Watching telly
We increased our television channel intake by getting a package deal from Elisa for about a dozen channels. Mainly so that Sari would be able watch Ice Skating (some Championships begin tomorrow). And since they were also very much interested in keeping us happy, they threw in three months worth of MTV3+ channels: Ava, Fakta, Max, This, That - and Scifi.
Which is OK, I guess. We've had it now for a week and during that time I've watched couple of episodes of B5 (yes, really! still not very good), some entertainingly bad direct--to-video films (like Chameleon2), few minutes of Andromeda, some Red Dwarf, couple of episodes of the First Doctor Who (Hartnell!) and the second episode of the Masters of Udder Krap Science Fiction series.
Well worth the price we're paying now, which is obviously €nil at the moment. So NOT worth paying the actual (€20?) list price. OK, you'd get all the Other Great channels they have, like Sub Junior and Leffa and Sarja, but still, no. Though I have to admit that I found an interesting series from Sarja: Reilly - vakoilijaässä (Reilly - Ace of Spies). Loosely based on the life and times of one Sidney Reilly, the world's first superspy. Cracking stuff! The episode I was had Reilly "saving" another spy from German factory, where the huns were making sikrit veapon, just in case there might be need for such a thing (this happened in 1905). Reilly actually goes and steals the blueprints and leaves the other guy (played by young Bill Nighy, as if there actually has ever been a young Bill Nighy!) to die. Realpolitik disguised as spy-stuff. Me liked.
And, no. Not even with Reilly - vakoilijaässä will the MTV3+ channel package be worth twenty åre. Not even with the Formula1 or David Letterman or Secret Army (Maanalainen armeija) or even 'Allo 'Allo (Maanalainen armeija iskee jälleen). Maybe if they would show Survivorman (Selviytyjä) but then again, Discovery is showing that and we got Discovery. What a show! This dude, Les, is dropped in the middle of nowhere, with just some bare essentials and couple of cameras (and some serious batteries!) for seven days, and he has to, well, just survive! Like in the middle of some bigass Ocean with only a rubberboat. Or Antartica, or the Amazon, or... Wherever! Les manages. Today he boiled water in a plastic bottle (his only method of carrying liquids!) with a fire he concoted up from dung, glycerin and potassium permanganate. Which basically meant that he picked up some wilderbeest poo, poured some antiseptics on top of it, which then had a chemical reaction - and hey presto: FIRE! Kool.
Television can be educational.