Christmas letter and cards completed! Woot! I’m sure I’m missing people but if they know me, they’ll understand.

A. is away for work again, lucky bastard, so I’ve been left to my own devices in the evening. Not that I’m complaining – I have two Vogue magazines just dying to be drooled over. But I was restless last night and not in the mood for reading or painting or doing anything useful about the house. And I finished the Christmas cards earlier than I expected too. And along with them, the eggnog. Leaving me totally bored and without anything tasty. A distraction was in order.

Enter Harry Potter for Wii. I never play video games, in part because I don’t have boatloads of spare time and in part because my husband plays video games, but he plays lame one person games that suck. I’ve had this HP game for two years and I’m only 3/4 finished. Silliness.

The problem with playing HP, however, is that our TV is too dark for a couple of the levels – this occurred to me for the 100th time when I popped the game in and couldn’t see anything in the Black Lake. But! Instead of taking the game out in frustration and trying to find something else to do, I saw an opportunity for a resolution: figure out how to work the television.

That’s right, I don’t know how to work my TV. Whatever, you don’t either. Does anyone really know what those little A B C buttons do? No. I’m completely convinced that extra buttons are placed on remotes just to fill them out.

Our TV has two remotes – one universal, and the one that came with the telly. I never use the one that came with the telly. It resides in our bookcase along with cat ashes and a portmerion teapot. Which is why the following happened:

Ezmy (to no one in particular): Right, let’s brighten up the TV shall we?

*inspects remote – finds ‘Settings’ button and considers this promising*

*pushes ‘Settings’ button – menu appears with brightness, contrast, etc. scales*

Ezmy: Woot!

*pushes arrows to select brightness scale – menu disappears*

Ezmy: Hmpf.

*tries again. Because maybe she pushed it wrong the last time. Menu disappears.*

Ezmy: WTF?

*tries a third time. Because she doesn’t know what else to do. Menu disappears.*

Ezmy: *insert several curse words*

*begins to push random buttons in no particular order a la Budsie. Menu disappears.*

Ezmy: Right, a drink is in order here – alcohol always helps with problem-solving.

*thirty minutes passes*

Ezmy: WAIT! There is another remote!

*searches for remote. Retrieves said remote after ten minute, curse-filled search*

*realizes there are no batteries in said remote*

*searches for AAA batteries*

*actually finds AAA batteries*

*pushes appropriate buttons*

*brightens television*

*kicks Voldemort’s ass until 1am*

Ezmy: YES!