Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Like sands through the hourglass

so are the Days of Our Lives[^].

Misery Guts was a big fan back in 1966 when we lived in Seddon. The furniture factory where he worked was on the other side of the same street, maybe 100 yards away. So he did lunch at home. I was at school of course so I only saw him doing lunch during the school holidays.

He became hooked bigtime. So, when we moved to St Albans at the end of 1966 and the TV also moved he had to face withdrawal. St Albans was far enough away that driving home for lunch wasn't an option. So he ended up buying a second hand TV set (an Admiral if I remember rightly) for $80 and installing it in the lunch room at the factory.

Years passed. Years and years. Sometime around 1979 he retired on an invalids pension but he was still watching DOOL religiously. I have no idea if it's still running in Melbourne (though I note that according to IMDB it's still in production) but if it is I'm sure he's still getting his fix.

Good luck to him!

I still watch M*A*S*H repeats on late night TV here in Phoenix. I justify it by telling myself that I'm checking to see if they're going to continue recycling the same series year after year. We're on the third repeat cycle since I discovered it 2 years ago. When it runs to the end of 1983 in 4 or so months time will they go back to the 1972 episodes again? Of course, the real reason is that I just enjoy the series.

Nonetheless, it is fascinating to watch how one repeat of a particular episode chops out one scene to fit the ad schedule and the next repeat of the same episode reinstates that scene and chops out another. Remember the episode where Hawkeye and Trapper have pin stripe suits made by a Korean tailor? The punchline to that episode is when the suits appear with the pin stripes running horizontally rather than vertically. I've seen that episode thrice since moving here; only once did they show the punchline.

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