Post by Lauren

We’ve commented many times how lucky we are that our overseas assignment fell now, when numerous technologies help keep everyday comforts easy to access.

Slingbox is a wonderful invention. We got an extra cable box and cable plan that lives with Gabe’s brother in Florida. It allows us to dial into it over the internet and play it on our TV in Geneva. We even have the ability to DVR programs we want to watch. Some days it works better than others, usually depending on the internet speed, but its great to have.

So, here’s how our habits have changed:

– It takes a little effort to navigate to record shows, so usually don’t have a ton in the queue. So, watching TV is a special occasion and something we look forward to all day long if we have something to watch that evening.

– We watch commercials now. We use to be hyper-obsessed with fast forwarding through DVR’d shows to maximize our time. But now we watch them as attentively as we do the TV programs because they are in English and it keeps us updated on what is going on back in the US

– We watch college football on Sundays or Mondays. Since we are 6 hours behind, we can’t watch evening games the day live. Last week, when Virginia Tech played Clemson at 6:30pm Eastern time, it was past midnight when it started. We didn’t have a chance to watch it Sunday, so I watched the whole thing Monday. I had to stay off Facebook for 2 days as I knew logging on would surely give it away. Let’s just say it wasn’t very pleasant to watch us lose 2 days later.

– Sometimes we get foiled. This past weekend, VT played Miami. One would think that would be televised in Florida where our Slingbox lives. But, no…..we DVR’d what was supposed to be the VT game but got Penn State instead. Big letdown. Especially when I saw on YouTube this was the “best game” that the announcer had ever seen.