Sunday, September 23, 2007

O Agenda Chicken, I Hardly Knew Ye

One of my interests is "watching foreign news channels." I really do watch foreign news channels. That is, I did, until the evil cable company dared to cut the station on me. Grrrr!

The one I watched was EuroNews. (I also get the BBC but I don't watch it as much as I did EuroNews, because the BBC is from Britain, which I have nothing against but somehow didn't seem as exotic as the EU-wide EuroNews audience.) It got to the point where I was mildly obsessed with the channel. I could not go a day without knowing the weather and Celsius temperature in Tblisi. I could perfectly mimic the British accent of the guy who went "This is EuroNews, with the news on the half-hour." (I still can, which is how I put down the exact wording- I remember it.) I knew exactly what select few commercials they did play (Somfy, a watch guy called the Master of Complications, tourist-board commercials for Kazakhstan) and could tell whether they were going to play another No Comment video by whether the graphic was big or smaller.

But there was one thing I obsessed over more than anything, and that was the Agenda Chicken.

In the bottom right corner of the Agenda screen, there used to be a animation of a cartoon chicken on a purple background, for no apparent reason. The chicken did nothing but open his beak (presumably crowing) extremely wide in all directions. I thought that chicken was so funny the first time I saw it. I loved it. It was a fixture. The sun came up, the moon got bigger and smaller, and the chicken would squawk in the corner of the Agenda graphic.

And then they upgraded all their graphics, and the Agenda Chicken was no more. I never really got over that.

4 comments:

  1. I say you write them tons of letters so that they can reinstate your chicken!

    BTW, your impersonation of that British guy was dead on! I know because I'm a master impersonator.

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  2. It won't matter how many letters I write- I said the evil cable company cut the station on me shortly after that. Can't get it on a subscription or anything. There wasn't enough viewership or something like that. But aren't I plenty of viewership? I should sue or something.

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  3. Ooh ooh must butt in! I hate to inform you guys but there is no such thing as a British accent. There are several kinds of Scottish accents, a variety of Irish accents depending on whether you are North or South of the border, Welsh...arrggg don't go there and of course English which comes in just about as many different accents and dialects as there are American fast food restaurants. So 'ee by 'eck tha's nobbut a pair a daft'uns. And that'll larn ee spake divvurnce.

    Sorry cheps ail shut up now.

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