TV Is a Drug

Don't watch TV; watch this young groundhog!

It really is, and I am a recovering addict.  As a kid, I watched tons of it.  As an adult, I've watched tons of it. When you add cable, it becomes a hard drug.  A TV with digital cable is cocaine.  A TV with digital cable plus a movie channel is crack.  A TV with digital cable plus two movie channels is meth, and so on.  You get the point.  TV, the way I have it now, is like alcohol or marijuana.  I have no cable, so I get only three channels, and one of them is a 24-hour-a-day weather channel.  However, I have a DVD player.  I watch very little television programming, but I might watch anywhere from part of a movie to two movies in any given day.  I certainly don't miss having to pay the monthly charge for cable, which went up every single year. 
TV, like drugs, can be a real time-waster.  I'm pretty sure that Time Warner Cable isn't planning to offer free cable to me, but even if they did, I think I would decline it.  The older I get, the faster time seems to move.  I feel like watching TV is like watching your life pass by.  I want to do more with my life than watch TV.  And it really does get me high.  I turn it on, watch it, and get high on it.  It brings on a certain feeling of relaxation. 
Someone recently said to me that TV gets a bad rap.  I think that's true to a degree.  I think most of the programming is crap, but I have seen some interesting and informative stuff.  Probably the most informative show I ever saw was about the Three Gorges Dam in China.  I learned that many people were displaced by it.  A city was shown, from above, that was eventually going to be entirely underwater because of the dam.  It blew my mind, because it was a real-sized city with tall buildings and everything.  It was hard to imagine.  Of course the buildings would have to be demolished.  You can't have a ship, traveling down the river, crashing into an underwater building.  In fact, some people were paid to demolish buildings in their own town that they were being forced to evacuate: adding insult to injury.  So, as you can see, that was a very informative program.  On the other end is a show like Celebrity Apprentice.  What a piece of crap.  I have to admit, the commercials drew me in.  I gave it a try.  It didn't take long to realize that Trump's main objective was to create drama by getting the participants to criticize each other: garbage.
You're free to watch as much TV as you want to.  Just remember, ultimately, what you're doing is watching a box.    

Quit Smoking or Die!

Don't smoke cigarettes; eat grass instead!

Cigarette-smoking is so stupid.  I think it's great that smokers have been forced out of so many places.  I love to see them freezing their asses off outside in the cold.  They deserve it.  What is the upside to cigarette-smoking?  Smokers really can't expect non-smokers to see it at all.  The downside to smoking is obvious to a non-smoker like myself.  Every aspect about it seems to be a drawback.  I really don't think I could have a girlfriend who smoked cigarettes.  I hate being around people who reek of cigarette smoke.
Any self-respecting government would have completely outlawed cigarettes by now.  It's the right thing to do.  Of course it won't happen as long as tobacco companies contribute mightily to politician's campaigns.  Regardless, this is what I think should happen.  Obama should announce that he's going to deliver an urgent address to the nation tonight, and several TV networks should broadcast it.  Then he should inform the American public that smoking cigarettes is illegal as of tomorrow.  Additionally, if the cops see anyone smoking, they have the right, and obligation, to shoot them dead on sight.  It would probably be a good thing for the cops.  I suppose many of them became police officers so they could shoot at people.  They're probably bored by the reality of being a cop, and it's likely that they rarely, if ever, get to discharge their firearms in the line of duty.
Besides, it's obvious that smokers want to die anyway.  Every one of them is committing suicide: just very slowly.  This way, we'll see who really wants to quit and who really wants to die.  Besides, there's no doubt that smokers are doing horrible things like smoking while they're pregnant, smoking near pregnant women, smoking near children, and the like.  As every sane adult should know, smokers harm not only their health, but also the health of those around them.  This is what makes many of them such a menace.
Don't worry, smokers.  This scenario will never happen anyway.  But a responsible government would ban cigarette smoking, since it has outlawed several other dangerous and addictive substances.  I haven't had a successful career so far.  This society frequently makes me feel like a loser, but at least I'm not a cigarette smoker.

The Baldness

The beautiful, glamorous matriarch: Sheila.  The Grande Dame of groundhogs.

Good God, it sucks.  Every sighting of a bald head is proof that life isn't fair.  Why me?  I've shouted toward the sky again and again.  I'm still waiting for an answer.  I try to be a nice guy.  Why is it that I'm stricken with baldness and evil people, like terrorists and war criminals, have lush, full heads of hair?
I don't care what women say, if they have a choice between a guy who's bald and one who has a full head of hair, and everything else is equal, baldie will get the shaft every time.  Unless the lady in question has a fetish for bald guys.  It's possible.  After all, chubby chasers exist.  If folds of fat can turn someone on, then horseshoe-pattern baldness might as well.  I was seeing someone.  We were getting along fine.  She knew I was bald.  One day, I donned a hat and her passion level went through the roof as a result.  It was as though she completely forgot that I was a bald bastard.
I met and began dating a lady; I was wearing a hat from the beginning.  We had been going out for weeks, and she hadn't seen me without a hat on at all.  I was nervous.  What will happen when she finds out that I'm bald?  While we were having sex, it got pretty wild, and my hat fell off as a result.  She froze like a deer in the headlights and looked at the baldness in horror.  Then she said, "Get off me."
I said, "what?"
"Get off me now!" she screamed.
I got off her.  "What's the problem, baby?" I asked.
"The problem is you're bald, bitch!  It's over!  Get dressed and get out of here right now!  And start by putting your hat back on, for Christ's sake!"
"Are you serious, baby?"
"I'm as serious as a heart attack!  You disgust me!  Now get lost!"
Okay, the relationship just described never happened.  But I'm sure things like that have happened. 
There is one good thing about being bald.  I haven't had to pay for a haircut in years.  Every time they finish cutting my hair, after grabbing my jacket (if applicable), I act like I'm going for my wallet, then I take off running.  I'm just kidding.  I cut my own hair.  I shave it all off.  I'm pretty sure the trimmer and hand-held mirror paid for themselves by the second haircut I gave myself.  It doesn't even take that long anymore.  If I didn't have OCD, I'd probably have it done in a jiffy.  But I can't help trying to get it perfect.  I do a better job than some of the barbers who have had the pleasure of working on my head.  It's not because I'm better at cutting hair than any of them, it's because I care more about what I look like than they do.  One young guy even cut me with the trimmer once.  The blood dripped down my head.  I tipped him anyway, and I regret doing that.  He didn't deserve a tip after butchering me.  I've never done that to myself.
Also, I have a real appreciation for bald humor.  I'm a big fan of Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I love it whenever he uses baldness for the purpose of comedy.  The funniest was when he refused to give candy to a couple of girls who came to his front door on Halloween because they weren't wearing costumes.  The next day, there was toilet paper all over his yard, and someone had written "bald asshole" on his house.  He called the cops and suggested that perhaps it should be treated as a hate crime because of the bald asshole thing.
One of the cops had a shaved head, but not because he was bald, it was because that's the kind of haircut he wanted, and he said, "I'm bald, and I'm not offended."
Larry said, "With all due respect officer, you shave your head because it's fashionable to do so, and we don't really consider you to be part of the bald community."