Dinner is always a challenge.

Not because of anorexia or anything, but because part of me wants to be entertained before bedtime – so I do it while I’m eating. But another part of me gets anxious and bored if what I’m watching is too mind-masturbatory. Like the one-two-punch-punchliney sitcoms. Or those shows you have to pause and get your bearings while you ask yourself why you’re wasting your mirror neuron energy on emoting along with someone pretending to get eaten by someone pretending to be… a pretend creature (“Walking Dead”, “True Blood”, take your pick…) Sure, I could read. But holding up a book while eating soup is so Olympic-level challenging that it probably burns all the calories I’m eating off by the end of the meal itself. (Which I need to go jogging and chasing after Minnie for tearing into the garbage and expelling the fecal forensic evidence not three inches away from the crime scene). Yeah… Maybe “entertained” isn’t the word I’m looking for. But it’s not just “educated”, either. Not all the time anyway.

Exhilarated, maybe?

Inspired?

Rogered raw dog right in the consciousness until I nut knowledge?

Yeah. Mayhaps that’s it.

Because this mid-meal hunger that couldn’t be quenched by the typical prime time programming seemed to be satiated – at least momentarily – by VICE’s second season I’d been skipping over for a while. I even shared a couple’ve fun things from that show on here. Now that that’s over, I’ve had to continue my search.

And last night, I got my fill. I came across this show that featured a secret tour of this elite “Doomsday” bunker:

“Vivos”.

There’s actually a few of these things across the country – and the whole thing is basically like this underground cruise ship setup for after the apocalypse happens. Entry into this underground community will land you everything from a giant kitchen and theater style entertainment room to an in-bunker garden (complete with grow-lights) and a hospital, fully stocked to do surgeries. You might be wondering who’d do any potential surgeries (I was) but they answered it about a millisecond later when they said they pick people “based on skills”.

Sure, the place seems nice with its secret local (the crew had to be blindfolded to get there) and amenities. But… what’s the catch? Maybe it’s that admission to board this subterranean submarine is $50,000? And that they glossed over that fact double fast when I had a million questions about it? Like, for instance: “What good’s that gonna do you after Un’s Franco-retaliation nukes land? Or am I meant to make my payment now because you’re Nostradamus and you totes know it’s gonna happen any second now, so I should ACT NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.”

Aside from the fact that I don’t have any skills (aside from being a clown, mayhaps) this seems dumb. And not just ‘cause they wanna prize cash from folk. But also because you won’t be able to get there in time if a bomb suddenly hits (I mean, you get maybe a 20 minute warning before Deadsies O’ Clock). And even if you do make it there safely, the countdown begins straight away anyway; you’ll get maybe a year tops before everyone starts to catch cabin fever, starve, and murder each other for fun.

But most importantly: what am I gonna watch with dinner after the video library runs out?

(Until we hafta worry about that, this may be a new series: “Dinner and: something… engaging…”)