top Chef by yourself, but if so then you know what I'm talking about. For those that have not, try it just once. You will soon realize that the pain caused by these shows is too great to keep in. Television is ridiculous sometimes and you just need a friend to say WTF.

My solution to the problem is gchat. I open a chat to a friend in the states who has already seen the episode and fire away. I am not a psychologist so I don't know why it is such a relief to know that someone else can't stand how stupid a certain character is, but it is.

I guess I really didn't realize it before, but my international isolation has shown me that television watching is a social activity and I need my friends who watch the same shows. I'm not a "loser" for staying home on a friday night to watch tv. I'm a friend who can't wait to watch tv on a friday night because OMG!!!!!11! WE GET TO FIND OUT WHO THE FINAL CYLON IS!