MUST Watch....

The Television.
AKA: TV set, baby-sitter, boob tube, idiot box, small screen, telly, tube.

It seems the general consensus around the invention we affectionately call "TV" is that it is a brain sucking crack box that can only make people stupider. (Get it? Yes, I know that's not a real word.) I've heard people argue that television could've been made into an extremely useful tool that people could use for education and intelligent communication; that if we could control the content they allow on television and limit it to educational series that teach the average human information they could use to be more productive in life the television would be viewed to be an important tool.

SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA!

While there are those channels that have truly educational content (most of the time), there are so many more that exist solely to sell you something, convince you that you are not attractive enough, seriously question your taste in entertainment, or just provide a useless half hour of laugh tracks and stupid jokes. Now, don't take this the wrong way. We own a TV. We even pay a ridiculous amount every month for it to be there any time we feel like taking a break. Sadly (or maybe for our own good), even with the hundreds - yes HUNDREDS - of channels that we get with our lowly "basic" satellite package, there are many times we flip through and say, "there's nothing on."

We watch what we would consider decent television.  I've made recipes I've seen on the Food Network. Logan's favorite channels are Nat Geo Wild and Animal Planet. He astounds us constantly with factoids he's picked up from these shows. He has even decided that he wants to be a biologist when he grows up. Yay TV!

We also watch total trash television. Yes, both of us are college graduates. We are fairly intelligent people. We are NPR nerds and are constantly debating the world's political, religious, and financial woes. And yet, there is something that draws us in to this hideous garbage that some rich executive is making bank off of. Our problem is that we don't like the SAME trashy television shows. I constantly hear disparaging remarks about my fascination with the train wrecks like Jersey Shore (BTW: Season Premiere tonight!) and The Real World...while he's watching Futurama and Robot Chicken! I lack any explanation as to why I DVR these shows every season (I've been watching the Real World since the very first episode in New York all those years back) and continue to watch while they get progressively worse. I also can't explain why I think these other idiot shows are not worth watching (see: The Bachelor, American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, The Family Guy). I guess we just like what we like, even if it all falls under the broad umbrella called rubbish.

Morbid curiosities are a natural tendency of human beings. There is something in our psyche that needs us to look at the train wreck....even if it was fabricated to make someone big money.

Ponder that for a while...

Now, I have to go. Oh Yeah! The Shore's on! Yeah!