Jamie Cullum's New Album Cover.

De-Sensitized.

I had a little over a week off from work. I go back tonight. Most of my time off from work was spent right here in front of my computer. Sitting and thinking. You see, most of my time away from here isn't spent alone. It's spent with my Mom. Most everywhere I go and anything that I do, my Mom is with me. Pretty much every time I go out to eat somewhere my Mom is with me. When I go shopping, my Mom is with me. When I go out to the beach/lake, my Mom is with me. I don't feel that I can exclude my Mom from accompanying me when I go places. However, from to time, I just need to break free and go places by myself. It's not that I don't like my Mom or that we don't get along, I just need time alone. That is part of the reason I have scheduled my trip to Toronto with my best friend in October. It'll be the first time we've ever gone on vacation together. Kind of a "Guys Weekend" away. While I go out to dinner with my Mom a lot, I don't ever pick restaurants to eat dinner at that solely appeal to me. Can't very well say to Mom, "Why don't we go to Hooter's for dinner tonight?" So, after booking the trip to Toronto I set out to find various restaurants that would satisfy the requirements for a "Guys Weekend" away. In other words, restaurants that were nice, but not too fancy and places where the food on the menu sounded good and the atmosphere of the restaurant looked fun. Three places I bookmarked were "Grace O'Malleys", "Irish Embassy Pub-Grill" and "Baton Rouge Restaurant and Bar". These are 3 restaurants that I intend to have some form of lunch or dinner at while in Toronto. Am I looking more and more forward to getting away for these 4 days in October. In the meantime, I have bought tickets to next Saturday's Tigers game in Detroit against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Out of Lurk Mode.

A lot of times, I just lurk around places on the internet. The TV Land messageboard is a favorite place of mine to lurk. Mainly to read all the viewer complaints. The TV Land execs have often stated their key viewer demographic is from ages 40-54. I'm 39, so I don't quite fit into their key viewer age group. That means, my complaints would fall on deaf ears. Anyway, according to their research, viewers between the ages of 40-54 not only enjoy classic television, they also enjoy reality tv. Thus, TV Land is no longer just a place for watching classic tv programs, you can also watch reality tv shows there. Of course, people who grew up watching tv in the 1960's and 1970's will easily remember all the great reality tv shows that they had on tv back then. Go ahead, think of one. Candid Camera? Battle of the Network Stars? The Superstars? Here's my take on the TV Land programming. ESPN is a network for sports. Let's say that ESPN's key viewer demographic is baseball fans. So, they start airing re-runs of the tv show "Cheers" during primetime. You may think to yourself, "Cheers was a great show, but why the hell is ESPN showing re-runs of it in primetime?" And then I say to you, "Research has shown that a lot of baseball fans watch ESPN during primetime and many of those baseball fans are Red Sox fans. Sam Malone on Cheers was a former pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. So, people who like baseball will tune in to watch "Cheers" during primetime."
Several years ago, I started watching the channel VH1 Classic. It was a cable channel that broadcast classic music videos 24/7. Think of MTV in the early days. They even had VJs. However, some time ago, VH1 Classic scrapped it's original idea of programming. They canned most of all their VJs except for that guy named Eddie. They also greatly reduced the amount of time they played music videos. The videos pretty much stop airing at 4:00 p.m. every day. They start airing other music-related programming from 4:00 p.m. until resuming showing music videos sometime after midnight, I believe. A lot of the programming they show has been seen on the original VH1 channel. I lamented this change and I sent an e-mail to them to ask them why they ruined the channel. Never got a response. Viacom owns both VH1 Classic and TV Land. My beef with both of these channels is the reason why I liked them so much in the past was because they had a clear vision and niche. I could spurn network tv and watch TV Land and see programs like Mary Tyler Moore, Family Affair, Bob Newehart, Petticoat Junction etc... Now, they have shows like "The
Cougar", "How'd You Get So Rich?", "High School Reunion" and "She's Got The Look". I still watch TV Land and VH1 Classic, but I treat them like any other channel on tv. If they aren't showing anything I like, I watch a different channel. However, TV Land is almost to the point where the only show I watch on that network is "The Andy Griffith Show". Gone are the nights where I could watch TV Land all night long. As for VH1 Classic, there was only one thing good that came out of Michael Jackson's untimely death: All of the music video channels played music videos non-stop for about a week or so. It was refreshing to see music videos on tv again.

Coast Guard Festival 2009 Pics.