"Michael, Why Does Our Show Suck?"

No one in the United States watches NBC on Wednesdays between 7 and 8 Central, so I wanted to get to the bottom of this prime time black hole that, ironically, repels viewers.

Turns out that's when the new Knight Rider airs.

To ridicule the show would be redundant. You don't make fun of the mildly retarded kid in school unless you're a dick. And this show is severely retarded. It's the equivalent of Randy from My Name Is Earl recovering from a Cuckoo's Nest lobotomy.

I'll just say the show would be improved by having K.I.T.T. voiced by a Paul Lynde impersonator--rather than Val Kilmer!--which would include dialogue such as, "Michael, your jeans look fantastic!"

But the oddest thing about the show is Bruce Davison's hair. (Please--if you click no other link in this post, click that one.) The man is 62. And he wears his hair like that.

He looks like grandpa after grandma left him because he wouldn't lay off the Viagra and became impossible to live with. Time to get the Members Only jacket out of mothballs and fire up the Gran Torino and go nightclubbing.

Hey, Bruce, I hear Life on Mars is looking for supporting characters to play 1973 hippie informants.

Paramental Weekend

This is you, moments ago: "I wonder what my blog buddy Rider did this weekend." Then you clicked here for my answer. So here it is.

I saw Ghost Town--because Ricky Gervais is the funniest Brit alive--and I watched Ghost Hunters on Sci Fi.

The latter activity caused a rift in the fabric of reality, because I don't believe in ghosts or reality television--yet I watched both at once.

I theorize the only reason I wasn't sucked into a neighboring dimension is because Ghost Hunters isn't technically reality TV.

(The good news: I cancelled garbage pickup with my township because I can now toss my trash into the glowing portal in the family room. The bad news: Boxter went missing while we were playing catch with a tennis ball that went astray.)

Now you're asking the question: "Cripes on a crutch, Rider! Why would you bother watching anything on the Sci Fi Channel? I've produced better movies on my cell phone featuring my neighbor cutting his shrubs in black socks."

Truer words have never been spoken, my blog friend, although I think Sci Fi has already produced a show about a man-eating shrubbery that wears black socks, so try again.

But to answer your question: I can't get enough of "TAPS," as the ghost-hunting team calls themselves, because they've added a new tool to their arsenal of paranormal equipment.

By employing something called a K-2 meter, the Roto-Rooter researchers from Rhode Island (it's embossed on their business cards) can interview unseen entities and get yes or no answers out of them.

Sure, the questioning sequences are heavily edited, and OK, Grant and Jason don't bother explaining how the electromagnetic device actually works--aside from pointing out that the flashing LEDs mean "yes." But the possibility that these guys are actually communicating with the dead is interesting.

A few weeks back they were in an old sweatshop, talking to the ghost of a nine-year-old boy. He admitted he was lonely, and Jason--who looks like Michael Chiklis with bad facial hair--invited the spectral lad to come home with him to live with his five children. It was a beautiful moment. He's like the Angelina Jolie of dead kids.

In last week's episode, they quizzed a female spirit in an abandoned train station. She was still waiting for her man to arrive home from World War II (which explained a great deal about the punctuality of trains in Buffalo and why the station had closed). But the TAPS guys kept their Q&A way too basic. There were so many other questions--philosophical and otherwise--they could have asked but didn't.

• "Are you hot?"
• "Can you touch me here?"
• "Andy Kaufman: alive or dead?"

I smell a Ghost Hunters celebrity talk-show spinoff. There's so much potential in the premise of setting an EMF meter down on Elvis' toilet and interviewing the King. Fox would buy it.

By the way, you can purchase a K-2 meter yourself, and get more party mileage out of it than that Ouija Board you never use because your mother told you it invites the Devil into your soul.

P.S. Wait for Ghost Town on DVD, but first buy the BBC's Office series and see a rotund comedic genius at work.

Comcast-ick*

Hypothetical scenario: If a guy from ComEd ordered you to marry your ex or he would cut the power to your home...would you play along?

Imagine paying upwards of 100 clams a month, then some grinning jamoke shows up on your front porch and says, "You can keep your precious electricity--but only if you marry that loser ex-husband!"

That's an idiotic premise, isn't it? That a woman in that situation wouldn't just slam the door and say, "Whatever, jackass." It's not just me, right? Please tell me I'm not missing something in this latest round of dipshit commercials spewing forth from Comcast's marketing brain trust.

Most folks know Comcast has a reputation for having the worst customer service of any company or agency in existence--scoring even lower than the IRS!--but their lame TV ads are like a vicious kick to my brain's nutsack.

In what fever dream does an individual participate in a scenario where they're put on stage and told to choose between getting tackled by Brian Urlacher or having their cable service discontinued?

And what's their (unstated) prize? To keep paying $45 a month for the same service their competitors charge $25 for? That's some upside!

I switched from Comcast to AT&T earlier this year. The only change I noticed was a two-second delay while waiting for YouTube videos to buffer. That gives me a much-needed moment to reflect on why I'm even compelled to watch a monkey bathe in a sink.

"People will do anything to keep their Comcast"?

Not the ones with principles.

* I like that, upon researching the "comcastic" slogan, I found 13 definitions in the Urban Dictionary and they were all negative.