Meet the Nielsens!

I don't have a photo of the four of us. Luckily I spent a lot of time using Mac Paint as a kid.

If you've ever wondered what kind of chumps the Nielsen TV ratings company hires to report their TV viewing... well, it's chumps like us. We have been dutifully writing down every single show we watch since Thursday; and will continue to do so for an entire week. In exchange we get $30 (which they sent to us in chold hard cash, interestingly enough) and the knowledge that we're doing our part to keep Spongebob and the Daily Show on the air. So, if you're favorite show isn't one of those two programs (or General Hosiptal. Wife has a thing for Sonny)... we're sorry.

Writing this entry reminded me of a speech Kurt Vonnegut made at Ohio State University recently. The students asked him for some advice and he said, "Don't use semicolons."

Next week: Soen's first school play! (Leontes in The Winter's Tale.)

P.S. My computer crashed two times right as I was about to finish this would-be short blog entry. And, because I hadn't saved my draft either time, I was forced to write it all over again. Three times. [excuse me while i save this draft.] It's odd retelling the same joke three times in a row. Especially when it's kind of lame, like the Shakespeare joke. And even more so when it was that stupid joke that caused me to crash both times. This will shed a little light on how I write these things, in case anyone cares. As I was writing about Soen's play, I thought it might be amusing to say he was going to be playing a dramatic Shakespearean role, since he's actually going to be a frog that sings "The Ants Go Marching One By One." But... what's the funniest role? [saving draft.] Because I'm an idiot and can't just let a dumb joke be a dumb joke, I had to go and look up Shakespeare's plays and then determine which was the "funniest." (Because I couldn't just use Hamlet or Lear like any other person.) No... I had to choose one that was kind of obscure but still recognizable as a Shakespearean drama--one that would require an actor to have just the right amount of gravitas that is just out of the reach of a three year old. And for some reason, as I was toggling between windows, my computer ecountered a fatal error and closed down. This was proably my computer's way of telling me that not only was this joke not funny (in the least), but I was spending way too much time on it. Again, any other person would have bailed on the stupid joke in the first place, but after all this trouble, I was not only going to write it; I was going to write it to death. (Two semicolons in one blog! Take that Vonnegut!)

P.P.S. And for the record, before any of you mention it, I do know that Leontes in the Winter's Tale is clearly not the funniest role for a three year old. That would of course be Titus Andronicus, which is funny for three reasons: 1. It's just a funny name, 2. It's only two words, and 3. It's like Shakespeare's worst play, therefore making it the last play any pre-school worth its salt would choose to perform. (Duh!)