Value Entertainment

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that the daughter hung out on the couch most of the stay in slug mode.  As such she got plenty of sleep.  So much sleep that at 2 AM she came into our bedroom to announce (in a very awake sounding voice) that she was not tired.  Given the wife’s inability even to feign alertness after 9 PM or so, I knew within seconds that this situation was all on me to solve.  I opted to putting the daughter on the coach with the good blanket and finding something on the TV.  This left the small rocker-recliner and the remnants of a blanket that we have all but abandoned to the dogs for me.

I only have a $12 antennae from Radio Shack and I am 30 to 40 miles away from the main TV stations so pickings are slim even during the waking hours for value entertainment.  At 2 AM this morning the best options was some music video channel called The Cool TV and the syndicated show Family Feud.  We opted for the latter.

I remember vaguely that for a while about 5 years ago this show made a comeback with Richard Karn (from Home Improvement) hosting.  I also remember Louie Anderson hosting before that.  Anyway, I recognized the host early this morning as Steve Harvey and I guess he does as good of a job as any of the replacement hosts over the years.  We watched two shows which got us until 3 AM and the daughter was still wide awake.  Nothing else kid friendly was on after that so I switched the TV input to our home theater PC and played Ice Age 2.  I made it for about the first 20 minutes or so and then dozed off and on until the end of the movie.

Once the movie was over, the daughter (who was still evidently wide awake) let me know that it was time to get up and find more entertainment during her insomnia.  I switched back to the antennae and then we watched an infomercial for the Flavor Wave Turbo Oven.  I have actually seen infomercials for this product before but this one was different in that it was hosted by none other than Mr. T (don’t believe me, here is a short video clip).  The daughter recognized him immediately from the Season 1 DVD set we have of The A Team.  I snoozed in and out of this one like I did the movie but it was followed by another infomercial for Hip Hop Abs.  This one should have been rated PG-13 as there are some rather skinny women gyrating the parts of their bodies you would imagine need to be gyrated in order to get those abs looking that good.  They were all (of course) dressed in as little clothing as possible (gotta show of the abs, right?) and the male exercise leader did not even bother to put on a shirt.  Fortunately for me by this time another channel had the early morning news on and so I switched over to that for the duration of our night together.

Around 6:30 I went back into our bedroom to find the Doberman stretched out on my half of the bed.  As I entered the room she opened one eye and did not move any other muscle.  She did not even have the courtesy of looking guilty.  I imagine the wife might have fought this idea at first but in her defense, the dog does put out some major heat so I could not be upset.  Once I convinced the 3 of them (including Oreo) that it was time to get up, our day then began like any other day.  The son is a little excited as he thinks this will give him the advantage in our 16 game chess tournament that we started yesterday.  We will see.  For now, I am concentrating on making it until noon when we are heading to the mother-in-law’s for the annual Thanksgiving leftovers lunch.  After that, I plan on getting in a well deserved nap.

Jon