Contrary to my belief in non-adherence to mainstream happenings, I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed watching the Oscars. When I still lived with my parents, we stayed up all night (to all the people not familiar with the concept of different time zones…the show starts here at approximately 1:30 am) and watched it on a cable channel that was nice enough to broadcast the whole thing without some commentator dead-set on simultaneously translating the speeches into German. It was always a very nice experience, although school right afterward was always hell.

Well, cut to the present day: here in Vienna, we’re blessed with but three TV channels, and the one that would have the money, ORF, doesn’t deem it necessary to broadcast the show. It is of course necessary to broadcast each and every sporting event throughout the whole fucking year, but not necessary to broadcast this once-a-year thing. Not even when an Austrian documentary’s nominated. Oh well.

This year my girlfriend and I decided to dodge this bullet of ignorance. You see, we had a plan. A rock-solid, dead simple plan. Here it is:

Order cable

Watch award show on cable

I signed the contract a month ago, after the guy from the cable company said that we could have it within three weeks. Which was of course bullshit. I knew it, he knew it, but I just ignored it.

The thing that’s pissing me off is that an electrician installed the cable inside the apartment building one and a half weeks ago. Since then, nothing has happened. I’ve placed numerous calls to the guy, but until today he was “not here right now”, and when I called today he was “sick”. Yeah right.

So, that means it’s all over. We’ll have to make do with the 1 1/2 hour summary broadcast by ORF, which will of course feature German commentators simultaneously translating the speeches.