My State of the Tube Address

My fellow Americans, I sit before you this evening (in a manner of speaking; I AM sitting as I write this) to discuss the state of our nation's television. I, as someone who often makes light of pop culture and all the unusual, and in some cases just plain stupid, things that seem to entertain us and capture our attention, feel it necessary to report on the present situation of that which is television at this early point in the new fall season.

Geez, that was a long sentence. Now I know why all of Clinton's speeches go two hours, but I digress...

That said, the state of the tube is..... uh, err...... okay, I suppose.

There are lingering problems with network television, the least of which is how god-awful long these World Series games have been. First and foremost, I mean that big gaping hole that is Friday and Saturday nights on network television. These have always been the graveyard nights of the schedule. I mean, I know that FCC chairman guy once referred to television as "a vast wasteland", but for Pete's sake, that was in 1960, you'd think they'd have done something to fix this in the past 40 years. I have long maintained that this lack of quality programming on these two nights is a ploy perpetrated by the networks to get people to go out on the weekends. I'm not trying to go conspiracy theorist on you, but you've gotta figure that if the bigwigs in programming wanted you to stay in on a Friday or Saturday night, they'd come up with something more entertaining than "The Hughleys" or "Early Edition". Name one show that was ever actually worth watching on a Friday or Saturday night (excluding "Saturday Night Live", of course, since that's not in prime time).

I would say that the upstart networks have managed to do a very good job of holding my age demographic. I rarely watch a show that isn't on Fox or the WB anymore. However, as with all things, you have to wonder if the teen drama trend has run its course. After all, how many different versions of "90210" or "Dawson's Creek" can you bang out? Think about it: you've got "Popular", which is basically "90210" all over again; "Roswell", which is essentially "Dawson's Creek" with aliens, and "Grosse Point", which is basically a spoof on the making of a "90210" or a "Dawson's Creek". Mad props and applause does go to the original "Creek", however. The way they often go to great lengths to poke fun at their own genre is refreshing; you know that the people behind this show don't take themselves too seriously. Case in point: this week's episode opened with Joey joking that the main characters, currently high school seniors, will somehow all magically end up at a heretofore nonexistent college that just happens to be right in town so that the setting somehow does not change, thus allowing the series to continue for four more years.

Meanwhile, also from the "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery" department, witness your current Tuesday night situation. I'm speaking directly to the male 18-24 population right now. We got ourselves a win-win situation here. At 8:00, you watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and ogle Sarah Michelle Gellar for an hour, and then at 9, whereas before most of you would have to go directly to the Internet and download Sarah Michelle pictures for hours to get your sci-fi hottie fix (and don't deny you do it, I don't, but we're all human here), you now flip to Fox for "Dark Angel" and ogle Jessica Alba for an hour. Consider the ratings the two-hour movie premiere got. Your competition is the presidential debate on the other networks (and a baseball game, but we'll just leave the Yankee fans out of this). In the end, the decision was made by Americans that when you have to choose between Al Gore and George Bush on the one hand, and Jessica Alba on the other, you pick Jessica Alba. Gotta hand it to James Cameron; after all, he managed to make a film where you already knew how it was going to end before you even went into the top-grossing film of all time, simply by drawing in the lucrative teenage-girl audience with a Leo love story. This time around, he takes the "Buffy" formula and basically makes the atmosphere darker and the heroine hotter. Bonus for now: the fact that "The Real World" is still not done for the year over on MTV, so at 10, you just flip over to that for now.

Speaking of the aforementioned mother of all reality shows, who came up with the brilliant idea of running the older editions of the show in syndication? Pretty good concept, you don't have to hunt through TV listings to see when your favorite Miami or San Francisco episode will air again. Now, it's Puck and Pedro five days a week. Confessionals and "house meetings" for all!!!

Now, the "experts" (and that's like saying I'm an "expert", because I have now written a column on TV) say that most of the new slate of shows, especially the comedies, have been hurt badly by the fact that the Olympics and baseball playoffs have spread out all the launch dates of the series, so by the time Fox rolls out the majority of its new season next week, nobody will give a rat's behind about the shows. I say not true. If anything, the fall season starts way too early anyway; more often than not, shows that get launched in August don't last. This year, CBS rolled out "American High" in the first part of August, and killed it before the month was even over, thus breaking the previous record set by "The Trouble With Larry" (I only trot that Bronson Pinchot abortion out because it was set in Syracuse).

More new stuff is a good thing, especially because it will debut during sweeps, so we get to see it go against the dramatic series plot turns and big Hollywood movies we will inevitably see on the other networks. Almost like sending your JV to take on another school's varsity in the first round of the state championships. While it's likely that we won't remember "Normal, Ohio" or "The Street" five years from now, you can't blame Fox for trying.

Soooo, I can now see that I've yammered on for quite a while and said not much other than most of the new shows suck, Jessica Alba is hot, and I'm going to continue to veg out in my apartment listening to music on Friday and Saturday nights due to the lack of anything good on the tube. On the other hand, this has probably made just as much, if not more sense than any State of the Union address we've heard in recent memory. Therefore, I think for a first time out, I didn't do such a bad job, did I?

Good night, and God bless television.

The Fool-Proof Road Rage Quiz

And now, in the interest of preserving the sanity of all cautious and law-abiding drivers, I present an easy test that will determine whether or not you can consider yourself a type-A personality for road rage. So, without any further ado...

1) You're in the left lane on a four-lane street and you're coming up on a red light. You're behind a couple cars, but you notice there are no cars in the other lane. Do you:
A) Ease to a stop in your lane (no sense in pushing it)
B) Check your mirror to make sure it's safe to change lanes if you want
C) Throw caution to the wind and dart into the other lane (after all, any way you can get where you're headed a couple seconds faster...)

2) You're in the fast lane on an interstate highway, and you're trailing a driver who is getting passed on his right by a few cars. He decides he should switch lanes to let you by, so he puts on his turn signal and waits for an opening. Do you:
A) Give him the opportunity to switch lanes so you can pass him
B) Back off a bit so if he needs to slow down to make his move, he can
C) Wait until he starts to make his move, then zip around him and cut him off

3) You're in the left lane on a four-lane divided highway. The driver in front of you is going about 45 in a 40 mph zone and you're passing cars in the other lane. Do you:
A) Conclude he's going too fast and you should back off
B) Stay at your present speed (you're making good time)
C) Flash the high beams at him, because 5 mph over the limit just isn't good enough for you

4) You're approaching a stoplight on a single-lane road. The light is green and the driver in front of you is about to make a left turn. Do you:
A) Be patient, perhaps someone in the opposite lane also needs to turn and will let him go
B) Be patient, when he turns, he turns
C) Swerve around him onto the shoulder and go, if there's someone in the opposite lane who's trying to turn, they'll wait for you, dammit

5) You're approaching a stoplight, which has just turned yellow. It appears that the driver in front of you will probably pass under the light just as it turns red. Do you:
A) Stop; after all, the light will be red
B) Slow to a stop making sure the person behind you knows you are slowing down
C) Speed up and run the red light; if he's not gonna get caught, neither will you

6) You are on an expressway that is about to split. You are planning to switch to the left lane in order to exit. The driver in front of you is signaling to switch to the left lane as well. Do you:
A) Slow down behind him and wait for him to move over before you make your move
B) Switch lanes and leave an opening in front of you for him
C) Switch lanes and go around him, thus causing him to either come to a dead stop in the middle of an expressway or miss his exit

7) You are in the right lane approaching a merge lane. It looks like the driver on your right attempting to merge is going to get to the merge point at the same time as you. Do you:
A) Back off and let him have room to merge
B) Move over one lane and give him the whole lane to merge into
C) Refuse to give an inch (bonus points if you run him off the road)

8) Through no fault of his own, the driver in front of you has either done something foolish or has inconvenienced you in some way. Do you:
A) Sigh (such is how drivers are these days)
B) Mutter to yourself then try to forget about it
C) Make sure you pull up alongside the driver so you can either give him a dirty look or yell at him

If you answered C to at least 4 or 5 of these questions, you probably live in Central New York. I didn't need to think very hard to come up with these situations, because all of them have happened to me. It amazes me to no end the lengths drivers will go to in order to get to their destination a few seconds quicker. I tend to be more easy-going, rarely am I in a hurry to get places, and even if I am, I still have respect for the law and for the intents of other drivers. This is mostly because I once reacted in an unfortunate manner to a driver who obviously would choose C to questions 3 and 8; in short, I gave him the old "one-finger salute". I was instantly mortified by what I did, and swore that would never happen again. I'm probably a Type-A personality for a lot of things, but road rage is not one of them.

By the way, if you answered C to all 8 questions, you probably live in central Pennsylvania. I have officially dubbed them the worst drivers in the world. You can tell how far into Pennsylvania you've gone by the increasing erraticness of the drivers. These are people who haven't grasped the basic concept of a merge lane, so they have to put yield signs on the highway to remind them, and even that usually doesn't work. Sure, I consider myself a notoriously bad driver, but there's no excuse for driving bad ON PURPOSE.

All I know is I lead a relatively happy life, and I don't need to worry about it being compromised or possibly ended by some nutjob who wishes to take umbrage with the fact that I stopped him from getting to his destination a couple seconds sooner. What possesses a person to suddenly abandon his intended route just so he can follow a good driver who interrupted his reckless sprint because he wants to beat him to a bloody pulp? At what point does a person snap into this sort of behavior? I've heard of very few cases of a rogue student driver tailgating someone because he was cut off or of some kid flunking his driver's test because he had to floor it and run a light or stop sign to end the test that much faster. See how stupid that sounds? In short, I don't wish to change the world, I just want to get from point A to point B without landing car C or person D in garage E or hospital F. Any and all help that those of you who drive, sane or otherwise, can provide to that end will be much appreciated. Thank you.

Technolergy Ain't What It's Cracked Up to Be

"Modern conveniences" has got to be the biggest contradiction in terms since "Devil Rays baseball", especially in regard to computers. When you get a computer, in no way is it modern, considering that five minutes after you buy the computer, it's outdated. And by no means is a computer convenient. The only thing you may be conveniently able to do with a computer is throw it in the trash.

Consider if you will the fact that at this very moment, a problem with said modern convenience is forcing me to do something I have a serious problem with doing: using Microsoft Internet Explorer, or as I would more accurately put it, Internet Exploder. It's not a technical preference, I just don't like Microsoft, although I do use Windows, but mostly because I'm too lazy to learn something completely new like Linux. So I use Netscape, but unfortunately on this evening I am not using it due to the fact that my webpage creator of choice, Yahoo PageBuilder (again mostly out of laziness to not learn anything that didn't already come with the free webspace) does not work on Netscape. It hasn't for nearly two weeks. Now I don't know what this online public bitching may do. It may get the problem fixed or the good (or not) people at Yahoo may not approve of this and purge the very existence of this website. Either way, SOMETHING will get done.

And this is what we face every day of our lives when we own a computer. In my case, I have a computer that may seem to have been cursed with some awful evil incantation or the like when I bought it. The very nice energy saving feature that puts my computer into "sleep mode" when I am not using it is not quite as good at waking the damn thing back up. That and the fact that since I did not buy a new monitor with the new computer, the monitor I have seems to not like the new computer. That is the only way I can explain the following scenario that I have to go through on average once or twice a week:

I go to wake up the computer out of "sleep mode". After a half-hour or more of staring at a blank screen that will not turn on no matter what you do (even hitting the thing, which I have always learned is a foolproof way to fix what's wrong with most "modern conveniences"), I have to restart it. My opening screen pops up along with a message that my monitor is having issues with the computer and therefore if I want to see things in more colors than the conventional black and white, I need to restart it again. On restart #2, my screen pops up larger than normal, so I have to fix that. Which means I need to restart it again. Finally, on restart #3, we're up and running. Total time I have wasted: about 45 minutes.

Now my technology problems of late are not solely confined to my computer. I have a TV/VCR in my apartment. Theoretically, a VCR is designed to record programs that you want to watch later. However, my VCR has this delightful tendency to, well, NOT DO THAT. Every so often, when I program my VCR to record, say, two and a half hours of quality TV programming, I come home to find the thing stopped two minutes in. That's right, it recorded TWO MINUTES and then stopped. Don't know why, maybe paranormal phenomena or something, or maybe I'm offending the paranormal phenomena by linking them to something this heinous. Whatever the case, it has become an accepted part of everyday life for me. I go to work five or six days a week, I get paid twice a month, and every once in a while, the VCR won't work. Again, this can best be attributed to the fact that I'm lazy, and therefore would actually not endeavor to find out what is causing the problem, not even by testing it.

The running theme of all these stories, besides things not working as they should and the fact that they are all considered "modern conveniences", is laziness on my part. I for the longest time did not consider myself to be a lazy person, but after reading the laundry list of things that are wrong with my "modern conveniences" and the little I have done to fix them, I may have to change my mind. On the other hand, my old computer is gathering dust over in the corner as I have let it sit there for over six months swearing that EVENTUALLY, I will copy the rest of the stuff I still have on it that I need.

My point here is obvious: I and my fellow lazy Americans with similar non-functioning "modern conveniences" choose to do nothing because we are thankful for the fact that we have this wonderful technology. Confused? Simply, we settle for less than the optimum use of our appliances and our time BECAUSE WE CAN. I am proud to be an American, and therefore I am proud to buy something I know will not work 100% of the time and yet do absolutely nothing to make sure that it will work 100% of the time. This is because I believe that my 90% (or less) working appliances are still better than most people have. However, I also have the right to bitch and moan all I want about the fact that it does not work 100% of the time.

Let's face it, folks, modern technology may be the one thing that separates us from being, well, rednecks, or something worse. However, if that be my choice, I would sometimes be very tempted to rent a doublewide, put the Honda Civic up on bricks, and watch me some NASCAR. YEEEEEEHAAAAWWWWW!!!

The S-Word

Just the other day, we had a beautiful 75 degree, sunny day. Not out of the ordinary of late, seeing as how it had been that way for most of the summer and on into September. However, that all came crashing down when it was brought to my attention that the forecast for this weekend is calling for snow.

OK, I apologize for ruining what was beginning to be such a civilized column with such profanity. Around here, we get more of that word than anyone in the nation, and as Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up." What is really starting to disturb me, and I don't know if any of the locals who read this are noticing, but does it seem like we're getting MORE and MORE of this stuff for LONGER and LONGER every year? Here we are, the first weekend in October, and we have snow in the forecast (there's that word again...) I'm still getting over the fact that the last time it snowed was only five, count 'em, FIVE months ago. And it has become more and more apparent to me that I cannot stand five months of nice versus SEVEN months of snow or possible snow per year.

Now, you didn't come here to read my whining and complaining for several inches of cyberspace about how I can't stand the "white stuff" or whatever euphemism you want to hang on it. When we were kids, we all loved the stuff. If it piled up enough, we got the day off from school (unless of course, you went to West Genesee, in which case you NEVER got a day off regardless of how high it piled up). When you did get a day off or a weekend, you went sledding or snowboarding. Now, being a man, and as such formerly being a boy, the object of my neighbors and I was to make the experience of sledding as violent as possible. So we went for "full contact sledding", where we started from the steepest part of the hill at the same time, and the object was to collide with the other guy at some point between the top of the hill and the bottom. It worked best when we got to the steep dropoff in the middle of the hill; airborne collisions were the messiest.

Then of course, you got older and when your older siblings left home (or you were the oldest and your parents decided it was time for you to start helping with the chores), it became your job to shovel the stuff. And the worst enticement became that when you were done shoveling the stuff, THEN you could go sledding. Of course, by the time you were done shoveling, not only was sledding out of the question, but you were pretty much thinking that spring couldn't get here fast enough. This combined with the fact that your neighbor inevitably had a snowblower and so it took a mere fraction of the time you were spending. It drove you nuts when they would come over, energetic as anything, wondering why you were so bushed and sick of staring at white all day and you wouldn't join them.

Then, you got older still, and your parents caved and let you get your license and perhaps some wheels. Which means you have to drive in the stuff, and if you're lucky enough, you get ice with the snow, which means the roads are a virtual skating rink. Of course, when you were younger, ice was cool, because it made the snow harder and faster, and therefore the collisions are a lot harder and faster. Collision is no longer a good thing when you are driving, take it from me on that one. I often wonder how neither of my two accidents to this point involved winter conditions; in fact both days were dry early fall days. Perhaps it's the paranoia that comes with driving in the snow. You all know what I'm talking about; you're out on the road with the rest of humanity during rush hour on a particularly wintry day, and you and every other driver are glued to the steering wheel, gripping the thing so hard you leave grooves in it. Your eyes are straight forward, except for the occasional glance to the left or right as if to tell the other drivers, "Get away, get away..."

So now you see my point, and I know you all think I'm still nuts, and that if I were so hung up on sn..., uh, that word, I would move. Don't think I haven't thought about that. In fact, after having to face near white-out conditions to drive ONE BLOCK to a pizza place in the MIDDLE OF APRIL last year, I swore I would not be here in snow country when the next winter arrived. Not that I didn't try, but on the other hand, I didn't figure the next winter would get here THIS FAST!!! Another thing I hear from snow-lovers (and that's just as bad a word as the s-word itself) is that winter is great because you can go skiing. I tried skiing when I was younger, and the thought of going at high speeds downhill on two rail-thin pieces of fiberglass doesn't exactly strike me as fun. You show me a happy skier, and I'll show you Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono. I'll betcha they were happy too just before they hit the tree.

Therefore, I think I have made my case for how unhappy I am at the prospect of that weather event of which I dare not speak its name. On the other hand, if we have a sudden warmup and it's 70-75 again next week, you can forget what I said for at least another week.