watching TV during the time of isolation
Mar. 24th, 2020 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauradi7dwI watch more mainstream TV than a lot of people I know. Often I record something, so I can fast forward through commercials (or things that irritate me). But I had lost track of when the 4th season of "Better Things" started. Last night I was flipping around (probably a bad habit) and came across the latest episode (apparently I've missed the first three eps of the 4th season). I just let it go it real time, which meant commercials included. Almost all of the commercials must be brand new, because they had a clear virus isolation message - Burger King showed their workers gloved, talked about ordering and paying online, then picking up the order "touch-free." Similar thing (without showing the gloved workers) for Olive Garden and another fast food chain. A car dealer (don't remember which one) is letting people skip their car payments if they are out of work due to the current situation. All like that. Filming for many shows is on hiatus, and some of the medical dramas have donated their prop masks, gowns, and gloves, plus in some cases equipment. But the actors in commercials are getting some work, anyway.
I sometimes watch local news broadcasts, mostly to see the weather report ("I get the news I need from the weather report" even though I'm not the only living boy in New York). Several of the local stations have one or two anchors in a studio, but everybody else is working from home. A couple of the weather people were in kitchens. One of them was out in his yard, trying to look weather-ish, I guess.
We watched Trevor Noah centering The Daily Show from his sofa, with remote bits from other people's homes, including a woman who claimed to have abandoned the home schooling she was supposed to be doing (state capitols and such*) in favor of teaching her kid to make masks out of Power Ranger underpants, and cook rats with a magnifying glass and the sun, implying that we're really heading into the apocalypse. TN's monologue wasn't especially funny, but is was polished, with little spaces for laughs that we didn't give him, and he ended with URLs for donating to feed kids out of school. Did he have a teleprompter at home? Is he just really good at memorizing? Now intrigued, we watched the first part of the Jimmy Fallon show. The room he was in had a lovely painting of a tree on the wall. He had all his jokes written on a piece of notebook paper, and was basically reading them, not even trying to tell them in a story-like way. We flipped over to TMZ, to find the two main commentators looking pale in Zoom light, arguing passionately about the bills in Congress. Went to bed, late.
I woke up at dawn, panicked because I didn't smell anything. It is starting to seem that for almost 30% of confirmed cases, not be able to smell (and therefore for many, to really taste much) was the first symptom, and for some it's the only one, remaining asymptomatic otherwise. After Arthur awoke, I went into the bathroom and was relieved to be able to smell the new hand lotion that was part of our disease prep (anticipating dryness due to handwashing). We chose it for other features, but it does have a strong smell.
* The only thing she said that I thought was funny was the claim that the capitol of each state should be called (state name) City - Maine City, Vermont City, etc. Also that instead of Washington, DC, it should be America City. It would create confusion to have Albany be re-named New York City, but otherwise maybe she's right :-)
I sometimes watch local news broadcasts, mostly to see the weather report ("I get the news I need from the weather report" even though I'm not the only living boy in New York). Several of the local stations have one or two anchors in a studio, but everybody else is working from home. A couple of the weather people were in kitchens. One of them was out in his yard, trying to look weather-ish, I guess.
We watched Trevor Noah centering The Daily Show from his sofa, with remote bits from other people's homes, including a woman who claimed to have abandoned the home schooling she was supposed to be doing (state capitols and such*) in favor of teaching her kid to make masks out of Power Ranger underpants, and cook rats with a magnifying glass and the sun, implying that we're really heading into the apocalypse. TN's monologue wasn't especially funny, but is was polished, with little spaces for laughs that we didn't give him, and he ended with URLs for donating to feed kids out of school. Did he have a teleprompter at home? Is he just really good at memorizing? Now intrigued, we watched the first part of the Jimmy Fallon show. The room he was in had a lovely painting of a tree on the wall. He had all his jokes written on a piece of notebook paper, and was basically reading them, not even trying to tell them in a story-like way. We flipped over to TMZ, to find the two main commentators looking pale in Zoom light, arguing passionately about the bills in Congress. Went to bed, late.
I woke up at dawn, panicked because I didn't smell anything. It is starting to seem that for almost 30% of confirmed cases, not be able to smell (and therefore for many, to really taste much) was the first symptom, and for some it's the only one, remaining asymptomatic otherwise. After Arthur awoke, I went into the bathroom and was relieved to be able to smell the new hand lotion that was part of our disease prep (anticipating dryness due to handwashing). We chose it for other features, but it does have a strong smell.
* The only thing she said that I thought was funny was the claim that the capitol of each state should be called (state name) City - Maine City, Vermont City, etc. Also that instead of Washington, DC, it should be America City. It would create confusion to have Albany be re-named New York City, but otherwise maybe she's right :-)
no subject
Date: 2020-03-24 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-25 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-28 01:18 pm (UTC)That just happened to me this morning! I woke up convinced my sense of smell was gone. Since then I've been holding on by a thread--I can still smell things, but I swear that it's with less intensity than usual. Usually I'm extremely sensitive to smell, and this morning everything seems --distant?--hoping you haven't exhibited any more symptoms since you posted.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-28 02:54 pm (UTC)https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/592936.html
Sense of smell intact so far, knock on wood.