Reaching Out

Yoohoo!

While my website is getting designed and prettified, I've decided to take up blogging here. Which is a little weird, because I haven't used Blogger since its inception, meaning I'm balking a little at the lack of features I'm used to--like plugins, for example.

But that's OK! Because a big part of this blog is to step outside my comfort zone and actually, you know, connect with people. OK, maybe not connect with them. But at least get used to the fact that there are other people out there, and perhaps I should acknowledge them once in a while.

People of Earth: consider yourselves acknowledged.

With that out of the way, we can move on to more important things. Like the lack of quality television on the air this season, for example.

Don't get me wrong. There are some good shows on TV this season--like Criminal Minds and Heroes (even though I'm loathing the carnival theme--Heroes, what were you thinking??) and Castle. But there are also a lot of stinkers out there. Like The Forgotten, which should have been good, but wasn't. And Flash Forward, which could have been AWESOME and . . . wasn't.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too hard to please. Maybe I've been spoiled by shows like Veronica Mars and Pushing Daisies, and now I can't appreciate anything less than spectacular.

Or maybe the writer's strike of 2007 coupled with the economic downturn has resulted in crap television. Because everybody knows crap television costs way less to produce than quality television. That's how we ended up with Laguna Beach and Joe Millionaire, after all.

Either way, it doesn't change the fact that my DVR has been reduced to X-Files re-runs, King of the Crown, and My Fair Wedding with David Tutera. I can't even get into Dollhouse, which I didn't even know was on until last week, because for some reason it doesn't air where I live.

(Update: I just double-checked with my Fox affiliate and got schooled. Dollhouse does air where I live, but it doesn't air when it's supposed to. It airs Saturday mornings at 2 AM instead of Friday night at 9 PM. Because apparently watching beetles clean off a dead guy's skeleton on Bones is more family-friendly than watching Echo being imprinted as an assassin on Dollhouse. Or something.)

But since I like to keep my glass half full, I've come up with a list of pros that come out of paying a hundred bucks a month for cable service I don't even want to watch:

1. Less TV-watching means more writing. OK, that's not always true. But it could be, in theory.

2. With so much crap on TV these days, I'm able to better appreciate the good shows.

3. If TV ratings slip low enough, there stands a chance that, like Hulu and other web-based TV-watching operations I don't partake in because I don't like watching TV on my computer, someone will get a clue and make everything available OnDemand, even cancelled shows like Firefly and Wonderfalls that were good but didn't stand a chance against America's search for the next Pussycat Doll.

My list of pros ends there, but I'm happy with them.

In the meantime, with nothing to watch but yet another episode of CSI: Miami on A&E, I'm off to structure what I have of WHISTLEWOOD in a last-ditch attempt to get it finished before my deadline of October 31st. 14 days to write 7,000 words? Piece of cake!

Especially if I throw in a Pussycat Doll.