Ch-ch-ch-changes

One of the things I had to get used to when I married Cath was she likes to have the TV on when she sleeps. It's background noise to her and a comfort. I guess all of those years being a Single Mom she needed something comforting to her. It's an old habit, and I'm used to it now. Lately when it gets time for the alarm to go off I start rising up out of the depths of sleep to semi-conciousness (yes I usually sleep well....no run ins with Beavers, Abraham Lincoln or Deep Sea Divers.....) and the droning background of the TV starts to invade my thoughts. Late night/early morning TV is freaking weird!!! Remember when we were kids (by We I mean folks my age or close to it) and late night TV meant some old Black and White movie that was drudged up out of the vaults, then about 3AM or so the test pattern came on (kind of looked like the Pride Flag....all rainbowy......I digress) and the broadcast day was ended. Heck they even had a little recording come on saying "NBC now ends it's broadcast day. See you tomorrow." Then somewhere in the 90's someone decided to themselves "Hey Self.....why not buy that airtime from the networks and broadcast basically a 30-1 hour commercial. We will disguise it as some talk show type thing, pick some "host" that looks generic enough and pitch crap to people." The Networks, and can you truly blame them, decided this was a good idea. Why not sell the airtime. They weren't using it and it was extra revenue for doing nothing. Thus the Infomercial was born. Now I've seen a few (they now permeate Sunday Morning and Saturday Afternoon TV) and my favorites by far are from one of my personal Heroes; Ron Popeil. The God of Selling useless crap to people for decades finally found his niche. C'mon.....who didn't know someone that actually owned a Popeil Pocket Fisherman? I used to have one of his Pasta Machines. Ron's Da Man......and actually his Showtime Rotisserie grill is pretty awesome. My Folks have one and they love it. Remember the Ronco (he changed the Company name later on) Record Vacuum? Or the inflatable bumper you hung from the ceiling in two car garages so one car wouldn't bump the door of the other car getting out? Da Man I say. There are also some weird ones....which usually seem weirder because they are invading my semi-concious mind at about 4:30 AM....an hour and 15 minutes before my alarm goes off. There's the guy who sells his Double Action Colon Cleanse. Huh????? Yep.....this guy (who looks like some college Dweeb with slicked back hair and a very lame Goatee) sits at a desk like it's a talk show and goes on for a half hour-45 minutes to this Woman and another Guy about how great it feels to "cleanse your Colon". The Warden often jokes about this.....he once took something called ColonBlow....the label reads (and I shit you not....Pun intended) you must be able to be inactive afterwards for 36 hours. He said it was like draino. I think he crapped out his small intestines or something and it wiped him out. This infomercial for this intestine draino stuff is hysterical. Here is some guy trying to sell you and me (for 2 easy payments of 5.95....but wait there's more!!) something that will make you crap like an elephant. Dude I'm so regular you can set your watch to me....why the hell am I going to pay you to help me crap???? That's what a good novel or a crossword puzzle is for. This morning was particularly strange. Apparently the US Postal Service (yep the folks who deliver your mail) has an Informercial. It's got snappy music and they speak all excitedly about all the services you can get on USPS.com...... Is this what they use the money for when they raise the price of stamps???? A bloody Infomercial????? Sometimes the do the old trick of cranking the volume a bit....these get annoying and I actually have to find the remote and change the channel.....the Girls Gone Wild Infomercials are like that....or as I like to call it "Stupid Drunken Sluts Doing Crap they will be ashamed of and Guilty about for the rest of their lives." Yes I've seen one of these videos. The Perfect Line has one, and they are akin to Softcore Porn.......but these Bimbos do it for free drinks and maybe 50 bucks. Wow.....makes Mommy and Daddy proud that they sent you off to College to make something of yourself and here are your ta-ta's preserved on DVD forever. Morons.....I'd kill Liv if she did something like that. I love to tease Cath when I see these things (no not the Girls Gone Wild ones) by saying "Honey...We need that! Look we can make Guacamole in 15 seconds!!!!" Ever see that one? This couple apparently has this big Party at their house....must have been a rager too because everyone comes down to the kitchen all rumpled and hung over. There's even some grumpy old lady with a scarf and curlers and a cigarette stuck in the corner of her mouth (I'm not sure why this character was at the party.....maybe they are Swingers who just don't care....). Now for some reason the pitch men for alot of these shows are Aussies. Not sure if it's the accent or what, but alot of them are Aussies. It's kind of like seeing more of the Geico Gecko than you really want to. So this Aussie and his American Wife are speaking highly of this device called the Magic Bullet......yeah basically it's some kind of chopper/blender thing. It's odd actually, all these "has been" actors and actresses or people like Daisy Fuentes who never should have been famous to begin with are all pitching some crap. Like the first time I saw the Daisy Fuentes "Windsor Pilates" Infomercial. WTF is a Pilate??? Isn't that the Roman guy who washed his hands and sealed his fate and sentenced Christ to be crucified??? You know Pontius Pilate??? Well no...apparently it is a form of exercise that is basically....are you ready for this....STRETCHING!!!! You know, the thing runners do so they don't cramp up. The thing Martial Artists do to become flexible.....same with Fencers......stretching.....as in stretching out the muscles (which breaks them down slightly and then the physical activity you do after builds them back up). So apparently someone decided to take Stretching to a whole new plateau and call it Pilates (pronounced Pee-La-teys....which I guess if you drink enough Late's you will Pee Late's.......sorry that was bad wasn't it?). The one's I used to love were the Eric Estrada one's where he was pitching some vacation property in BFE.....you could buy like an Acre for 190 bucks a month or 3K right off the top....something like that then build on it. Yeah they were in the most remote Northern parts of California......I remember driving through there with my Buddy Brian once.....there was a City (and I hesitate to call it that but it was a City) with a population of 200. We saw nothing but houses on hills and I think I counted about 200 of them. So yeah....real cheap land because there is nothing around!!! Groceries are probably about 20 miles away as is everything else you need. Liv says she loves the Country, but really if she thought about it......there is no Claires in the Country. There's no Kroger, Old Navy, etc in the Country. There is just Nature.......and that's it. Oh, and of course let's not forget the 1-800-Ima-SCAM preachers. I got out of the shower this morning and passed by the TV and there was this preacher dude and his wife or whatever holding hands and pointing their other hands at the screen saying a "prayer and sending the Lord's blessing" through the TV and into the lives of some poor hapless Moron who sent them a letter asking for a prayer....they probably sent 100 bucks too. "Reach deep into your hearts and your wallets and take Jesus' hand...." Uhhh huh.....I think the last time I saw something come through the TV was in the movie "Poltergeist" and it wasn't Holy nor did it have anything to do with Heaven. Of course, no discussion of Infomercials can be complete without mentioning "Dione Warwick and her Psychic Friends Network" or "Madame Cleo" with her very fake (obviously fake) Jamacian Accent. "Ya Man...let Madame Cleo read da Tarot fo you.....I can see da future..." Yeah if I smoke enough Ganja I'd see the future too.....and the Lord and the Devil and many other things I'm sure. The saddest was Dione Warwick. Great Soul Singer from the 70's....the driving force behind the "That's what friends are for" all-star sing a long for Aids....diminshed to pitching some pay per call Psychic Friends Network....."Your Psychic Friend is standing by....just 2.00 for the first 20 minutes then .50 a minute after....." I've got some Psycho friends I can call for free, I don't need to pay some stranger 100s of dollars to blow Sunshine up my ass...... "Oh yes....I see a good job in your future....and money and romance......." Yeah....right....all things that may happen even without some fortune telling hack pointing them out to you. Side note: Ever see a Palm Reader/Psychic with a "Going out of Business" sign on their shop. Don't you think they'd have known that was coming?? Obviously not a real Psychic..... Anyway thank God for Adult Swim....at least you can watch Innuyasha or some strange Anime in the weird hours of the AM.....beats someone discussing crapping......