Talk TV Is Shameless

I'm giving up watching talkshows on television. Often, in the morning, the TV is on to business, weather, or news talk. It's mostly drivel, but I evidently need some background noise as I start the day.

Advertisements have always bothered me and it now seems that there are more minutes of them that I must endure. I assume that since viewership is down, ad rates have followed, causing the stations to sell more, lower priced ads to maintain revenue. Not a good trend if you are expecting to learn something or be entertained as ads rarely do either.

To compound my irritation, all talk shows are teasing or promoting upcoming segments more often. They tell you what is coming up after the break and later in the show, plus they repeat it once they come back from the break. When you combine the time devoted to advertisements and teases you consume over one-half of the available airtime. Content isn't worth watching because you get very little of it.

The newspaper industry is in its death throes and the television industry, network and cable, is not far behind. Viewers don't turn on their set to see ads and teases. It needs to change or TV viewership will decline dramatically.

Swine Flu = Y2K

So far, no fever, no chills, no vomit. What gives? Where's the pandemic? Everyone is prepared and nothing is happening. I can't escape the TV coverage and the fear mongering. Kids need days off of school and workers need to call in sick. Lets get on with it. Excuse me while I puke.

There Must Be Better Uses For Our Opposable Thumbs

It's probably just a sign of aging, but we humans are wasting a perfectly good digit. Apes and Chimps use their opposable thumbs and toes to swing from trees, gathering food and fleeing predators. We on the other hand are wasting our assets frivolously.

A recent weekend in Chicago resulted in several hours of waiting at Midway. As each flight arrived I watched an endless stream of deplaning passengers march out of the jetway, head down, busily texting. Thumbs ablaze, urgent texts being fired off into cyberspace. Only a few old dinosaurers with cellphones up to their ears and virtually no one content to just think and walk.

Besides the likely early onset of arthritis of the thumbs, eye strain due to small lettering on screen, and testicular cancer from keeping pulsating PDAs in front pant pockets, texters are adding to the world's droneness. How often does a person need to check email, see if they have any new friends on Facebook, or tweet about nothing?

A good use of time and thumbs would be in grasping a book. At a weekend performance of Jersey Boys, fully half of the audience, before the start of the show, was busily texting. Not reading the playbill and learning about the plot and the actors experiences, but using those thumbs to twitter away. Amazing!

Well I admit that I'm a really old dinosauer as not only do I not text, I don't like my cellphone either. But, since I'm not up-to-date on communications, I get to save the $50 a month cost of phone internet access charges! I'll gladly use that $50 per month and my opposable thumbs to hoist a cocktail glass of single malt. After a few of those I can communicate better than any texter.