What's on TV?

I have satellite TV, and we’ve ordered the “Deluxe Jumbo 5,000 Channels of Crap” package, so I have an endless possibility of things to watch, all the while saying “I can’t believe I’m watching this.”

My wife and I often watch separate TVs, since she likes shows like “I had a 200-pound Tumor”, or reality shows about people who have 30 kids in their house, or shows where some Yuppie couple in San Jose spends three weeks deciding how to redo their kitchen floor. Meanwhile, I’m downstairs watching sports, or cool shows on Spike, like “1,000 Ways to Die.”

Have you seen that show? It depicts all sorts of crazy ways that people have died over the years – exploding toilets, a turtle dropped on a guy’s head by an eagle, a skateboarder passing out facedown in wet cement – with graphic re-creations. I can’t understand for the life of me why women don’t enjoy this show.

The truth is, I have the TV on a lot, but I don’t really watch it that much. I am thrilled that IFC is now showing “The Larry Sanders Show,” which is the best show in the history of television. But other than that, pickings are slim.

The other night I was sitting on the couch, flipping through one of the many HBO channels that I overpay for, and I saw that the movie “Up” was coming on. Well, I’d never seen it, and I thought, I’ll give it a try. I’d read good reviews, and it looked like a delightful animated adventure. My daughter said she’d watch part of it with me.

Have you seen this movie? For the first 20 minutes, I had to pretend that my cold was acting up so my daughter wouldn’t ask me why I was getting teary-eyed and sniffling from watching a cartoon. I haven’t been that emotional watching a movie since (Spoiler Alert!) Old Yeller got a bullet in his brain.

At least it was a pretty good movie. One good thing about my children growing up is I don’t have to sit through awful kids’ movies and TV shows any more. There was a point in my life when just seeing something purple could turn me homicidal, all thanks to Barney the Dinosaur. I used to daydream about driving to California and strangling that little guy on “Blue’s Clues” with my bare hands.

Now, my children watch wonderful shows like “Jersey Shore.” I wouldn’t watch that show unless I was wearing a haz-mat suit. You could probably get an STD if you watched that show on one of those new 3-D TVs. If aliens land on Earth and see that show, they’ll immediately incinerate us all, because they’ll think there’s no hope for humanity. A purple Barney was pretty bad, but an orange “Snooki” is too much to bear.

I suppose I could do something productive instead of just sitting on the couch in front of the TV set. I could, but I’m not. It’s cold outside, it gets dark at 5:30, and by the time I get home from work, my brain needs rest, not stimulation. Hopefully there’s a good bowl game on tonight.