On the plus side—fond memories of my family: "Resistance is futile" :)—the Salamone-Punster clan gathers 'round the TV
Many of our best conversations have taken place around, or about, the TV. We discuss plots and characters. The Young Scientist got all of Babylon 5 on videotape just to ensure that his dear olde dad could watch the whole series after tax season. We've even been known to replay entire scenes at the dining room table. We have serious conversations on the subject of shows that we're watching, and a lot of good laughs, too. We—well, mostly I, but at least the Young Scientist recognizes and acknowledges it when he sees it—complain about the wardrobe department's penchant for putting "eye candy" into what should be serious shows.
I even give lectures on nutrition—the Young Scientist has heard them all a thousand times by now—based on commercials. These are my personal favorites: 1) "I don't care what they call it—if it has chocolate and marshmallows in it, it's candy, not cereal!"; 2) "Kashrut aside, any meal that consists of "two all-beef patties, special sauce," cheese, and bacon, you should pardon the expression, has enough cholesterol in it to last a normal human an entire week. And they wonder why Americans are getting fat!"
Of late, the Young Scientist has developed a real fondness for the History Channel. (And you wonder why I refuse to give up Basic Cable, no matter how broke we are.) Since that one is colloquially known as "The World War Two Channel," we've watched a lot of "war" shows together. The Young Scientist's reaction to any appearance by Hitler, y'mach sh'mo (may his name be blotted out), is to give him "the finger"—on both hands. We also see a lot of interesting shows about modern technology on that channel. So we get to discuss all sorts of crazy things.
Okay, so we don't take fancy vacations, and, since I stupidly insisted that we stay on the subway lines—for an easy commute—and in an apartment—where the staff maintains the plumbing and the lawn and shovels the snow—and, therefore, we have no basement in which to store camping equipment, we've never done all the traveling via campsite that I did as a kid. Until he went to a midwest university this summer for a research project, the Young Scientist complained that he'd never been out of the Eastern Time Zone. But at least we get to discuss the latest plot twist on "Battlestar Galactica."
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