Around The Dial

Back in December I called my local cable operator and said, "Sign me up!"  $75 later and my soul was sold.  It had been a couple of years since I had cable, but I figured since I was making a little more money I could afford to pay close to fifty buck a months for something I don't care that much for.

After the cable was finally hooked up, I did a quick run through of all my channels and began the process of deleting all the shit from my TV's memory.  It started with the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which isn't funny at all to me anymore, then MTV and VH1 and two, count 'em TWO, Lifetime channels.  After the first week I'd deleted a quarter of my channels.

The common thread between these channels is how much they annoy me.  I mean, why would I ever be curious about Bruce Jenner's family.  When "CHiPs" was cancelled I stopped caring about Bruce Jenner.  Little did I know that he was on every other channel that my cable provider provided in it's dirt-poor tier.  No, it is not literally Bruce Jenner on every other channel, but it may as well be.



This last Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, after realizing that all I was doing was flipping through the Garry-approved channels and not watching anything in particular, I decided that maybe I better cancel it before I add all those channels back in the hopes of finding something that doesn't make me want to go to bed or, gasp, read a book.

In order to preserve the memory of how boring television is, I've decided to live-blog my channel flipping.  This way, you'll get a chance to see how my mind operates as it gets fed shit with a spoon.

So, here goes.

8:15 PM Channel 68 (local) - Some movie with an all black cast and a child narrator that reminds of Rudy's friend Bud from "The Cosby Show."  BUUUD.  Remember that?  Two words come to mind when I think of Rudy: BUUUD and Zrbrt.  Well, Vannessa Williams just went crazy with a giant kitchen knife on some guy who looks like he should be in a Colt 45 commercial.

8:21 PM WGN - "America's Funniest Home Videos."  I imagine most of your hardcore AFHV will never admit that they only tune in to see guys get racked.

8:23 PM PBS - A fiddle player, a small crowd of wealthy people.  I should watch it just because it makes me happy no one is asking for money.

8:25 PM NBC - "The Office."  Let's face it, this season kind of sucks.  Either that or I am just not interested in it anymore.  My God, is this a flashback episode?  Jesus Christ this show has jumped the shark.  It could be worse, though.  It could be Jay Leno.

8:27 PM WUVA (Local) - An Oreck vacuum cleaner commercial.  I'm not waiting to get back from commercial, as I have a pretty good idea that whatever is on this channel is usually shit.  Oops, too late.  Yes, it's shit.  Convoy.  CONVOY.  A shitty movie based on the shitty song of the same name.

8:29 PM FOX - Commercials.  No doubt that "American Idol" is on.  I'm going to spare myself "American Idol."  Another cellphone commercial.  The health of our economy hinges on cellphones.  Apparently.  No, it's not AI, some sort of show with very serious people.  "Fringe" perhaps.  I'm turning it.

8:33 PM CBS - "CSI:"  I like how some TV logs put the colon after CSI to distinguish it from the other CSI's.  To keep from getting confused what I do is avoid all of them.  Click.

8:35 PM CW - "Supernatural"  I find it amazing that I know all of these titles by heart.  This show seems pretty cool at times, but most of the time. . . click.

8:36 PM Ion - "NCIS" - The Ion network runs nothing but repeats.  Here's a bit of trivia.  Did you know that five of the top ten rated shows on cable are NCIS repeats.  REPEATS dammit!  This tells me that I'm not the only bored person in America.

8:38 PM ABC - "Grey's Anatomy" - I hate this show.  Click.  On second thought, I like that Meredith.  She's cute and I like cute, but there's too much drama.  Besides, shows that are named for a character paint themselves into a corner.  If the actor ever leaves, viewers are forever reminded of what they are missing.  Many people forget that the last season of "Laverne & Shirley" was sans Shirley.  What was the point?  But the couldn't just call it "Laverne."  I remember when Richard Order left after the third season of "Law and Order."  The show was never the same.

8:43 PM C-SPAN 1 - Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, is talking about war.  If you throw a rock in the air it will most likely hit a Republican talking about war.  Either that or hit a Democrat trying to appease the Republicans.

8:45 PM - Local Cable Network - Infomercial for DVD's of "The Carol Burnett Show."  I like Carol Burnett, but her show was hit or miss for me.  I remember being especially annoyed by an episode guest starring Alan Alda.  Alda has that affect on me.  Tim Conway, on the other hand. . .

8:49 PM - TBS - Commercials - I'm not waiting around for this.

8:50 PM - TNT - NBA-Lakers and Cavaliers.  Someone has to stop the Lakers this season.  Cavs by One.  Click.

8:51 PM - USA - "Burn Notice" - Bruce Campbell is shooting at people.  Go Bruce!

8:52 PM - FX - Superbad - I'm not even sure how they can show this movie on basic cable.

8:53 PM - ESPN - College basketball halftime show.  Man, I hate halftime shows.

8:54 PM - ESPN2 - Australian Open - The network so nice we named it twice.  Be careful around people who call it "The Deuce."  Roddick lost the first set but is ahead by a break in the second.

8:55 PM - FOX Sports - Some sort of football documentary.  I enjoy sports, but for some reason I watch very little of it.  This doc looks like it might be about two high school teams playing 15 years after their original game.  Hate that I missed this, but as is the case with much of cable, you have to work hard to find your way around the shit.

8:59 PM - Sports South - Clip show about ACC sports.  Click.

9:02 PM - CSS - Women's basketball - Vandy at Auburn. 

9:06 PM - VS - Movie: Tin Cup.  Um, yeah.

9:07 PM - SPEED - Now I'm getting sleepy.  This is some sort of car auction.  What am I, 55 years old?

9:08 PM - The Weather Channel - Why should I care about what's going on in California?  Click.

9:09 PM - CNBC - Capitalist garbage.  That's not the title of show, but my commentary on their programming.

9:10 PM - MSNBC - "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" - I'm on the left, but you can't polish a turd.  Make of this what you will.

9:12 PM - CNN - "The Haiti Show" - Actually it's Anderson Cooper, but Haiti is really just a show for these nitwits on the news to show themselves helping people.  Just give me the story, and if it only takes five minutes to give the story, then stop stretching the emotion out into something unbearable and inhuman.  They are not a show.

9:15 PM - History - That show about the pawn shop.  They only have about seven of these shows, and they keep running them over and over.  I've probably watched bits and pieces of all the episodes; but, hey, at least it's not a documentary about Nazis.

9:16 PM - Tru TV - Why haven't I deleted this channel already?

9:16 PM - A & E - Some police show with ominous music; looks like a "Cops" for people who believe they are too good to watch "Cops."

9:17 PM - Discovery - "Somali Pirate Takedown" - Pirates are bad.  Pirates make me nervous.  Flipping channels makes me punchy.  Arrrgh!

9:18 PM - National Geographic - A documentary with a lot of water in it - I used to subscribe to National Geographic, but I never read much of it.  Just looked at the pictures.  The TV channel is nothing but pictures and yet I never watch it.

9:20 PM - Who the hell knows what channel this is.

9: 21 PM - Food Network - I really need to work on my budget tonight.  I'm not sure I have anythin to wear tomorrow either.  Maybe I'll wing it.

9: 22 PM - HGTV - I wish I were never born.

9:23 PM - ABC Family - America's Funniest Home Videos - Again! - Proves my theory that if you hang around cable tv long enough on any given night, you'll see every show at least twice.

9:24 PM - No idea - I mean, why are we even here.  What's the point?

9:26 PM - TV Land - "Married with Children" - This show was a heaping pile of shit 20 years ago, but now it's considered a classic?  I wonder why Kelly and Bud never got it on.  That would have been more interesting than what passes on the show as edgy.

9:28 PM - AMC - "Philadelphia" - Remember when AMC didn't have commercials and seemed to respect movies and viewers.  If they respected viewers now, they wouldn't show Rambo so much.

9:29 PM - TCM - The only reason to have basic cable.  Now here is a channel that respects movies.  I don't think I've ever seen Stallone on this channel.  Maybe the first Rocky.  Or, um, The Lords of Flatbush.  But never Stop or My Mom Will Shoot.

9:30 PM - The Hallmark Channel - I was too lazy to delete this channel, but sometimes the movies are so bad they are actually kind of entertaining.

9:32 PM - SPIKE - Wrestling - Did you know that the other shows on Cable's top 10 is wrestling?  Wrestling and NCIS: powerhouses of quality entertainment.

9:33 PM - Comedy Central - Sarah Silverman's show - Silverman's kind of hot.  That's really all I've got.  Oh, and her comedy leaves me kind of cold.

9:33 PM - TV Guide Channel - A whole channel devoted to the TV Grid.  Not only does it give you the basic cable channels but all the channels the rich people are watching.  You know, those who stay up late giggling over Entourage.  Oh, that Turtle.  He always cracks 'em up.