Since the lease ended on his apartment a few weeks ago, Popeye has been living in a hotel. We've lived in plenty of hotels for varying periods of time, and it is a very boring existence. If the town you're living in is shiny and new to you, you can always go out apartment hunting, or exploring and site-seeing and so forth. But if you've lived in a place for a while, and you're not really on a holiday, ennui can set in pretty fast. Sometimes, you just don't feel like going anywhere: you just want to relax, have some downtime. Maybe read, or watch a little TV.

Popeye's not much of a reader, though, so that pretty much left watching television. Which is why he was less than thrilled to find that the hotel only had two channels that broadcast in English: BBC World and Eurosport. BBC World, like all news channels these days, has turned into The War Channel. Eurosport, for those of you not familiar with it, shows things like biathlon, curling, track and field, tractor pulls, wrestling (not WWF) and the World Ping-Pong Championship Semi-finals. Then it shows a repeat of the event later in the day. It's all very...shall we say "specialized", and not really a gold mine of entertainment for members of the general viewing public. Although I watched some log-rolling once that was fascinating, at least for fifteen minutes or so.

As you can imagine, it wasn't too long before Popeye presented himself at the front desk, demanding to know where all the decent TV was. He was informed that the satellite was currently broken, but would be fixed in just a few days.

It wasn't, and Popeye started to spend a prodigious amount of time at the pub. Which would have been just fine by him, I suppose, except that The Sweetie doesn't like to spend all that much time at the pub. She lives with her grandparents, so she doesn't like to spend all that much time at home, either.

Last week, while they were spending another telly-less night in the hotel, Popeye called down to the the guy at front desk:

Popeye:
Is the satellite fixed yet?

Receptionist:
I'm afraid not, sir.

Popeye:
Well, when IS it going to be fixed.

Receptionist:
I don't know, sir. There are parts on order.

Popeye:
When are they going to be in? I'll fix it myself-- I'm bored stupid up here!

Receptionist:
Oh, are you bored, sir? Would you like me to send a woman up?

After he told us this, of course, we all wanted to know what he had said to that one. "What could I say?" Popeye replied, jerking his head in the general direction of The Sweetie, who was talking to someone on the other side to the pub. "She was sitting right there, wasn't she?"

I have some guidebooks that state that the Portuguese are an exceptionally helpful people.

Somehow, I doubt that's what they had in mind.