Fun with Digital Television

So, I'm digital now. Or my TV is. Actually, I've been digital for a few months now, but as of midnight last Friday I could no longer toggle back and forth between digital and analog--meaning that I can no longer watch certain networks because of the poor reception in my apartment building.

One thing I've learned watching digital television is that I never really knew how shitty television could get. For instance, my local NBC affiliate is running an alternate channel called Retro Television Network. RTN is great if you like old episodes of Airwolf or Knight Rider or Emergency! Not only do you find out how shitty television can be, you realize how shitty is has always been.

I now have six--SIX!--religious channels. Trinity Broadcasting runs five different channels off of the local affiliate, and the ION affiliate (yes, this is a real network) has one of its four channels devoted entirely to religious programming.

In a fit of boredom yesterday, I stumbled across an infomercial on one of these religious networks. The infomercial was for a Christian comedian named Jeff Allen. He's not very funny, and he's prone to making strange faces, but not in a funny way like Jim Carrey.

I should qualify the unfunny bit to say that he's not very funny for a comedian. I'm sure if he were at my church I would find his jokes amusing, but only because I wouldn't know him as a comedian. He'd simply be that guy who showed up at church and made things less boring. If I'd paid money to see Jeff Allen, not knowing this guy was a "Christian comedian", I'd probably ask for my money back.

He's got a lot of jokes about raisin' kids (the hilarity!) and being an obediant husband (Oh, women, you know you're always right. Guffaw!). Sometimes he makes a clever observation, but nothing memorable and certainly nothing that could sustain an audience for over an hour. At least not an audience that cares little for good clean fun.

The point here is that at some point during the infomercial I decided to hit the mute button on the remote at select moments of Allen's routine. If you do it at just the right time, any Christian comic sounds like Lenny Bruce; if you do it at the wrong time--well, at least you don't have to hear the whole punchline.

I had to change the channel once Jeff Allen brought out the guitar. Guitar comedians can be funny sometimes, just like prop comedians can be (though, I'm going to have to think for a while to figure out which ones), but I wasn't going to stick around to find out if Allen could be. My assumptions shall remain unrealized. Whether he brought out a sledge-amatic I'll never know, but I doubt smashing watermelons counts as good clean fun.

Another Blog

I've got a new blog. It won't be very funny, but it was something I needed to do. I've got a lot on my mind, and Radioactive Cotton is much to silly to deal with serious topics anymore.

The Addled Runner is here.