Watching Too Much TV

... Because "multi-tasking" is still limited to "changing chanels while breastfeeding."

"HGTV" used to stand for Home and Garden Television. When was the last time they had a gardening show? It's all housing, all the time. The most overused phrase on that channel is "Old World", closely followed by "Tuscan" and "Provencal". I don't think anybody should be allowed to describe any space as any of the above, unless they can either locate Tuscany or Provence on a map of Europe, or prove that they've been there. Painting a wall yellow in no way makes a modern, American dry-wall McMansion somehow resemble an ancient stone farmhouse with two-foot-thick walls.

Meanwhile, the most over-used word on Food Network is "caramelized" and its cohorts. Can't we ever just saute or brown something anymore? Cooking something in a pan on the stove does not automatically mean that it is caramelizing. Sometimes I feel like Inigo Montoya: "I don't think that word means what you think it means!"

The Weather Channel is actually a lot more interesting than one would imagine.

I basically understand commercials for products that help people get more vegetables into their diet, like V-8 and its counterparts. I love most veggies, but most folks barely tolerate them, or at least that's their bad reputation. Also, even for veggie lovers, most vegetables have to be prepared in some way, which takes time and effort. But WTF is up with these new "drink your fruit"-type ads? NOT getting it. One, fruit is delicious all by itself. I know very few people that need to disguise their daily fruit intake as something else just to choke it down. Second, fruit is edible in its totally raw state! No prep, no cooking. Just grab and eat. It's literally no more work than opening one of these new juice drinks. My daily fruit intake during this time of year is limited only by the unfortunate effects of eating too much, if you know what I mean. So what, exactly, is the advantage of these pricey, sugary, low-fiber, plastic-bottled beverages?

Still addicted to NCIS. Thanks to a few marathons, Don is too, now. When I find that I like a show, I like to really get into it: see every episode (preferably in order), understand the back story, get the inside jokes. This is why I love to watch TV shows on DVD (besides the commercial-free-ness): to get the additional content, director's commentary, actor interviews, all that. Yummy.