Italian TV

Well, lets put it this way, the days of having over 200 channels on Direct TV are long gone, at least in English they are! Since our arrival we have had a satellite dish (Even at the first property that we lived in during August), but the TV here is simply not what we are used to. We have “SKY TV” which consists of about 100 channels broken up into various categories like: Sports (Only one freaking ESPN channel, which is ESPN Classic, but who the hell wants to watch hours of old Formula One races from the 1970’s and Soccer games from when Pele was is diapers!), Ragazzi Music (This is what those that have Direct TV refer to channels 295 to 305, lots of cartoons for the kids. The only drawback is that all but one channel is in Italian!), Cinema (This is the section that has movies. The problem here is that a new release these days is The Departed. Yes they are a bit behind in their movie watching in Italy!), International (This is the section that has all the international news channels. Yes FOX News is still slanted, opinionated, yellow journalism here just like in the States!). By now you get the point. There is very little TV watching here in the castle as there is simply nothing worth watching. BUT, we have found a solution! Its called the international DVD player and buying TV series from the US! Anna and I have fallen into a groove of watching TV shows that we never had time to watch back home (What some would call a groove others would call an addiction that is deserving of visit to Betty Ford). In the month of October, we were glued nearly ever night to the TV (After the kids were in bed of course) watching “Weeds” (If you have not seen this brilliant show it plays on Showtime). Steve and Emma got us hooked on Weeds like we were addicted to crack. We finished two seasons in slightly over a month.

Early November brought my mom (An avid Prison Break viewer) and the introduction to Michael Skofield (Anna’s new heartthrob! Yes, move the hell over Orlando Blum, your DONE!). For those that have not watched Prison Break, its on FOX and a pretty darn good show. So good that from the 5th of December when my mom arrived, through the 30th of November when Kirk and Gina were here, we watched the first to seasons. For those counting that’s a whopping 44 episodes! Our record was four in one night! Sickness is an applicable word. In case anyone was wondering what we asked Santa for Christmas, its for a gift card to Best Buy so we can feed our new habit.