Virtual tour of a blog III

The Something Itches Petting Zoo

1965

Speaking of television, I was thinking about the deteriorating quality of TV programming in relation to my last post. What bugs me the most about television programming today is the lack of originality. I flashed back to my youth, to the 1960s in particular, and the show “My Mother the Car.” Don’t know that show? Well, not surprising. It only lasted a single season. Basically, the show was about a man and his car. Not that unusual, you say? Consider that the man’s car was possessed by his dead mother. The car talked to him in his mother’s voice, using the car’s radio. Now that’s original! Really, really bad, but original! I did a quick internet search on the program and discovered that “My Mother the Car” was one of several “original programs” (i.e. strange) that were released in the year 1965 to compete with the avant-garde shows “Bewitched” and “The Man from Uncle,” both of which debuted a year earlier. The other unusual shows getting their start in the 1965 season included: “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Lost in Space,” “Get Smart,” “Green Acres,” and “Wild Wild West.” Just try and top that line-up.

High def

I haven’t watched television in about a week. My satellite service went out last Wednesday. I didn’t notice for a few days, and with a weekend thrown in, today was the first day a technician could come to diagnose the problem. It’s strange, I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when it’s not even an option, I find that I crave it. All week, I’ve been pacing around the house wondering what I’ve been missing. Not much, obviously, but still – not being able to tune in because it’s unavailable, well, that’s just creepy. I don’t know how else to explain it.

So, tonight with my satellite service repaired, I’m surfing through all 240 of my channels. There’s nothing to watch, nothing that will hold my attention for very long, of course. Still, the tactile pleasure of my thumb on the remote control is calming. It occurs to me that the steady decline in quality of television programming has been countered in recent years by the improvement of picture quality. I have a big screen TV with high definition. I’ll surf pass a couple of dozen normal resolution programs but stop at all the high def channels to admire the picture. It’s astounding really.

I’ll watch anything in high definition. Opera. Bass fishing. Balloon flyovers of the grand canyon. Rally racing across the Kalahari desert in Africa. Whatever. There’s a program that puts a high definition camera half above the water and half below in an Amazon river. Fish swim by. Bubbles rise to the surface. Plant detritus floats by. That’s it. No narration. Just splashing, gurgling and swirling river noises. I love that program. For about 30 seconds. Then I need to move on. Right now, I am watching a program depicting the Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Girls. You simply cannot believe the quality of this picture. I’m serious, you can actually see insects crawling up and down on the palm trees behind the scantily-clad girls with supple breasts, firm thighs and plucked eyebrows. Are those goose bumps on those poor girls? Who knew that it could get that chilly on the beaches of Maui?

Virtual tour of a blog II

The powerplant at Something Itches

Virtual tour of a blog

The view out the back door of Something Itches.