52nd Confession

I'm a sucker for well-written television programs.

There are very few of those around these days, sadly. With the glut of "reality" programming these days, the demand for real writers is greatly diminished. And with the ability of a network to put out 500 crappy unscripted programs to any one quality program, it's easy as anything to see why networks choose the easy route.

And what "reality" do most of these programs come from anyway? Most places I know of don't have a bunch of young folk acting as stupidly as some shows have 'em. For example, most of the girls I dated in my short span of time never would make me dress up in a sumo suit and wrestle with a professional, just to go out with 'em. I've also never seen a community of people who were so proud of their excesses, so arrogant about their poor life choices, or so particular about their vices as one sees during "unscripted" television.

It's also sad how quickly good premises go bad. Heroes, No Ordinary Family, Due South, The Cape...pretty much anything science-fiction or comic book related - they all start out so brilliantly, and then fall so flat as to be unrecognizable. There have been a very few that have kept on with their original premise and gotten better - Eureka, for one, and supposedly the entire Stargate series as well.

Sometimes, I think we should go with the British programming system: all of their serieses start out with about eight episodes, and if they are popular enough, they get more. If not, it was a nice little story arc, time to move on.

Or maybe we could do it through social media. Enough "likes" or "diggs" or tweets or hashtags, and a new show makes it through. Or maybe we could make it more interactive than that: a new show, scripted by the majority of Americans. A premise is laid out, the characters have fairly broad ranges, the situation is fairly clearly defined, and at the end of an episode, a cliffhanger ending. What happens next? That's up to the viewing audience to decide!

51st Confession

I wish I had a better lawn.

I have absolutely no talent for botany. None whatsoever. Plants take one look at me and lose the will to live. There are so many dead spots on my lawn, it looks more like the surface of the moon than it does anything American.

I used to think it would be a blessing to have mature shade trees. Unfortunately, mature shade trees make for lots and lots of leaves. In addition, there are lots of sticks: dead limbs, limbs that need to be removed - all this adds up to wood chips and time and money. Many things I have in this life, but extra time is not one of them.

Would that I had the extra resources to actually turf the lawn this year, as I've so often remarked would resolve all the issues. It'd always look good, the trees could still get water. And yet, I'd never have to mow again, and any spots on the lawn would be cleaned up with spot remover or a snow shovel. A very special, use-specific snow shovel.

Currently, I reseeded and hayed the lawn. I did it right before the heavy rains came. I added fertilizer, I tore up the dirt to lay the seed down...and nothing has sprouted. Nothing at all. Between birds and the dog, nothing.

The next thing to do is to admit defeat, call in a professional, and just redo the whole thing. I'm halfway there, but I just think that if I do the right things, it'll all come out right. Of course, that hasn't worked out for the past two years...