bunchofgrapes

A couple of months ago at work our division VP decided that we were going to a 9/80 work schedule. For those not familiar with this, it means that in our two week pay period (80 hours) we work 8 nine hour days and then one 8 hour Friday and get the first Friday in the pay period off. Today was my first off Friday and I have to say, score one for my division! I also like that my manager stressed that we actually take the day off and not look at the Blackberry. I kind of forgot about the Blackberry until just now.

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Came home to find out the Dick Van Dyke Show is on TV Land. The only thing that could make this better is if the original Bob Newhart Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Andy Griffith Show (Barney episodes only) were all on as well. Not at the same time though.

Just FYI for anyone following along but not on my f'list: some of these entries will be locked.

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a veterinarian. This was due to my love of the TV show, Daktari. Later, I wanted to be an oceanographer and then an ichthyologist because of my love for the TV show, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. At some point I also wanted to be an FBI agent (The FBI), a forest ranger (Lassie), and a spy for the CIA (The Avengers, Mission:Impossible). Do you see a pattern here?

I was one of those kids whose parent used the TV as a babysitter. And I spent a lot of time with the babysitter. TV has always been my source of comfort and escapism but back then, it was a close friend. As a result, my head is full of completely useless TV trivia. This impresses the hell out of my dad, who has on occasion, called me from Colorado or Hawaii to ask me something like "what was the name of the woman who co-starred in Hawaiian Eye"? And no, I didn't have to Google to know it was Connie Stevens. Btw, I never watched Hawaiian Eye; I just know who was in it (Robert Conrad and Anthony Eisley).

One of the things I'm grateful for is growing up when I did. TV was pretty awesome when I was a kid, mostly because a lot of what was on was from the 60's and late 50's (it was reruns, people - I'm not THAT old) and they had some excellent shows back then. Back then our TV set was black and white, which didn't really matter since most of what I watched was B&W. We got our first color TV in the mid 70's and let me tell you, that was a big, damn deal! I remember my mom and I watching some pretty lame stuff just to see what it looked like in color. Sort of like watching something in HD just to see how it pops. In the mid 70's we got cable and my life was complete. We no longer had to get up to change the change- we had this box with a honkin' long cable and push buttons. We had The Avengers on at 2am and I had a ginormous new crush. Life was good.

I don't really watch that much TV any more. Sure there are shows I watch regularly but I end up DVRing most everything and catching up on the weekends. However, that doesn't mean I don't always have a TV - or two - on at all times. There are three in the house and my rule is that I can only have two on at a time. The TV for me is mostly background noise. That friend whose voice drowns out the silence (or the WWE smackdown that the cats are doing in my bedroom upstairs). That friend who lulls me to sleep at night.

So yeah, I'm a product of too much TV as a child. But before you get the idea that TV rotted my brain, I like to think I owe my imagination to it as well as my ability to write. It's definitely made me a very visual person. TV has influenced who I am and how I think and if I still carry around some useless trivia, well, let's just call it memories of a childhood friend.

Oh, and my eyes are just fine, thank you very much.

When I was a kid, one of the bestest things in the world was waiting for the start of a favorite TV show. Usually it was The Avengers or The New Avengers or maybe even Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea or Mission: Impossible. With the exception of The New Avengers, all of these were in reruns on cable but since I was too young to watch them first run, they were new to me.

Watching these shows was an event for my best friend and me. We'd sit on the living room floor about two feet from the TV, all the lights had to be off (totally killed it if a parent was in the room or if the lights were on) and sometimes we had to have pillows to rest on as well. But the key to enjoying the show was snacks. Long before the show came on, we'd stop at the store and buy our favorite snacks and drinks and save them for the show. Somehow, that just made watching the show even better. Maybe that's why food is such a big deal to me to this day.

So anyway tomorrow night, when CSI premiers, I will be sitting in the living room with all the lights out. I will have my favorite snacks and drink, I will squee like the fangirl that I am when Brass makes his first S8 appearance, and I will scrutinize every detail, surprisingly intimate, about Brass because that's what I do. I just hope this season doesn't suck. And of course, I hope there's lots and lots and lots of Brass!