2 days without post

Hello all,

What's happening? The Fun Zone is a little slow this morning, having woken in the middle of the night by a stretch of baby crying, but you'll be glad to know that I have recovered from my tere siga/tej hangover.

For our diaspora followers, we've got a beautiful sunny day coming up with possible rain in the afternoon. (I heard a few raindrops on the roof last night, but that's the most of it.) Happenings in Addis. Can't say as I know much. Traffic was particularly gnarly at the Gottera intersection yesterday, so you might want to avoid that. (Although this day-old traffic report is probably the best thing going in Addis, other than by calling friends following a similar commute, at the end of the day, it's probably not much use).

I wanted to blog about something disturbing I saw the other day - the after school cartoon on ETV at 5:00 pm. I think it was called the "Three Bears". Believe, no kid will grow up fondly remembering this cartoon. Now that I think about it, I wonder if it's a Chinese or Arab knock-off (although the credits would suggest otherwise). It's just so disturbing. One of the characters, the proprieter of the forest cantina, even said the word "bendejo" which in Spanish I believe is not a polite word. On a children's show.

Then, the bad guys, the trolls, are truly scary. Not good, children's cartoon scary (kind of bumbling). They wanted to eat the bears and other creatures in the forest. Also, there was a horribly annoying character, a fussy little koala bear, that was constantly crying. The sound effect of his crying was just grating, little a sped up version of bubble-wrap popping with a little Japanese anime tossed in. Strange.

Personally, I prefer the exercise program that follows. I'd even offer to buy ETV a set of "Teletubbies" or "Rainbow Bright" or whatever the current "in" cartoon is the next time I'm in the U.S., if the Ministry of Information would give me the money and help me get an exemption at customs.

Probably not going to happen.

Peace.