Erdedy waits for the pot to arrive (pp. 25–26)
But he was unable to distract himself with the TP because he was unable to stay with any one entertainment cartridge for more than a few seconds. The moment he recognized what exactly was on one cartridge he had a strong anxious feeling that there was something more entertaining on another cartridge and that he was potentially missing it. He realized that he would have plenty of time to enjoy all the cartridges, and realized intellectually that the feeling of deprived panic over missing something made no sense.
Context
Before we ever meet the lethal Entertainment, we get its shadow in miniature: a man who cannot watch anything because he cannot stop suspecting that the perfect thing is on the next cartridge. Erdedy's scanning panic is the appetite the samizdat will eventually satisfy to death — the craving not for any particular pleasure but for a total, undivided one, the guarantee that nothing better is being missed. What makes it the theme's overture is that he can see the irrationality ("plenty of time," "made no sense") and it changes nothing; the wanting runs underneath the intellect entirely. The Entertainment, when it comes, will simply be the cartridge that ends the scanning — the one you never need to click away from.