In Which I Tape a Television to My Dog (Sort Of)

Weekend Assignment #175: TV or Bacon? By which I mean, you have to choose one of these two things. Whichever you choose, you get to continue to enjoy. The one you don't, you lose forever. So which will you choose? The pixellated, phosphorescent pleasures of television's hundreds of channels? Or the smoky, meaty pleasures of bacon? You must choose!

Why TV and bacon? Well, because they are two things most people seem to like, and they are (usually) entirely unrelated, which makes choosing between them more interesting.

Extra credit: Current favorite TV show and/or variety of bacon.

I thought about recruiting Black Rose Kate to help me out with this one, since she's likely to have more to say about bacon than I do. Salt pork was an important part of ships' stores in her day; television, not so much. On the other hand, she enjoyed watching television while visiting our century back in 2005. Were bacon not a necessity for an early 19th century seafarer, or if Kate were to relocate to the 21st century permanently (which she wouldn't do), she might well choose television (particularly Buffy the Vampire Slayer) over bacon herself.

As for me, it's television all the way. I no longer watch seven hours of broadcast tv a day, as I did in high school; in fact I only watch two network broadcast tv series, Heroes and House MD, and only when they're not reruns. But I watch a heck of a lot of tv on cable, DVD and download, not just Doctor Who but Eureka and...well, actually it's mostly Doctor Who at the moment, but sometimes we'll buy or rent or download something and make our way through a whole season of whatever-it-is in a couple of days. No, I'm not inclined to give that up. You can't make me. And you know darn well what my current favorite TV show is.

Giving up bacon, on the other hand, would require only the tiniest of tweaks in my lifestyle. Assuming that Canadian bacon is also disallowed, I would have to switch from an Egg McMuffin to the sausage-based equivalent when I go to McDonald's for breakfast. And if we stopped at Denny's en route to Disneyland, I'd need to get sausage there, too. That's it. The end. Easy. I've had too much uncrispy, unappetizing bacon in my life to be the slightest bit bothered if I need to give up the foodstuff as a whole. In fact, I hereby give it up for the rest of the summer. So there. I don't even have a favorite bacon product, unless you count pictures of a certain Ohio cat.

How else shall I demonstrate my commitment to the ascendancy of television over bacon? Oh, I know. I will provide a graphic counterexample to John Scalzi's infamous Baconcat demonstration. I'll tape a TV set to my dog, thus:


All, right, okay, I'll admit it. I did not actually tape a tv to Tuffy. We don't have a Tuffy-sized television set. I'd have to strap 30-inch Tuffy to the 30-inch screen tv set, and she wouldn't enjoy it. So I've faked this up instead. The tv shown is a 10-year-old, full-sized Magnavox. The image on it was photographed from my spare laptop. The Scotch brand tape is copied and cloned from the tape on the remote. I did tape the remote to Tuffy - sort of. The remote and the tape lay on top of the dog but were not actually attached other than by the minimal gravity involved. The tape didn't really stick to the fur, and that was just fine with Tuffy and me. Being used to my making unusual requests of her for photographic purposes, Tuffy lay patiently until I took the remote away again.

Here is another shot from the same session, with less photo editing. All I did to this one, basically, was digitally clean the carpet a little.


As I was working on the editing, tonight's monsoon storm, which started around 7:15 PM with an impressive amount of wind, turned into a thunderstorm. Tuffy doesn't like thunder, wind, or even loud rain. She's been underfoot or climbing onto me ever since, seeking reassurance - and hamburger and cheese, probably.

Teletuffy

Since she was so keen to hang out with me anyway, I spread out a cloth and posed her again. As you can see, she didn't mind a bit. And yes, I came up with a little meat for her as well. Not bacon. She actually doesn't like bacon.

Good dog.

Karen (and Tuffy)