The Telly

When we were talking about the move to London, one of the things I declared was that I wanted to go more digital and have less stuff. This meant breaking my addiction to shiny plastic circles of various forms, as well as shifting even more towards the Kindle from books. It also meant that I was finally going to figure out how to make streaming work for us. With that in mind, we decided not to get cable and just go with streaming, some form of netflix-like service, and broadcast TV.

The last of those takes the form of Freeview in the UK. Freeview is almost indistinguishable from basic cable circa 1990. We have a few BBCs , a half dozen home shopping channels, a TLC-like channel that actually shows the more historical/learning stuff (rather than all the reality dreck on there now), and a handful of channels that mostly show repeats of old US and UK sitcoms and crime dramas. The Brits love the panel show, wherein a series of comedians get together and talk about the news or other trivia. Some are very enjoyable (QI) while some are just baffling (we caught one last week where the guests were doing arithmetic. On TV. For entertainment.)

Given the fairly limited lineup, the most fascinating bit of watching is often the ads. We haven't seen any US ones that I can recall and even the ones for US companies often have a local spin.

One very odd example of localization is the "Mom's New Boyfriend" McDonald's ad. It tells the story of a boy whose mother's new boyfriend moves in. The boyfriend tries to befriend him but he is having none of that. Finally they bond over McDonald's fries and all is better. I just can not imagine this ad running in America, even though we have our share of single mothers.

Another interesting group of commercials is those done by significant US stars. Kevin Bacon spouting non sequiturs while getting a spray tan? We got it. Yoda selling wireless internet? We have that too. Bruce Willis in a bathrobe shilling for broadband? Sure thing. I knew that there was a bit of a trend for this (see Lost in Translation) but it's still odd to experience it firsthand. There is a real aspect of "is that...no, no it can't be" to it. The Yoda one is pretty funny, though I can't find it on youtube, sadly.

For now, we are remaining steadfast in our not-paying-for-cable ways. I'd like to not pony up for it, though the streaming feels fairly limited here especially since we can't get Hulu or most other US-based sites. I am told there are ways of spoofing a US IP address, and I certainly know many folks who go outside the law for these things both in the US and the UK, but for now my respect for Intellectual Property and Mary's general law-abiding attitude are holding out.

The Practical Implications of Allowing Shopping Trolleys Four Swiveling Wheels

When we went to our first larger grocery store here, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that all four wheels on my trolley swiveled. This, at least, is something they got right. I took great joy in maneuvering around the aisles and all the obstacles in them. "Why don't we do this in America?" I wondered.

Well, it turns out that trolleys with four swiveling wheels are like nuclear weapons: when I have them they are awesome, but when other people have them they are a menace.

American carts with their two fixed rear wheels subtly enforce order. They are designed to move only forward, and make fairly wide and easy to predict turns at the end if the aisle. While it is harder to extract yourself from a snarl, it's also harder to get into those snarls and easy to predict the flow of traffic.

With four swiveling wheels however, all bets are off. There is no way at all to guess where folks will move, as the carts can go any direction at any time. This leads to constant snarls and mutually assured destruction. It's pure chaos.

In the end, and this is getting absurdly deep for a post about shopping carts, I think that it's worth the sacrifice of a little person freedom in the name of greater harmony. That doesn't mean that I am going to cancel my uranium enrichment program though.

Home Sweet Home

We have finally gotten properly settled into the apartment, so the time has come to write a post about the place. While we have some outdoor space, it's still quite messy from the construction that was done before we moved in. I'll post some pictures of that once the landlord cleans it up and landscapes, but the apartment is ready for photos now.

You enter the apartment through a small foyer. It has a door that leads to a passage to the back yard and a small closet. The closet is entirely filled with our suitcases, so we have a coat tree and shoe rack for storage. We also have a small chest in which we are storing our spare towels and some other odds and ends. We figured that in theory we could sit on that to put on shoes but for some reason it never happens.

To the left of the entryway is the master bedroom. It's actually large, even by American standards. It manages to fit our new bed, our sofa, two nightstands, and one of the wardrobes without feeling cramped. There is also a french door leading out to the back garden, which allows our cats to have elaborate stare-offs against the neighborhood strays. The bed is currently pulled away from the wall due to some water infiltration, but the landlord is working on that. The cats actually love having the sofa in the bedroom, both for napping and chasing games that involve leaping from sofa to bed and back.

Speaking of chasing games...to the right of the entryway is the Hallway of Truth. It's another fantastic place to tear down like a crazy person if you are a quadruped. It is way narrower than any standard-sized American hallway, and a lot of not-that-large furniture (our sofa, for example) is disqualified from the living room thanks to it. Off the hall is a second small bedroom, the bathroom, and the main room.

The second bedroom is currently serving primarily as an office/closet combo. We have the second wardrobe in there, the dresser, a small desk, and two bookshelves. We also set up the drying rack in there on laundry days, as well as our dehumidifier to help that process. It's a fairly crowded space when everything is in action, but it suits our purpose well enough. Once we get internet, I will hook up the computer and start spending some quality time in there.

The bathroom is small but functional. The tiny sink is absurd to shave in, though at least it fills quickly. In the UK all water heaters are tankless, so we do have very good warm water and surprisingly good pressure. We have a weird thing where the water will alternate between too hot and too cold if you turn on both taps, but since I like very hot showers anyway I have just been going full-tilt hot. There isn't much storage, but that's life here.

The main space (the sitting room) serves as open kitchen, living room, and dining room. We've fiddled with the layout a few times, and have finally settled on one we like. The dining table is the one that served me in my first post-college apartment, and has spent much of the time since then stored. It's smallish, but works well for the two of us and affords a nice people-watching post through the front windows. It was another item that needed a bit more dis-assembly than we expected to get into the room.

The kitchen is also smallish, but we are doing alright with it. There are three small sections of counter, so one can usually find a place to prep that is out of the way. It's also somewhat limited on storage, and we expect that we'll find ourselves picking up a portable island from Ikea sooner or later. While it appears to have a lot of cupboards, once you start opening them you soon notice that the largest ones all hide utilities (fridge, boiler for hot water and heat, washing machine.)

Since our sofa didn't fit in the living room, we decided to buy some inexpensive chairs from Ikea. They are a touch larger in the space than we realized, but they do still fit nicely. The coffee table from Chicago didn't quite make the cut, so it's currently huddled in a corner behind the seating, gathering odds and ends. We also got the best TV that one hundred fifty pounds could buy from our local Argos. We can watch DVDs from home via Mary's laptop, and it has a built-in player for the ones from here, so that's our entertainment worked out. There is also limited free programming via Freeview, but that's another post.

All in all, the place has quickly grown to be cozy and a decent home base. While there are many things that we would change about it, it really does feel like our space, and coming back to it feels like returning home.