I can’t tell you how overjoyed I was to learn that Nielsen had chosen me to become a responder household (I’m a household? That’s what? — me and my dust bunnies and coffee? — not necessarily in that order and not that I’m picky about stuff, except coffee).
What’s truly great about this Nielsen thing is that I can’t watch TV — not cable, not over the air, nada. When I see a little bit of TV, it’s ESPN stuff in a bar. And when I say a little bit, I’m talking millimeters; I might see some highlights.
So, yeah, Nielsen — happy to participate. The guy who doesn’t ever watch TV gets to participate in the Nielsen TV ratings. I’ll do my best.
“Jersey Shore”? I’ve heard of that. Is that a documentary about Jersey Gov. Chris Christie giving some love to President Obama or reality TV about the New Jersey Jets?
Sorry — New York Jets — but they play their home games in New Jersey. Or don’t play their games, given their last home stand against the New England Patriots on Thanksgiving Day. That had about the same result as Custer’s Last Stand, which the real American patriots won. Presumably, the real Jets’ players (or player; I’m not going to quibble) were deep in the bowels of the Meadowlands, digging about for Jimmy Hoffa’s body and couldn’t hear the opening whistle.
Probably a program about the Jets would actually be called “Jersey Shorn.”
How about that program “Tiger-Rabbits” about hunting wild rabbits in Tigerhawk Nation? Nielsen asks me.
Tiger-rabbits? I say. Really? And besides, after this football season, isn’t it more like Kittyhawk Nation?
(Which, I suppose, means it can fly.)
(Or perhaps not, depending on how much emphasis you put on spelling.)
Who knew there was a TV program about hunting wild rabbits in Iowa City? Well, of course, I didn’t, because I don’t watch TV. But I mean, I didn’t realize that wild rabbits were a problem in the Old Capitol town. I guess it’s an issue I haven’t wrestled with.
Now, I could see a TV program about the squirrels in Iowa City, because squirrels are everywhere (including in my basement once, and there’s no problem quite like a squirrel in your basement, especially when your courageous cat won’t go down there to use the litter box).
And crows. Those flocking crows.
I think crows have only one purpose in life, and that is to ruin the sidewalks of Iowa City. I suppose we can thank evolution for that. Thanks a lot, evolution. You spent millions of years developing sidewalk ruiners? Couldn’t you have developed flying cars, too?
(Though the way Iowa City drivers drive, we need flying cars about as much as we need the Hawkeye offense, which, you have to admit, is nothing if not offensive.)
You have to admit, if we had flying cars, we wouldn’t be worrying about hunting wild rabbits on campus at all.
Which raises the question (no, it doesn’t beg the question, which is a rabbit of a different color): Might not one of those hunted rabbits be the potential Easter bunny?
In which case, we’ll need President Obama (Need we say re-elected President Obama, Republicans?
No, of course we don’t need to say that, so we won’t.) to come back to town to pardon the official Easter bunny.
Well, OK, we can’t know which Iowa City rabbit Obama will select to be the official Easter bunny to be saved on campus, so we’ll just have to let them all be. I guess.
And they’ll continue to multiply like rabbits.
Who taught all these rabbits the multiplication tables, anyway?
Wrestlers?
The Electoral College — it’s one of those colleges without a real campus, as we measure campuses, and we all know what that means.
Has anyone else noticed the over-the-top annoying practice of companies taking traditional Christmas carols and putting “new” lyrics to them for their ads?