As I write this I am just starting to watch the first episode of the latest season of QI. And last weekend began the latest season of the Venture Brothers. All in all television is really pulling its weight right now. I am quite pleased.

Haiku!

Big bears bit Bob Burns.
But Bob Burns bit bears back.
Top of the food chain!

Might as well mention some other television news while I’m on the topic: The latest season of Futurama is either going on now or just ended and either way I have found it relatively weak compared to the Golden Days of Futurama. Louie C.K.’s latest show, appropriately called “Louie” has been painfully funny. I guess that’s pretty much it for shows I’m watching at the moment… But it still enough that those who say television is a wasteland are proven wrong.

Hey, you know what is awesome? When I was getting on the elevator to go see Kip earlier today and just I was getting on a little boy (about four years of age, I would guess) and his father were stepping off. The little boy looked up at me then asked his father “Why is he really tall?” It was awesome. His father apparently had no reply.

You’ll note that I mentioned Kip just then. I would like to clarify right now that I am mentioning him in a poor light. That’s right, Kip. I am disparaging you. Suck it.

So, remember a few months back when I thought that I’d lost all the cable networks that I don’t pay for? Well, it appears that I was too quick to assume that someone had noticed I was getting an odd assortment of things I’m not meant to. It turns out that the cable was just unplugged and I’ve still got them all. So I am back in the business of being able to flip through the channels as a form of relaxation.

Shame about how there really isn’t anything good on them.

So, I lost my cable channels. I mean, I’ve not been paying for cable for years, but for some reason instead of getting the basic channels one is supposed to get, I was getting an eclectic mix of networks with no rhyme or reason.

I was getting TVTropolis, which was good for getting sitcom reruns, something everybody should enjoy at least now and then. I was getting A&E, and though it was no longer the A&E I remembered from my youth with documentaries and stuff, I watched the occasional crime show or really censored episodes of the Sopranos on occasion. I had Spike, which is a monstrously stupid channel from what I could see, but they had Star Wars on, pretty much nonstop. PBS had some science programs worth watching, but mostly I just watched kids shows like Effing Super Why. Also, there was an informercial channel which could amuse if you were in the right mood and maybe one or two sports channels that I pretty much never watched.

Basically, I was getting enough channels to flip around a little bit before I realized how much television sucked and would move on to something else. But now I only get the three basic Canadian channels or whatever. Now realizing that there is nothing on happens faster than ever before.

I may not watch all that much television, but unlike some I don’t lambast the entire medium. There are things I appreciate about it. In a way even watching it alone seems more like a social activity than watching DVDs or downloading episodes of things. It seems less canned on television somehow. I suppose that is, in part, because of the unfortunate presence of commercials which, though annoying, are at least a sign of companies trying to keep you up to date on their activities. Also, much more positive than commercials, is the fact that you can get breaking news interruptions. If I’m watching a rented movie and the Queen sets herself on fire and then declares war on the Vatican and then has a swordfight with the Pope, I’m gonna miss the whole thing, but if I’m watching most television networks you’d think they’d interrupt programming to say “Holy Shit, check this out!”

When I watch programs online, such as the Daily Show and Colbert, I guess I get the ads (the annoying one of the connections to the outside world) but even then I lack the other thing I like about the medium of television. Sometimes I am definitely in the mood to say “Okay, TV, let’s see what you’ve got for me.” Sometimes I might find something worth watching. An episode of some show I didn’t know existed, or an old one I had forgotten or some movie from the eighties, who knows? As far as I am aware there is no way for me to just “flip around” on the Internet.

I mean, YouTube comes close to that level of flip-aroundedness, but… It has also somehow succeeded in having more garbage than television. Go figure.

So, I just finished reading In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck. In this book, a character who is a doctor says “Damn it, Jim” and that made me laugh.

The fact that that is all I have to say about this book pretty much shows why I am not a qualified book reviewer. Nonetheless I give it Four and a Half out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It was an interesting look at things like socialism and mob mentality even without the accidental reference to a program that aired decades after its publication.

Here I am watching Super Why and it would appear that the Super Readers have gone into a comic book invented, apparently, for the purposes of the show called “Attack of the Eraser”. This is an improvement over the usual course for this series, which is to go into a real story and completely butcher its original intent. Maybe they’ve realized that using fictional source material means they don’t have to ruin classic literature?

Yes, I’m writing about Super Why again. I’m twenty-eight years old, why do you ask?

I can still complain about the main character, though. When Whyatt realized they were facing a “Super Big Problem” (his words, it was actually some minor thing that only the Super Readers would even mildly care about) he did what he always does, he uses his little PDA thing to summon his friends, the other members of the Super Readers. But this time They Were Standing Right Behind Him. All of them! Right There! I hate you Whyatt!!!

I do, however, love how the cover of the Attack of the Eraser has this blurb that says “Comic Book!” and I think all comics would benefit from utilizing this blurb.

(Plus, there’s the fact that the Readers live in Storybook Village, which is populated by fictional characters like Little Red Riding Hood, but then they go into stories that are books to them, but also can have characters that live in the village? Are these documentaries? Does this represent time-travel into the past of Storybook Village? What the Chunks is Happening? The Eraser comic is just doubly fictional and that rests much easier in my mind.)