Daytime TV--the commercials

Now that I'm becoming a connoisseur of daytime TV, I'm realizing that it's not just the shows that are different, it's also the commercials.

Sitting at home, I have inadvertently entered a different culture. I'm learning about motorized scooters, for people who just can't get around anymore. Apparently the people with these scooters also get free plastic surgery so their mouths are fixed permanently in a smile position.

Then there are various health and pharmacy plans. The best ones let you see whatever doctor you like with no referrals and no co-pay, and also get prescriptions included. It sounded like a good deal to me, but I'm not on Medicare so I don't think I qualify. But I suspect there was some fine print.

Then there are the bed and mattress commercials. For some reason, the most prevalent mattress companies all begin with the letter 'S'. Sleepy's, Serta, Simmons. And the one showing the most ads now is Sleep Number. We are treated to innumerable little vignettes of happy couples, whose entire lives have been changed due to their ability to set the two sides of the mattress to different firmness levels. Each ad is structured like a classic short story, with a situation, a conflict and a resolution. Here the people start out frowning, and end up smiling.

Then there are the legal ads, such as the one trolling for clients with defective pacemakers, or people who have been injured in nursing homes. No one is smiling in these ads.

The only positive thing I can say about the daytime commercials, is that at least you can tell what the ad is about. But the topics are pretty darn limited. It's sort of like going to a library and suddenly realizing that they only have books in one genre, like sci-fi or short stories.

My big disappointment is that my favorite commercial in this genre is no longer shown. You would think that if they do re-runs on all the programs they could do re-runs on the commercials too. The tag line has entered popular culture as a quotable quote: "help! I've fallen and I can't get up".

I'm thinking of starting a petition for better commercials on daytime TV.

Daytime TV

I've got to start with an apology to anyone who really loves gameshows -- you'll see why at the end of this blog.

While I've been recuperating at home, I've been watching more TV than usual. It's a different world (no pun intended). It's not just more TV, it's different.

For a while I thought I was doing well at holding back the influx of the inane, not to mention the insane. I limited myself to one talkshow per day, and chose the one that even seemed to have some edifying moments. I prided myself on avoiding the daytime dramas, and didn't pick up any reality shows.

But then I had a bit of a relapse, and found myself channel surfing. I innocently found a rerun of Jeopardy, and didn't realize that I had been sucked into the Game Show Network. Hour after hour passed, and the quality dropped show by show. By the second day, I clicked to GSN immediately. Some of it was like being in a time warp (just look at the haircuts on Family Feud). But some of it was culturally up to date -- did you know that there is a show where you indicate your desire to play the next round by chanting: "I need greed"? For some reason everyone claps at this point.

Anyway, I reached my nadir with an episode of the Newlywed game, followed by the Dating Game. I can't even explain why I was watching. It wasn't even particularly interesting or funny, and certainly wasn't edifying.

That night I was praying, and confessed to God that I had wasted time on this junk, and asked for help since I didn't even have the motivation to say I was going to try to do better.

This is where the apology comes in, because the following incident probably impacts lots of people besides me.

The next day, I found that Cablevision had pulled the channel from their lineup -- you need a different level of service to get it.

The moral of that story is, to be careful of what you pray for! Of course, another way of looking at it is that God was protecting me from myself.

A Walk in the Park

In case you were wondering why I haven't blogged lately, I have been recovering from surgery, and nothing really seemed interesting enough to bother blogging about.

While I recover, my daily schedule is very different from my normal frantic rush. Every day now, I get up and go for a walk in the park. I've noticed some curious patterns.

• Almost everyone in the park is retirement age. I wonder what it must be like to have the free time to do this regularly.
  
• The most popular activity is tennis -- the courts open at 8:30am, and people are lined up waiting. The men generally wear tennis whites, while some of the women go a little bit crazy and dare to wear lavender shorts.
  
• Women like to walk in pairs, chatting sociably. One woman proudly sports a metallic gold fanny pack
  
• Men like to jog or bike by themselves, purposefully. On the average they work out harder than the women. Their faces are sometimes alarmingly red, or even more alarmingly grey. I find myself reviewing the steps of CPR in my mind, and wondering where the nearest defibrillator is.
  
• One couple walks together. Every once in a while, without any apparent signal, they break into a jog for a short distance before dropping back to a walk. They always look very serious. They don't talk, although they might politely nod the head as I pass.
  
• Most of the single walkers are listening to I-pods.
  
• I haven't seen anyone pushing a stroller. Don't people do that anymore?
  
• I haven't seen anyone riding a horse (even though the nicest paths are equestrian-only).
  

It's as if I am a temporary member of a different society. But my Visa will be expiring soon and I'll be returning to my normal 'country', where I get up and get on the train instead of going to the park.