Random Realizations III

Random Realization #6:

I used to watch quite a lot of TV. It's not like I was addicted or anything, but there were certain shows I followed, and it usually worked out that there was about one program like that every night, so I'd record them and watch them and that was that. Once in a while when I was busy, like when training heavily for a marathon or doing long hours at work, I'd get backed up. Then a weird thing would happen and I'd start to feel like I was falling behind in my TV watching. All the stuff I'd recorded was backing up, and I couldn't watch new episodes until I'd watched the older ones, and it all started to feel like a bit of a burden.

These days I seem to have less and less time for TV. I'm spending a lot of time working around the house doing small repairs and spruce-ups to get ready to sell, and I'm still running, and most of the leisure time I do have is now spent online. Researching the trip, reading travel blogs, planning, scheduling and blogging all take up a lot of time I used to spend passively watching TV. The odd thing is that I really don't miss it. For the first little while I'd think, "Damn! I missed House again." Or, more likely, "Yeesh, I've got four episodes of Heroes to get through. Will it ever be good again?" Then as I realized I couldn't catch up, I stopped thinking about it, and I deleted all the stuff in the queue, and I haven't looked back. (Did Heroes ever get good again?)

There are still a few things I tape, mostly so I have something to watch while I'm stretching after a run, or when I want to veg out a bit. I'm also watching more stuff right on my computer. All in all I'm quite happy to be free of TV, and consider it a useful evolution in lifestyle that should serve me well on the road. I'd hate to be stuck to some crummy, grainy TV in a dimly lit hostel lounge trying to find out who won.


Random Realization #7:

The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is, in fact, MAGIC. I've been doing a lot of cleaning in preparation for putting my house on the market, which will probably happen in just a few weeks. (Yikes!) One of the things on my To Do List was "re-paint kitchen cabinets"; I've been using that kitchen for 11 years now, and it's a kitchen so, you know, stuff gets kind of grimy (not that I don't clean regularly, but how many times to you take a toothbrush to the moulding in your kitchen?). Then I actually counted the number of cabinet doors and drawer fronts there are in my kitchen. Any guesses? If you guessed 7,987,574, 329, you're close. There are 28. TWENTY-EIGHT. So "re-paint kitchen cabinets" quickly became "clean kitchen cabinets", and that's when I unearthed a never-used box of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers from my top pantry cupboard. "Ah," I thought, "this is worth a try." And was it ever. Those things are amazing - they freshened up the surfaces of the doors and drawers, and a little elbow grease + Magic Eraser scoured the grime out of the fiddly moulding details that catch all the dirt. I am now perfectly content with the state of my kitchen cabinets. The MCME even (almost) completely removed a black permanent marker "oops" on my painted kitchen wall. I also tried them in the bathroom, where they made it through the soap scum in my tub quite handily.

I don't know what they put in those things, but they could be made out of powdered rhino horn and children's tears and I'd still buy them. There's an urban myth that they contain formaldehyde, but I'm happy to report that Snopes.com says otherwise. If I don't meet the man of my dreams while I'm traveling, I'll probably just marry Mr. Clean.

Note: "Go See Run Eat Drink" receives no kick-backs from the good people at Procter & Gamble (TM). But if we did, we'd take the money and buy more Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.