Entertainment Tonight

One of the best parts about the fall is not that the kids are back in school, or that the leaves are turning colors and the air is crisp and we can wear sweaters and jeans again (although all of those things are good), it's that there's finally something to watch on tv again.

Yes, I enjoy watching television. While I'm admitting embarrassing characteristics, I might as well mention that I also think McDonald's food tastes pretty good, and that Wal-Mart products are usually good enough for me. I'm sorry if I'm letting some of you down with my decidedly non-sophisticated tastes, but it is what it is. I download the shows from the internet, so that I can watch them on my ipod, which must redeem me a little - if I'm not sophisticated, at least I'm technologically current.

So it's nice to have something interesting to watch again, after the drivel of summer tv ("Fat March," anyone?) we can move on to the drivel of fall tv ("The Bachelor," anyone?). And I thought, if anyone cares, I'd list some of the things I'm watching this season.

Some returning favorites:
Heroes
The Office
House (I'm also watching the old seasons on DVD)
Survivor
Beauty and the Geek

And some new shows:
Pushing Daisies - a quirky show about a guy with the power to bring people back from the dead for one minute, lots of quick, snappy dialogue which makes Ryan really irritated because no one talks like that in real life

Reaper - another quirky show about a guy whose parents sold his soul to the devil, who comes to collect on his 21st birthday by turning him into a bounty hunter for souls that have escaped from hell. I love the devil's character the best, I ought to ponder what his character means in a spiritual sense, but the show is too fun to take seriously.

Chuck - a show aiming for quirkiness but missing, this one is about a guy who gets government secrets downloaded into his brain, making him valuable to agents from both the NSA and the CIA, who also work with a woman from the DEA, some representatives from the NEA and the AARP, and their cronies down at the IHOP. Oh, and they attend Acronymaholics Anonymous, which they have to call by it's full name. Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little, but the show is not that captivating as a spy show. I was able to watch Alias when Sydney, her mom, her boss, her boyfriend, and her best friend all died and then were magically not dead at different parts of the series, and the most Chuck can throw at us is some trust issues. Boring and uninspired, I'm only still watching because, well, like I explained earlier, I have low standards.

Samantha Who? - Last week was the first episode of this show, which stars Christina Applegate as an amnesiac who finds out she used to be a real jerk but wants to be nice. I've liked Christina Applegate ever since she showed off her acting chops in "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead." Boy, there's a movie I haven't thought about in, oh, 16 years - I ought to rent it.

Kitchen Nightmares - I've only watched a couple episodes of this, when I can handle the almost constant bleeping of swear words. In fact, I think the audio track for that show is actually one long bleep, which they unbleep for the 16 or so real words that aren't swearing. I doubt I'll watch that one anymore.

As a family we've been watching baseball the last week or two, and that is fun. The boys have taken to baseball this year like no other. Brad seems mature enough to understand what's going on and can concentrate on the game for a while, but Noah's interest is dubious. He has a tendency to fixate on one thing - Spiderman, Star Wars, Harry Potter - and go nuts for six months or a year, and then abandon it for something new. A costume has always been a necessary component of his obsessions, and baseball is no different - the boys are going to be baseball players for Halloween so Ryan bought them baseball pants, which Noah had to be told that he could not wear to school as regular pants. So we'll see if this is a lasting hobby or if by next year he's found a new item to obsess over.

Speaking of Noah, he can be such a tender and loving kid, so gentle when he's not hitting his brothers. The other day, he was playing with Darcey, making her smile and laugh, and after a few minutes he says, "Dad? Is it okay to marry your sister?" He can be so sweet. Brad is very hands-on with Darcey, constantly asking to hold her, while Noah kind of hangs back, but it's clear he adores his sister. Zack likes her too, but I still feel the need to remind him not to step on her when she's laying on a blanket on the floor.

Well, I've kind of derailed myself from the topic of watching stuff on tv, so I don't have some catchy way to wrap the whole thing up. So maybe I'll throw in the fact that Darcey rolled from her back to her tummy for the first time yesterday (which is the harder direction) so it's just a matter of time before she's rolling all over the house, then crawling and walking, and from there it's just moments away from telling me how embarrassing I am and could I drop her off a block away from the school so no one sees us together. Oh, how time flies when you're watching tv.