Television in 2012

Today we continue the "Stuff in 2012" series with my take on television in 2012.

 Try to draw a storage console under the screen, 

get a TV on top of the grill of a Mercury four door 

(five, if you count the trunk)

My tastes in entertainment aren't the best but whenever I'm feeling out of sorts I find it useful to consult my Entertainment List in the hopes of finding something to watch or do to improve my mood.  Here are are a few of the programs from the TV section of my current Entertainment List:

• Academic Earth - The Academic Earth site offers all the fun of attending college lectures without the increased chances of becoming employed, which, theoretically, come with a college degree!  However, in as much seriousness as you will ever find here, I do recommend this site as a source of good quality information on virtually every topic one could pay thousands of dollars a semester to study at a quality college or university.  Plus, I enjoy the fact that anytime I have internet access I can get up to speed on any topic over the course of a single evening by watching videos on this site.  

 A good place to keep your stuff

         The downside to these lecturers is that I typically find it necessary to setup rewards for myself for making it through one of them.  

         Finally, I realize that Academic Earth isn't television.  "Video Content in 2012" doesn't sound quite convey the subject matter of this post since the rest of these are TV show.

• Archer - Archer is guilty pleasure TV for me.  I would never recommend people of my Grandparent's generation watch this show because it's filled with vulgarity, hilarious, often unexpected and well written vulgarity.  Basically, Archer is a spoof on the James Bond series of books and movies, which consistently delivers laughs. 
• Children's Hospital - Again, this one falls into my guilty pleasure category.  I like the show because the jokes come quickly, the writing and editing are sharp and the cast is a blend of guys from the stand up world and good looking actresses.
  
• Community - I bet a lot of the success of this show comes from having Joel McHale involved.  From all the time that McHale has been doing Talk Soup he seems to have learned what makes for bad TV.  From what I've seen of Community, he tries to do the opposite on this show.  Also, having Chevy Chase probably doesn't hurt in the laugh department.  Plus, Alison Brie is easy on the eyes.
• Conan - I'll tune in to TBS at 11 p.m. once every few days to watch Conan's monologue and the first sketch, which are usually fairly good.  If the guest that night seems interesting, I'll usually leave the TV on in the background while commenting on the blogs of people that publish interesting content.  You know who you are.
• CSI - I like the original version, which is set in Las Vegas, not so much the New York or Miami versions.   

 Why do they always investigate in the dark using flashlights?

The dead guy isn't going to get stuck with the electric bill.

• Gold Rush - I'm addicted to watching the working life of the three groups of gold miners working in Alaska on the Discovery Channel program, Gold Rush.  The first season captivated me based on the inept management of the group of miners who are sort of led by a heavily bearded guy.  While watching the first season, it struck me as amazing that a group of people with no skill or knowledge were willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment but didn't budget enough for fuel to keep their incredibly expensive equipment running, nor did they spend any money or time training themselves on how to make money at gold mining.
• Jeopardy
• Mythbusters - I appreciate their blend of science and entertainment.
• The River - On February 7, 2012 ABC will premier The River.  Based solely on the ads, I'll watch at least the first episode.  I'm not going to spend a single second thinking about the show if the first episode doesn't deliver.  Here you can find the official site of this upcoming ABC show.  

To give you some sense of my taste, or lack thereof, here are some of the shows I deemed worthy of watching in the past and/ or still do watch in reruns:

• Harper's Island - In 2009 this terrible mistake of a show, which was hyped as "horror comes to network TV" but really didn't deliver anything more graphic than your standard episode of CSI, captured my attention.  The Harper's Globe site where promotional videos and content written from the perspective of a resident of the fictional Harper's Island, which was used to promote the series before it aired was very well done.  Unfortunately, I found that the TV series left a lot to be desired. 
• The Killing - This show does well in terms of atmosphere and I like the fact that the murder mystery presented in this series isn't just wrapped up in a neat little package in a one hour time slot.  But when the investigation dragged on and on I started to think that perhaps the detectives on the show need to find new careers.

"You know what baffles me more than this case?"
"Wondering how it was that we were ever hired as detectives?"
"Precisely." 

• Lost - I enjoyed the first season a lot but lost interest when the show was pushed to a later time slot.  I saw a billboard for the fictional airline featured in the show on Hollywood Blvd. several years ago, which is a fantastic way to connect with one's audience.  Also, from what I heard during my drive to and from work at the time the producers ran faux-commercials that referenced a fictional corporation in the show during the regular commercials for the show, which is awesome. 
• Scrubs – I still find Scrubs to be funny.
• The Simpsons

How does any of the above fit within the scope of this blog being about computing, technology, world affairs, the struggle of the middle class in America, famous authors, computer programming and well designed things?  I don't think it does.  However, I'm justifying posting this information in the hope that one of the shows listed above will cause someone else to exclaim "WHY DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS BEFORE!?!"

TL;DR: I watch a lot of TV.  As always, I try to highlight in bold the bits I think are worth scanning.