Today I was babysitting Faisal, and after his nap I told him he could watch part of a movie/DVD, and he chose to watch some Dora the Explorer. I had heard of it, but I had never watched it before today. I haven't seen a show that brainwashing since Barney. It was made to make kids repeat after the characters on the screen, so everything is said very slowly, in simple terms and at least 4 times over.
I had Faisal turn it off after about 10 minutes and we proceeded to play with "tracks" (trains). The entire time, he wouldn't talk to me, he was repeating the dialogue of the show. Particularly "We're a team, there's nothing we can't do!" but when he said it, it was like "We're a teeeeam." He sounded like a brainwashed zombie. Just saying "We're a team. We're a team. We're a teeeeeeam." Actually, scratch the zombie, it was more like he was a ghost haunting someone with that phrase. Plus, I don't think zombies can say anything besides "Braaaaaains..."
Yeah, I think I'm gonna avoid Dora from now on.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Dora the Explora
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Weird Belgium
So we have tv that we don't pay for. We get a good few channels including BBC1 and 2, some Dutch channels with subtitled English programming, etc. I can't really complain. But we were doing a bit of research to see if there was any way we could watch the Oscars. It turns out one company did buy the rights, and it's one of those premium channels, etc. We don't get it. That in itself does not bother me. What does is that, even if we wanted to switch companies and pay, even if we wanted to order that fancy shmancy movie channel and stay up all night watching the Oscars, it wouldn't work. They don't offer service in our area. They offer it in other parts of Brussels, no problem. But Ixelles, nope, it's a no go. That particular telecom company only offers mobile phone service in Ixelles.
