Give your TV a Viking funeral

If you thought American public television was boring, no matter how many Dowtons they Abbey, then you haven’t seen boredom. No, for true, mind-numbing hours of marathon paint-peeling, you’ll have to go to Norway.
As a follow-up to their highly rated (no, really) continuous, uninterrupted eight hours on a train and then the sequel, 134 hours on a cruise ship, Norway changed things up on Friday by airing 12 hours of a wood-burning fireplace.
And like PBS’s 11-and-a-half hours long Civil War, the fire is based on a book, Norwegian bestseller Hel Ved, which its publisher claims outsold Fifty Shades of Grey this holiday season. We don’t know if there were slow pans and zooms onto certain flames, but there was narration from “firewood specialists providing color commentary” on “burning, slicing and stacking the wood,” along with “music and poems.”
It’s enough to make you wish they still made wood-paneled television sets.

I would like to take this opportunity to tell you, the reader, that I want an HDTV. I am not telling you that I’ve been looking at 1080p resolution televisions because Christmas is coming and I am dropping subtle hints. No, I just thought you might find it interesting that I am looking for something with a 40-inch or 42-inch screen. That’s all. If you were busy getting fired from your coaching job, odds are you missed it.