With not enough time in the week to work on things, I realized that I now watch some 24 hours of television programming each week, not counting movies and other one-shot items which account for another half a dozen hours each week. Now, so much time spent watching tv mattered less before because I would always be reading or surfing the Internet or working on something else while I watched tv. Sure, I didn't get everything going on in a show, but I usually got the general episode and that was enough for me.

One of the problems with working hard is that by the time I get home I'm quite tired. I no longer have the presence of mind to be able to do two things at once (not that I was ever good at it, but I could do two things each at 75& effectiveness). Now I watch tv and barely do anything else, make dinner and eat. Therefore I've lost all this extra time that was using to write and read and work on my campaign and other projects. Work is not going to slack off any time soon, so I need to free up some extra time.

Another thing is that I've realized that some of the shows I watch I'm not really interested in anymore. I'm just watching them out of sheer momentum. So it's high time that I trimmed out the shows that I don't really need to watch anymore. Get back some of that time and hopefully not keep going into Sunday with 14 hours of taped shows to watch. Maybe I'll have enough time to go and watch some theatrical movies again.

So what shows to drop? I'll go through each day and we'll see what shows I'll keep watching and what will go. First off we have Sunday. Andromeda surprised me by being a good show. It's not the kind of science fiction that I would normally watch, but the stories have been good so far. Voyager of course I will keep watching, as it's the last season and it's Star Trek to boot. The District I'm going to drop. You'd think a show about women cops, set in scenic San Francisco, would be interesting. There are like half a dozen characters and they're all bland, the only interesting one being Nancy McKeon's alcoholic slutty cop. I also have a problem with Tracey Needham's character. I have fond memories of Tracey playing Meg Austin on JAG and now she plays a rather bitter and mean detective. I guess you can call that good acting, but it's jarring. The last Sunday show is Cleopatra 2525. This one is on the cusp. Sure it has three nice looking women kicking butt, although action shows are not my cup of tea. But the show is now hour-long so the stories are better and there's the underlying mysteries with Voice and the Baleys. Also I did cut a lot of other shows so I'll keep watching this one.

I only watch one show on Monday, Boston Public. What started out as a pretty interesting show has become some sort of awful soap opera. Shootings, sex, insanity, more sex and violence, week after week it's like what's the freaking problem with these people?!? It's like watching a train wreck, a morbid sort of fascination that draws you in week after week. Not that I've seen the other David E Kelley shows, but based on Boston Public, they're probably about as trashy and purile. Not a show that I'll keep watching.

Tuesday there's JAG, one of my favorite shows. They've managed to make the military look serious and professional, with mistakes to be sure. But it does portray our armed forces as made up of men and women dedicated to doing a good job, some people are bad but that's to be expected. JAG is a good show. Dark Angel is also pretty good. There's this relationship growing between Max and Logan that's interesting to watch, and you know it can go somewhere since they're both permanent cast members, unlike some other shows. Jessica Alba is sexy and good at her role. The best new science fiction show of the season.

Then we come to Judging Amy. It's a good show, real drama with good subplots. And yet I'm not going to watch it anymore. The main thing is that none of the romantic subplots are ever going to pan out. Amy and her younger brother and her mom are all doomed to remaining unattached because it's very hard to form a long term relationship with a recurring character. Other than that though, I like the courtroom cases and such. This should could have easily fallen on the other side of the line, much like Cleopatra 2525. But it didn't.

Frasier and Three Sisters. Sorry, but Three Sisters has not been all that interesting. A J Langer is gorgeous, more so playing a ditsy character. Ed Kerr I like from SeaQuest. Other than that it's not funny enough to watch. And with it goes Frasier, as I'm not going to tape a half hour show by itself. The Daphne-is-huge subplot is not as interesting as when Niles had his whole unrequited love thing going. Two more Tuesday night comedies that I'm dropping are Dharma and Greg and Geena Davis. I actually like both shows but I watch too many comedies. Geena Davis is actually pretty good in a comedic role and it's a funny show. Maybe I'll change my mind later.

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