Oh, by the way, the cable post from a couple of days ago prompted some response. From Cool Bohemian Aunt Role-Model Elaine:

Try Animal Planet channel, "Emergency Vets" and"Breed all about it". Do you get Bravo? Lots of good movies. And of course there's "South Park" and "The Jiminy Glick" (?) show. I only watch the big 3 channels for "West Wing". Also -- "Nero Wolfe" on A&E, and "The Sopranos" on HBO. You can tell I watch mucho TV.

You can also tell we're related, by volume of TV alone.

And Hunter, a friend of Rich's, had this to say:

Wish I could give you good news, but my cable sickness runs so deep that I followed Rich's lead and got a TiVo for Father's Day. So the best I could offer is someone to commiserate with, and possibly point to and say "Yeah, but I've not fallen nearly as much as that guy!".

Beware The Learning Channel, The History Channel, etc. They lure you in with fairly intelligent programming and the occasional interesting special and all of a sudden you're watching Pet Surgery or something like that.

I will keep your warning in mind, Hunter, but if Elaine is anything to go by, I'm genetically predisposed to pet surgery shows. Alas.

Digression -- Why is no one in the Midwest names Hunter (and do you go by Hunt?)? I went to school with folks names Tripp and Hunt and Beau and all the rest, and you just don't run into it here. Is it a "Lo, we've had this name for many generations" thing? (I know that's the case with Tripp, which is what you call thirds -- which makes me wonder, what the hell do you call fourths? Quad?) Does the East Coast just attract folks with names like that? Are they hounded out of the plains states? Hmm. Something to ponder.