I thought, when we decided to buy the TV from Catherine and John, that having one in the bedroom would be like old times. But you know, I hardly ever watch TV in there. Mostly, I forget it’s there and automatically plop down in front of the one in the living room. I don’t think that’s all it though. Something has changed. Watching from bed isn’t as fun anymore. When I do remember the TV in the bedroom, I crawl into bed and flip channels there for awhile. But I get bored and uncomfortable fast. Being bored is understandable. There is no cable box in the bedroom so we only get a few channels. But being uncomfortable is new. Bed used to be the only place that felt totally comfortable watching TV. Now, after lying there for awhile, I start to feel a kind of malaise - like cabin fever. Too much idle time horizontal I guess.

I’ve always had a TV in my room. My mom bought me a little 13 inch black and white one before I was 10 years old. I used to stay up late and watch Friday Night Videos from the comfort beneath the covers. Some time around high school I successfully lobbied Santa for a color one with remote control. Ahh, now that was the life. Managed to get cable out of the deal and if I’d only had a small refrigerator in my room, there would’ve been no reason to ever come out at all. Always the TV was on. I didn’t need a radio because MTV was good enough; all those other cable channels provided whatever other kind of entertainment I could’ve wanted.

Indeed, moving to Korea where the only TV is in front of the couch has been the first time since before I was 10 that there has not been a TV to view from bed. Amazing. But now the thrill is gone. I used to think that I would always have to have it, but now I think the habit may be broken. Really bizarre. At least we didn’t pay out a lot of money for a new TV only to discover we didn’t really need it. Buying "used" this time really paid off.

Last night’s pizza was good. In the hierarchy, it is third behind My Brother’s Dome Pizza and my own homemade pizza. That means it’s the best pizza in Korea. The atmosphere was good too. The interior convinced me it could’ve been the inside of an old brick warehouse in Chicago. We will probably eat there again.

Today we saw LA Confidential. I’m glad because it was really good. (Aren't I a good reviewer: "Uhh, yeah, it was really gud.") For awhile I forgot I was in Korea, which is the kind of magic movies perform that I’ve been missing. Good life-distracting entertainment. I’m going to really try to see more movies. Next on the list is Titanic. We wanted to see that one this weekend, but we were no where near where it’s playing. The silly and inconvenient thing about watching movies here is that the tickets have to be bought in advance, which means going twice to the movie theater. Since I don’t have a car and everywhere takes a long time and language is always a problem, I just find the whole process inconvenient.

How hard could it be to order up a ticket? I do other ordering-type things right? Well, getting a ticket is not too hard, just uncertain. Usually the ticket windows aren’t windows but metal walls with a teeny hole in the bottom into which the buyer must yell the time, day, and number of tickets desired. Well, I’m not so good at saying what the time is and since I can’t know until I show up at the box office what times the movie is playing, then I can’t practice before hand. Well, I could write it down, right? Yeah, I can try to do that. But if they say anything to me, or if they misunderstand, it will be tough to get it straightened out. There’s just too many things that could go wrong. But, you know, I’ve been here two years now and I think I should be able to do this. Dave says he’ll go with me next Saturday to pick up tickets for Sunday, but I think I’ll try to go Friday so we can watch on Saturday. I just fear that metal wall, you know? I mean, they can’t even see I’m a foreigner and they might wonder what the hell the problem is. I don’t know. Other people do it, I can do it too.

So the movie theater we visited today was one I hadn’t been to before. It’s along one of the new bus routes I just learned, so it was more convenient to get tickets yesterday and return to see the movie today. The theater was three floors underground, which seemed weird. It was big, new, and clean; a good thing. On the way in, people can take the elevator down, but on the way out we had to walk up three flights of stairs. They were totally crowded and slow moving from all the people trying to reach daylight. What crap. The stairwell was filled with cigarette smoke too, from people who couldn’t help but light up as soon as the move let out. Man, it was disgusting.

Still, as much as I like to watch LD’s on our own home system, or even renting videos, nothing beats going to the theater. I really miss that. We used to go all the time.