I was just alerted to a devastating piece of news. From hulu.com:

  • For now, Hulu is a U.S. service only. That said, our intention is to make Hulu’s growing content lineup available worldwide. This requires clearing the rights for each show or film in each specific geography and will take time. We’re encouraged by how many content providers have already been working along these lines so that their programs can be available over the Internet to a much larger, global audience. The Hulu team is committed to making great programming available across the globe.

That’s right, no Hulu in Pakistan. Everyone knows what Hulu is, right? Maybe you saw that commercial for it where Alec Baldwin is an alien? Man, that Alec Baldwin is funny. Anyway, for those of you still watching shows on your tv, hulu.com is a website that lets you watch all sorts of shows and movies right away, on your own schedule, with limited commercials. I love it.

On my original list of “reasons why not to move to Pakistan,” I didn’t add “missing a year’s worth of Lost, 30 Rock, and The Office” because I thought I had Hulu in my corner. I naively assumed that what’s available on the internet here would be available there. There’s a rumor that you can still watch shows on nbc.com overseas, but no such luck with any of the other channels. Seriously: what am I going to do about Lost? This is just the first of many surprises I imagine I will be encountering in the next few weeks as I move to another country.

Speaking of surprises, I was surprised when I caused a security alert at National Airport last night. All the fun started when I politely asked the security officer to hand-check two foil-lined bags full of refrigerated probiotics that I picked up from my naturopath earlier that day in DC. Probiotics are supplements containing live, healthy bacteria (the same stuff you get in yogurt) that I have been advised to take every day in order to fight any new, bad microbes overseas. As soon as the inspector tested the inside of the cold packs for residue, the machine started freaking out and about fifteen supervisors came running over. The supplements themselves were fine, but not so much the cold packs. Something about levels of nitroglycerin that were “off the charts.” Nitroglycerin is an explosive liquid that is also in some heart medications (huh?). Since I picked up the bags at the doctor’s office, maybe some came along for the ride, but who knows. They eventually determined that I wasn’t in fact carrying a bomb onto the plane, but there was a little excitement while that was being sorted out. I can’t WAIT to try to get all these supplements through international customs next week.