The Great Morale Booster of 2013

  While I've made some great progress so far in 2013--I've already lost 4 pounds on my new diet (sidenote: counting calories sucks when you like Coke and Chipotle so much), I've added over 8,000 words to my edit-in-progress, putting it over 50,000 now [cue excited shriek], and I'm even getting back into a better exercise routine.
    Yet, 2013 has already been a little tumultuous. My car may now have transmission issues. The check engine light came back on with the same error code as before. My release date for my edit-in-progress may need to be pushed back a few weeks. And I'm still not any closer to moving out.
    However, perspective is the theme here. Whenever I feel like nothing seems to be going right, I turn to Ally McBeal. Yes, the television show. Why? Because nothing in my life ever seems as awful as she seems to think things in her life are.
    Ally McBeal always makes me feel like my life is in way better shape and the winning combination is just about to make itself known. Although season 1 and 2 did a better job of this--I'm now on season 3--her neuroses and hallucinations and self-sabotage make me feel like things around here are on the verge of turning around. It may seem silly, but if it weren't for Ally McBeal, my outlook on life would be a lot more pessimistic than it already is.
    Over time, the show has actually become funnier, too, which helps. And, Ally became more of a sympathetic protagonist. I actually hated her character when I first started watching this show, but I kept watching it because it was cathartic. Over time, especially with the addition of Lucy Liu's character, the show has become funnier, more complex, and more entertaining overall.
    If you can get through the obnoxious theme music (the show's theme, not Ally's personal theme music), you're golden. I muted the Carole King theme song from Gilmore Girls almost every episode I saw over the years because it was so annoying to me. The Ally McBeal theme has grown on me a bit (sidenote/funny coincidence: Vonda Shepherd, the theme's singer and show regular just sang the Gilmore Girls theme song in an episode I watched earlier), but it's a little too loud and not quite pop enough to be catchy and enjoyable. Unlike the theme from Friends ("I'll Be There for You") or Scrubs ("I'm No Superman").
    Back to this show's ability to help boost my morale: Money problems, job dissatisfaction, disappointment with the progress (or lack thereof) on my personal projects that I work so hard on and which mean so much to me--all of these things seem to be much less terrible circumstances than how Ally McBeal's life seems to her.
    So, if that's what it takes to keep my morale up, I guess I'm only sorry there are only 5 seasons of the show to watch. Hopefully by the time I watch the series finale, some of these issues will be resolved and I won't have to start over or find a new show.

Lillian: "...When Jesus closes a door, he opens a window."

Mary: "Yeah, so we have something to jump out of."

-Saved, 2004

Coming Down to the Wire

Writing stats, 1 day, less than 5 hours before NaNo: 

• 50,009 words completed on my sci-fi work in progress
• 1,000 words or less from finishing my sci-fi work in progress. YES!
• 4 character descriptions (approx.) shy of what I would like to have before I start NaNo
• 1/2 of an outline done for my NaNo plot
• 1 internship accepted at a rate of:
• 5-10 hours per week
• 1 potential part-time job offer in the works

  Figures I'd start having actual commitments to people right before NaNo starts. Like I said last week, when it rains it pours.
  Finally got the new website project transfer completed and redesigned! It's up and running and looks beautiful.
    As far as NaNo goes, I think the biggest problem I'm having is that I've never tried to write a story like this before and my imagination is coming up short. It's a sci-fi alien comedy story. Sort of in the fashion of Douglas Adams, but I'm not that funny. I just had a bit of insight this morning into a direction I could take it, but I still don't have a solid character description for any of my main characters. I have names and a couple of minor personality traits. That's it. Starting to get scared.
    However, now that I've decided which items on my to-do list can be put on hold once NaNo begins, I feel a little better. I just am going to feel guilty every time one of them gets pushed back. My goal is to make better use of my weekends, and with Thanksgiving coming up, I'm hoping a lot of the television shows will go on break for a couple weeks. I am going to have to cut way back on those and watch them on Hulu, which I have found allows me to multi-task better than live shows. In any case, the blogs are probably going to be fewer and farther between, but maybe that will allow me more time to choose more interesting topics.
    In other news, I set up my first free Kindle promotion for the ebook version of my latest book and it has been doing pretty well. I was a little nervous nobody would even look at it, but a fair number have and have downloaded it! Now I'm just nervous that nobody will like it. I hope that the people who do read it (and didn't just add it to their libraries on principle because it was free) like it, and those that do like it leave reviews! We'll see how it plays out over the next few weeks. If it starts getting bad reviews, I may have to start writing under a pen name, though probably not Constant Writer ;)
    As to Hurricane Sandy, I hope everyone out east is staying safe and keeping their spirits up as the storm wraps up. I can't imagine what it's like to see that kind of devastation in your own backyard, but I hope that everyone knows that the entire country is sending out good thoughts, prayers, and well wishes in your direction :)

Stay strong and keep your head up.

A Writer's Work Is Never Done

  What a week! I helped my friend relaunch his site, with press releases, social media, and other marketing stuff; I launched my new book (!) and have been doing marketing for that; I got a Google Adwords credit when I set up my custom domain hosting, so I set up an ad campaign through Google; I created a new landing page for my book to send the ads to, and added a couple more thousand words to my new writing project.
    Now, all I need to do is find time to write a couple essays and guest blog posts, on top of my regular weekly blog posts. And write my new story. And edit one I already wrote. And come up with a topic for NaNo this november. And so on. And so on.
    The story's still the same--I'm busier now than I was when I was working, but it's all good work--fun, challenging, interesting, and creative--so it hardly feels like work. Which is probably why I've been "working" such long hours! I set up my calendar differently so that all the "work" stuff gets done within 8 or 9 hours and all the other tasks that are more personal to-dos and fun to-dos, like catching up on my personal emails and writing my new story, happen after that 8 or 9 hour window.
    Still, I'm on my computer pretty much all day, so it doesn't really seem like there's much of a shift.

    In funner news: the fall television season starts tomorrow (NBC's first season premiere night) and I'm going to pick up a new blog entirely on television reviews and commentary. I actually started it last fall on WordPress, trying to get in the habit of writing every day to gear up for NaNoWriMo, but I gave up on it as soon as Nano started. This year, I'm going to try to keep up with it a little better.  I moved it over to Blogger so everything will be in one place for easy posting, and did a fun, if a little cliched, new design for it.
    Visit HappyToEntertain.blogspot.com starting Wednesday, 9/12, to follow the new fall shows, returning and new, on CBS, Fox, ABC, NBC, and FX and USA when a couple of my returning favorites come back in the next couple months.
    I'm going to have a hard time picking which ones to watch this year! Long list of new shows and old shows on new nights to pick from! Hulu and I will become best friends again for a few weeks while I weed out the decent shows from the crappy ones as well as the ones that are unfortunate enough to run in the same timeslot.

Turn on the boob tube: I'm in the mood to obey. 

-Jack Johnson

Renewed Fandom

  Since I saw the Avengers, I have been on a bit of a Joss Whedon kick. Old school. Buffy and Angel, all the way. I'd started watching Buffy off and on before then since I found it on Netflix, but since The Avengers, I've been pretty dedicated. I'm on season 5 of Buffy and season 2 of Angel, and watching them in tandem so I can enjoy the crossover eps more thoroughly.
    Even though these shows are a little dated (no cell phones on Buffy and mostly pagers and old phones that are infrequently used in Angel), I love them just as much as when I first started watching them back in the late 90s. They're funny and kickass and just as entertaining as ever.
    However, in the spirit of the Joss Whedon fandom, I have branched out. Yes, Firefly and Serenity are on the list, but I think I'm going to finish Buffy and Angel before I get hooked on anything new.

    But, I did watch all TWO seasons of Dollhouse and have to say, how in the name of all that is holy did this show get canceled?! That show had at least another two to four seasons in it and seriously, with a lead like Eliza Dushku, how can you go wrong? (I was a fan of Faith even AFTER she turned superbad on Buffy/Angel.) Plus, the man who plays Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) is a new favorite. I've now added Battlestar Galactica to the watchlist to round it out.
    In fact, I liked it so much, I'm thinking of watching the two seasons over again! It's just too much fun. And now, having immersed myself so deeply in the writing style, I notice connections between dialogue across shows and recurring actors. There are so many actors I see in these old episodes who were just starting out who I didn't recognize then, but know by name now (case in point: Christian Kane in Angel is now of Leverage renown). Alyson Hannigan is a household name for many because of both American Pie and How I Met Your Mother. And even the guest actors who only appear in one or two episodes have gone on to become something more since their cameos or even just appearing as extras in these shows (Aldis Hodge--also of Leverage fame--has a line and is credited in one older Buffy episode).
    In any case, ubernerds, Joss Whedon fans, or those who are just Buffy fans, should take it upon themselves to catch up with both new and old shows. You really can't go wrong with any of them. 
    And now, I'm going to get back to watching Angel :D

Did I fall asleep?

Losing Time Or Making Time

  My dad likes to say that age is nothing but a number. I think that's something older people say because they don't like to feel old. I think age is a lot more than a number. Sometimes it can indicate maturity, legality, and other times, it's just a social identity that shows we relate to our peers.
    I feel distinctly old today, being it's my birthday. While 24 isn't a very big number to some people, it seems pretty big to me. I'm leaving my early twenties for my mid-twenties, and I feel like this is a milestone in my young life. 23 seemed young enough to still play the college-aged young person card, and 24 seems like the real line between youth and adulthood.
    I have been really struggling with the desire to become independent and self-sufficient and the desire to remain somewhat innocent, footloose, and fancy-free. On the one hand, I want to be financially independent, but on the other, I would really enjoy having a little more free time than a full-time job allows. Not so I can go to the brewery every day or watch TV even more than I do already, but because there are things that I want to do that I don't have time for right now. Like this blog.
    I want to have more time to write. I want to have more time to read. And yes, it would be nice to have more time to go to the movies or watch them at home. But it's more than that. I want to have time to cook for myself, shop for groceries more than once or twice a month. I want to take walks and do yoga. I want to spend time with my friends and my family. Plus a million other things on my to-do list. And I feel like right now, I'm budgeting my time as thinly as I'm budgeting my money.
    I feel like I'm missing out on some of the things I should be enjoying, some of the things I think I have a right to enjoy, because I don't have time to enjoy them. Most people would diagnose this as having my priorities mixed up. If you have your priorities straight, you can always make time for everything. I don't think this is always true. There are a finite number of hours in a given week, and there is only enough room for a portion of everything you want to accomplish. We end up sacrificing so much of what we want to do in favor of what we are obligated to do.
    It isn't easy juggling your wants with your obligations, especially when time or money is the constraint. But the only way to achieve your goals and make your wants become a regular part of your schedule is to say yes to yourself and those wants instead of no, procrastinating and making excuses why you can't. You still may not be able to get all of them in every single time, but you can at least make the effort.

Coulda woulda shoulda.

And Now, A Tap Dance

This is probably just me being weird and noticing this, but have you ever noticed how much live sports look like dancing? It is entirely possible that I have been watching too many musicals lately (Christmas musicals at that), and I am transferring the music that's playing in my head onto the new programming that I'm watching so it seems that the hockey players are tapping their sticks and zig-zagging through each other to the tune of a jazzy tap dance song. But maybe they've always looked like they were dancing and it just took a few consecutive hours of Christmas movie musicals for me to realize that that's what they were doing.
    I think basketball players do the same thing, and football players too. They might be dancing to a different tune, that's all, because they're on their feet and not on skates, so they don't move as fast.

And for something relatively different.

    Nothing gets you in the mood for the holidays like Christmas movies, especially ones with singing in them. One of my favorite parts about Christmas is watching the movies. While it seems more engaging and fun to watch them on television where there are Christmas commercial breaks to get you even more psyched up for the holidays, the Christmas movies they play on television are either a) bad, or b) good, but all the good ones are on different channels at the exact same time. So, I have compiled my own Christmas movie collection (with a little help from my dad's movie collection) to enjoy whenever I want.
  Highlights: 

• Home Alone
• Holiday Inn
• The Family Stone
• The Holiday
• Serendipity
• While You Were Sleeping
• It's a Wonderful Life
• Meet Me In St. Louis
• Love Actually
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Ratatouille (I know that one's not a real "Christmas" movie, but I love it so it's in here too.)

    The ones that are not on the list I do watch on TV because I don't own them (Elf, Christmas Vacation, The Santa Clause--Amazingly enough, I do not own these, but they're all on the list this year ;)
    These movies all remind me of some of the best parts about Christmas--family, love, lights, music, and presents. It's not actually the opening and receiving presents that I enjoy, but the wrapping of them. I am a rather excellent and--when the situation calls for it--creative gift wrapper, so that's one of my favorite parts.
    It's been snowing a bit lately too, so that makes it seem closer and closer to Christmas!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

I know I digressed a little from sports to Christmas movies, but what are your favorite things about Christmas? Or your favorite Christmas movies (especially if they're not on this list!)?

Share in the comments.

Nostalgia Strikes Again

  Nostalgia, from the Greek, means a sense of pain, sadness or yearning to return to times gone by. It's not just homesickness or recalling fond memories, though it is often used in that sense. And although not everyone uses it in this way, I tend to use it to embody an entire era, one in which I had not even been born, rather than just memories contained within my own life.
    Sometimes I say I'm old-fashioned or conventional (more in my taste than in my actual ideas and opinions--in that case, vintage might be a more appropriate word), but mostly, or perhaps more accurately, I am nostalgic. I watch old movies and old television shows, and new movies and television shows that take place in that particular period of time, and I wonder why we thought it was necessary to evolve certain aspects of that culture into what we have today. Because today's culture is lacking some parts, parts that should have persisted, from that era. This has nothing to do with the technology overload or anything like that--I'm talking about our communication, interaction and the overall way in which we present ourselves on a day to day basis.
    I'll admit, I may be whistling dixie, and you can chalk a lot of this up to me having seen way too many episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mad Men, but there's something I really love about the fact that everything seemed so much more orderly and comme il faut about American life fifty or sixty years ago. These examples may have you scratching your head, wondering how I could call Dick Van Dyke in any way orderly and organized, or any of the characters' personal lives in Mad Men normal and as they should be, but there are things that exist in those shows that no longer exist.
    Today, everything is about comfort. We wear jeans to work (or we do where I work), nobody carries a proper hat or an overcoat, we all have sweatshirts and stocking hats when the weather calls for them, and we yell down the hall rather than politely phone someone in their office (though in my situation, not all of our phones are hooked up, so that one wouldn't be possible anyway).
    But it's not just what they wore. They had a certain way of acting--a politesse, at least outwardly, that has all but disappeared from the modern world. Some people might call it disingenuous, or phony, but it was correct--tactful, polite, and appropriate. It was being respectful and treating other people like they were people--not good or bad people, or well-liked people or disliked people, just human beings. There are things you can say in certain company, and there are things you absolutely don't say in certain company.  People held umbrellas for strangers and walked them to their cars. They held doors and elevators and didn't panic at the idea of saying "hello, how are you," to someone they happened to be stuck riding 10 floors up with.
    Back then, you kept your thoughts or opinions to yourself when it wasn't your place to speak up, and you addressed certain people with respect whether you liked them or not. While some of this propriety has managed to survive, at least in certain circles or for certain people, a lot of it has disintegrated. Lots of people now say whatever they want whenever, wherever, and to whomever they happen to be in the vicinity of.
    While this may seem more real and honest--qualities which have become more valuable over the years as politeness and respect have become less valuable for whatever reason--I still feel like there is a line somewhere that's being crossed. It's just that so many years have passed, and so many people have stepped on that line, that we can't quite see where it is anymore.
    Call me sentimental, but i think it'd be nice if everyone still wore suits and high heels and pencil skirts. The world would seem to me more civilized, less cutthroat and ugly, as the news inevitably portrays it. On the other hand, then I'd have to learn how to do my hair so it looked perfect all day. Maybe sweatpants, cursing like a sailor, and instant messaging are not so bad after all.

We're going back--back to the future, man!

Are there some customs or mannerisms you'd like to see make a comeback, 

or do I just need to get over the fact that I was born in the wrong part of the century?

Share in the comments.

PS: NaNoWriMo starts in eight days. Have you picked your topic yet?

I'm Modern, But I'm Not THAT Modern

  We 90s kids (meaning children who grew up in the nineties, not kids who were born in the nineties) have some interesting perspectives on relationships.
    Some informal statistics: 3 out 4 guys between the ages of 20 and 30 never, or probably never, want to have kids. 2 out of 4 guys in the same age group never want to get married. However, 4 out of 4 guys want to be in a monogamous relationship if they were in a relationship (note: this is more due to fear of STDs than desire to commit). No, I didn't completely make these stats up, but I did take them from a VERY small sample of people in my age group. Things have sure changed over the years. Even 30 years ago, 3 out of 4 guys probably wanted kids; wanted to get married, someday, at least, if not right that second; and I don't know about the monogamy thing, but the concern for STDs was not nearly as high then as it is now. Plus, now we have to worry about AIDS.
    Girls, however, seem as traditional as ever. Girls in this age bracket still plan on getting married, many, it seems, because they watch too much reality TV and want the big, expensive, overblown wedding that's going to put papa in the poorhouse. Girls still want children, though not in as high of numbers as they did previously. Girls, for the most part, want monogamy, partly for fear of STDs, but more for desire for commitment.
    I won't tell how I fall into these statistics, because I have a feeling I'm the exception rather than the rule here, but it amazes me how girls remain so traditional when the men in our age group seem to rush toward a modernity that clashes seriously with those traditional values.
    It doesn't surprise me at all that the divorce rate is so high, because men and women seem to be on two different wavelengths when it comes to relationships and how to be in one. We are a spoiled group (though I have no doubt that the youngsters who are in the age group immediately after ours are even more spoiled), and we seem to forget that relationships are, in the end and inevitably so, about compromise. Guys seem to want to rebel against the Oprah-indoctrinated women who want to change them, and therefore, refuse to change at all. Women, on the other hand, seem to want to do everything they can to create the fairy tale romance, the perfect man, the ideal soulmate (never mind that they picked him up at a Burger King) that they've so often seen and swooned after in movies and television programs.
    I may be very accommodating in a relationship--too forgiving, perhaps, in some cases--but there are some things I just won't do, no matter how cool and easy-going I wish to appear. I will not participate in "an open relationship" (for anyone not up to speed with that term: a relationship in which both partners are permitted to see other people but remain connected--though not necessarily committed--to each other in a romantic way). Open relationships seem to defeat the purpose. If you're going to date or screw other people, do it, but don't pretend you still want the person you're in an open relationship with after you do it. You're kidding yourself and each other. Take separate bedrooms. Have your own boys' nights and girls' nights, but don't sit there and pretend like dating other people makes your relationship stronger.
    I hope I haven't offended anyone, but if so, feel free to tell me off in the comments. I will moderate generously.

Meatloaf anyone? (Hint: I'm thinking of a song lyric, 

and no, I don't expect your thought path to be the same as mine.)

Drama, Drama, Drama

  Much to the chagrin, disappointment and confusion of pretty much everyone I know, I have been watching Days of Our Lives regularly for 9 years this summer. While soap operas are cheesy, irrelevant, and completely unlike anything in real life, they have their moments, and their merits. Don't believe me? Well, I'm not here to convince anyone, or convert anyone, as much as I would like to bring more viewers to DOOL for their ratings sake, I doubt my reach is far enough to accomplish that. I'm only going to make a case for myself and my reasoning.
    Nine years ago, I was approximately two months away from starting high school. It was not only a big maturity mile marker, but also, it was to be my first experience at a public school after nine previous years of private school. I was afraid. I didn't know what to expect. And one day, home by myself, I happened to find Days of Our Lives on. There were four teenagers, at the prom, and I started watching. I was enthralled with how beautiful they all were, and how their little world, Salem--a fictional Midwestern town, worked. I kept tuning in. I guess I thought maybe I might learn something about high school or being a teenager or something. Probably not the best place to take my social cues from, but I was 14--what can I say?
    One of the best things I liked about my new-found afternoon program was that everything always worked out for the best. Good triumphs over evil, eventually--though in Salem it can take a really excruciatingly long time--and the women were beautiful and the men were all knights in shining armor--most of the time--except for the villains. The familiarity with the characters was comforting too. One month, Sami may be your favorite character, and the next, you'll think she's being horrible and decide that Nicole is who you want to root for. Loyalties change constantly as you watch the show, because the characters change and go through periods of extreme personality conflicts, sometimes by choice, sometimes by accident, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all.
    I will, only because I feel addressing it is necessary, go over the parts of soaps that turn people off. I've seen evil twins, people who were thought to be dead come back to life, people with amnesia who recover (often through hypnosis), medical miracles, kidnappings, more near incestuous relationships than I can count, and brainwashing, plus an array of other bizarre and wildly fantastical plots play out over the years. And, the plots have gone so far as to turn me off a few times so that I would quit watching for a few weeks or months until something interesting happened again.
    But, in spite of these plotlines, I continue to watch. Because I've known these people for so long, I care about what happens to them. I want this person to go to jail and that couple to have their happily ever after. It's not because I still think stuff like this actually happens or because I still think men can be as romantic and perfect as they are in the show--they're not, but they have their moments too.
    I've come to realize that one of the main reasons I still watch this ridiculous, unrealistic, and sometimes poorly written show is because I appreciate the stability. Every day, Monday through Friday (unless it's Thanksgiving or Christmas or some horrific news event occurs that NBC has to take over broadcasting that information for), there will be an episode of Days of Our Lives. There are no reruns. And even during Wimbledon or other sporting events. The show doesn't completely disappear. They show that day's episodes late at night, which I'm never able to stay up for, but through the magical world of Hulu, I can still follow them.
    There is, and unless--God forbid--it ever gets canceled, always will be, one constant in life: Monday through Friday, an episode of the trials and tribulations of the people of Salem will air. This fact is extremely comforting when everything else around me moves and changes rapidly so much that it's hard to keep up. I defend the need for some stability in life, and if this is the only place I can get it, I'll take it. But I do enjoy watching. Not every character all the time, but it's still entertaining. And, one of the salable points of it: you can always say, well, at least my life isn't that messed up.

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.

Fall of the Machines

Television and internet, for some reason, have saturated me with Judgment Day and the potential impending doom of humankind this week. Terminator 2 and Terminator Salvation have been running on various channels. I read an article about animal cyborg technology. And then there are all the people insisting that the world is going to end on May 21st.
    It's hard to take anyone seriously who attempts to predict the future. No one can see all the factors that play into each moment that happens. There are simply too many. So it's not easy to believe people who are predicting the zombie apocalypse, judgment day, the rapture, or any other end-of-the-world scenario. The world is just too complicated to believe that we can know not only that there will be some single event that puts an end to all of it, but that we can know when it's going to happen.
    But, I digress. My main focus of discussion was going to be the rise of the machines thing. Maybe there's no August 29, 1997 where the machines become self aware and decide to devastate the entire human race, but the rapid advance of technology does occasionally make me worry about stuff like this. We're probably years, even decades, away (if the nutjobs are wrong and the world does in fact last that long) from being able to create the kind of robots or cyborgs or whatever that could cause that kind of destruction, but it doesn't even have to go that far. One group or collective could gain this kind of technology and only wipe out part of the human race. A particularly threatening part that does not fit into their world domination agenda.
    I'm not arguing for a god of any kind, but there is a line that ought not to be crossed by humans, mainly because we're not gods, no matter how much technology we develop or how insurmountable our powers may become. With some things, I think we need to let sleeping dogs lie. And some technology, like mind control stuff and creating robots or computers that can think for themselves, may seem cool and amazing at first, but it's one of those things that may turn out to be more dangerous and unpredictable than we imagined. There's a reason Planet of the Apes and the Terminator movies are scary--if that ever happened, we would really be up shit's creek trying to undo what was done because it took on a mind of its own and became something we could no longer control.
    Cars, airplanes, cell phones and MP3 players are all useful bits of technology that we can be thankful for. And while such things as cars that drive themselves and cell phones that can predict the next words out of your mouth (thereby being able to make your calls for you) may sound pretty cool, we need to know when to stop, when we're about to go too far. What worries me is we either don't know those things, or we don't care. I hope that we do make that distinction when the time comes, and that we make the right choice. Because I really would rather not die at the hands of a terminator.

Hasta la vista, baby.

An Apology for Television

I will first offer an apology, in the most common usage of the word, for television. Quite a large amount of television these days, frankly, sucks. The advent of reality TV has brought us dating shows, American Idol, Sarah Palin, Skating with the Stars, Celebrity Apprentice, and many of the other useless, ridiculous programming that is somewhat entertaining for some, but mostly just annoying and pointless for the rest of us. TV also has way too many cooking, news, and sports shows than anyone could possibly watch, and informercials still dominate the airwaves (or whatever they call them now with digital TV) after midnight on many channels.
    Granted, TV can rot your brain. But this is only if you watch crap like the following: The View, followed by court TV, soap operas, gameshows, reruns of Gunsmoke and Bonanza, and then your cocktail of Dancing with the Stars, Sarah Palin, and Extreme Home Makeover all day long. (This is all not even taking into account all the horrible commercials they show during these shows.) These are nothing but frivolous people doing frivolous things trying to make them seem important and relevant, and even helpful to the rest of us, even though they never will be any of those things.
    Modern television is more than these. I know and wholeheartedly believe this. I attribute much of my widespread knowledge to my lifelong love for television, although much of this knowledge is often only useful for trivia like Jeopardy questions. There are dramas, crime dramas, doctor dramas, courtroom dramas, comedies, and there are nonfiction shows like some that the Discovery Channel, History Channel, and PBS have--there is more programming out there than anyone could ever watch. But the point here is that television is not just a means to make yourself stupider, though unfortunately, that is what many people are choosing to do, and what many of the television companies and broadcasters are trying to make us choose to do.
    So, I offer an apology for television, that is, an apology in the original sense of the word--a defense. You must realize that you can learn from TV. It may be historical facts, it may be news and current events, or it may just be how people act and react when they're in certain situations. But television can help you learn. Books and newspapers may be a better choice when it comes to learning, but for those of us who are very visual learners, sometimes seeing a visual representation and having a narrator tell us what a book might tell us helps the information sink in better. TV is only bad for you if you let it be. You can choose to use TV to increase neuron connections or to sever them.
    Television is entertaining--that's not going to change. And I do watch it primarily for entertainment, I won't lie. But it is the source for about 50% of my current events and news knowledge as well. Most of the history facts I've retained are from movies and television programs too. And my sensitivity to people's emotions and sensibilities (though that may not always be apparent here) is due to watching how people interact on TV. Maybe it's given me a slightly skewed view of reality, but I've lived a little and adjusted those views as has been necessary.
    In a final defense of television, it's never just the TV, or the video games, or the books, or the movies, that make people dumb or violent or irrational. People do that on their own by taking the aforementioned media sources too seriously and deifying them into something they never should have been and never meant to be. So, give the reality TV a rest once in a while, and check out the news or the History Channel or something sometime. You might learn something, and get to sound really smart at the next barbecue you go to.

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