Cutting the last tie.

I love American Reality shows.  Not just any crazy wacky concept, but the old-school reality television (has it really been long enough to use the words old-school?) like Survivor and Amazing Race.  Bravo also has excellent reality shows, like Project Runway and Top Chef.  There is something about watching that creative competition that is riveting entertainment for me.

Now, I would never pirate a movie online or even a television sitcom.  But reality television always felt different for me and I never felt bad about following the current issues of Survivor or Top Chef via internet streaming.  Especially given the fact that most U.S. television networks post their own episodes online for a lot of different shows, especially the reality shows.  By the way, anything (like recent episodes) posted on a network television website is blocked to viewers living outside the United States.  

But last year, some sort of computer/internet legislation went into effect that caused a significant disruption in my daily life here.  With this new legislation, there was a "crackdown" on sites that illegally posted studio television/movie content online.  As there should be, that's illegal.  But it carried over into everything.  My reality tv shows completely disappeared.  And now, links for everything like clips of interviews on a news channel, are completely blocked to users outside the U.S.  

That last little window, to my American pop culture has been slammed shut, that last bridge closed off.

After it happened, I went through about a week of withdrawal.  Mid-season Top Chef, and a new Project Runway was about to begin, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been during a sweeps week of Survivor.  I tried watching the french version of Survivor (Koh-Lanta).  But really.  I'm sure there is more appeal in watching your own countrymen battle it out in a social game like that, but for me it was just a big display of all of the french stereotypes.  And seriously, if you are from Paris, just stay in Paris.   There is no need to go battle it out on a deserted island.  In any event, my reality television addiction trickled quietly away and now I don't miss really miss it at all.  

But then, we switched our cable package.  Finding ways to cut expenses, John bundled our cable together with our phone and internet and now we have a new provider.  And this new provider had a genius idea.  Order some of the dutch cable channels.  This is because most dutch television isn't dubbed over, but rather left in english with dutch subtitles.  We have the History channel!  And National Geographic!  

And now, he will be the first to tell you about my new favorite television shows.  Storage Wars and Pawn Stars.  I wonder if Bravo has a dutch counterpart....