Some TV reviews from Jay and Erin

Jay and I have been watching a lot of Discovery Channel lately, mainly Dirty Jobs and Mythbusters. Both are good shows. We enjoy Dirty Jobs because the host, Mike Rowe, is a funny, funny man. He's kind of a jerk, and some of his jokes are a little cutting, but that's what makes it so funny. (Tough to describe - you have to see it.) I learned that he actually studied history, philosophy, music, and other neat things, and was an opera singer in Baltimore. He said once, while during an intermission in a Puccini opera, he went with his buddy across the street to grab a beer, because it's fun to drink while singing Puccini. And Mythbusters is just fun because they do cool things and Adam always gets hurt.

But last night we watched Country Boys, a PBS documentary about the perils of growing up in Appalachia. Now, PBS is good stuff, right? I mean, public television, educational and ground-breaking, right? We heard commercials for Country Boys on WBUR, Boston's NPR news station. So we both were interested in seeing it. Well, it wasn't very good... and I don't know if it's one of those "message is in the medium" things where the actual documentary was slow-going and meandering and pointless to show that life for these boys is slow-going and meandering and pointless. That's Jay's theory. I just think it was poorly put together and not very well thought out. So we turned to the dog show.

While watching the dog show, I was extremely pleased to see a commercial for the Puppy Bowl, a fantastic show where they just show a bunch of puppies in a playpen. You're supposed to either watch it instead of the Superbowl or flip channels to it during the half-time show. It's just a great idea, isn't it??

So anyway, I guess the point is that Jay and I watch a lot of TV. But if you're going to watch TV, I highly suggest Dirty Jobs. Avoid Country Boys. And the Puppy Bowl... well, I certainly hope it sticks around for at least 30 more years.