I went to Red Lobster for the first time today. I'm a red-blooded American and this is the first time. I was totally taken in by their 4 courses for $15 (still a little pricey, but I've spread out the leftovers over 2 meals.) It wasn't half-bad. It wasn't fabulous. Oh, but the biscuits were. Jeeze.
We don't have a TV at home because J. cannot be in a room with one without watching it. I'm not exaggerating. He also watches horrible things. When I was in labor, he watched a special on killer chimps. KILLER CHIMPS. And then a program on obese pets. In fairness, the majority of the stations were in Korean or Armenian. But still. Obese pets. When you're in labor, you're kind of just like Yes, just get something up there to distract me. Now, after the fact, I'm still like. . . what?
The house we're renting has a TV and rabbit ears that get about 11 channels? ABC, NBC, Fox, the local public station, some other things, some TV Land type thing that was showing Green Acres the other day. Antique Roadshow is on a lot. Some woman had $200,000 worth of Mickey Mantle pre-fame paychecks. Tonight, we're watching a special on the natural landscape of the Balkans. One interesting thing: mines in bodies of water have had the effect of protecting wildlife because nobody wants to get near them. Also, cute baby wild boars and stupid cute baby duck things riding on the duck thing parents' backs. Yeah, aw. I'm getting one for my kid. (Just learned it is a great crested grebe and YOU SHOULD WATCH IT it's stupid.)
(Here's a good time to point out that even if you find yourself a mother & wife at 23, you still spend the evenings, apparently, sitting around watching PBS. Not doing what those MTVs tell you young mothers do.)
Okay, so the shots are beautiful and they've found some delightful footage of lovely otters and also of, um, vultures tearing up a wolf carcass. What I can't figure out, and what's distracting J. from his Latin studies, is the constant references to the Lord of the Rings. I think it's come up at least once every three minutes. The sedate yet charmed-by-the-biodiversity British narrator has name-dropped elves, hobbits, the Shire, Gandalf on a steed (to compare the necessity of taking a plane to reach certain areas), orcs, dragons. Stuff like, these woods could be FILLED WITH ELVES but they're not, here are some birds though. Or, this is live blogged "An army of attacking orcs would be preferable to the bites of these mosquitoes."
I figure that the program is trying to cash in on interest generated by the films, but it feels like they're trying to make the Balkans culturally relevant. Which is kind of. . . they are, guys! Don't worry! My conspiracy theory is that this was made by the Bosnian tourism board to get Peter Jackson, or whoever the heck is directing that Hobbit movie that will never get made, to film in this area. And they're not being subtle about it. (Their conclusion is that despite the troubles the Balkans have historically had, THEY'RE NOT MORDOR OKAY GUYS. They really said that.)
OH UPDATE GUYS: I found the site about it ("Surveying these striking and stark landscapes, one might think they’ve ventured into the Middle-earth of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings"), and nobody is too stoked about the constant Tolkien shout-outs. I still think the Come to Bosnia, Have a Great Time Board had something to do with it, though. You can watch the full episode on PBS & see how I'm right.
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