According to Nielsen (via the AV Club), Americans watched 34 hours of television per person, per week last year. Apparently, this is a record.

Nielsen Ratings aren’t necessarily trustworthy. Most people I know love television, and watch it frequently, but there’s no way they’re spending 30 percent of waking life in front of a TV. I know my in-laws big screen features an unending, ear-bleeding loop of Fox News, Seabiscuit and The Blind Side, but they’re outliers. And even they aren’t watching all the time.

There may not be 34 hours of quality watching per week, but there is some great stuff out there. We’re in the Golden Age of television. Even Ira Glass says so. All you have to do is boil out all the impurities. This column intends to help.

Unfortunately, we’re going to be sports-heavy with the debut. Hey, all I do is report.

The NFL Wild Card Game (Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles)—Sunday, Jan. 9. 2:30 PM on NBC

Nothing against the Baltimore/Kansas City game earlier in the day, but this game has Michael Vick. This means your wife will be onboard for some pro-animal invective spewing, and you can quietly ooh and aah when he does something superhuman, which is likely. There’s nothing quite like the first two

weekends of the NFL Playoffs, though, and this should be the best of the week. Plus, the game is in Philly, which adds a key intangible: the potential for hurled batteries.

The Tostitos BCS National Championship Game (#1 Auburn v. #2 Oregon)—Monday, Jan. 10. 6:30 PM on ESPN and ESPN3
Look, I know many of you cheered when Dennis Dixon’s college career ended. I know a few of you pelted Ducks cheerleaders with water bottles after your premature attempt at field rushing backfired. I’m a diehard Oregon Ducks fan, but I can understand the hatred to some degree. I’m even willing to admit we might have the most insufferable fan base in the Pac-10.

But you know who’s a billion times worse? Any fan base in the SEC outside Vanderbilt. Oh, man, they’re awful. FACT: 95 percent of Southerners care more about football than even their own children. Did you know Alabama is the second-fattest state in the union? Or that it’s ranked No. 43 in education? Er … maybe we shouldn’t cast stones with that second one. The point is, these people don’t need another reason to celebrate.

So come on, Tucson … cheer on your Pac-10 brethren, at least this once. Then you can go back to attempting assault on our precious cheer corps. Please go easy, though … Oregon doesn’t really have beautiful women to spare.

Lights Out (Series Premiere)—Tuesday, January 11 at 10:00 PM on FX

With Justified and Terriers, FX has been on a tear, as those two shows were nearly on par with AMC and HBO offerings. So maybe Lights Out will be good. But then FX went and canceled Terriers because they couldn’t market it worth a shit, even though it was probably the best new drama airing this year. So maybe Lights Out will be awesome and they’ll cancel it immediately. Who knows? Here’s one thing you should know: it’s about boxing, and it is not about dogs.

The Onion SportsDome (Series Premiere) – Thursday, Jan. 11, at 10:30 PM on Comedy Central

It’s from The Onion, and it’s not called The Onion Movie, so that bodes well. It’s also a satire of ESPN. If that doesn’t sell you, here’s a column by Mark Shepard, one of the show’s fake anchors. It was the funniest thing I read all week.

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Again, apologies for the sport-centric listings this week. I don’t want anyone to think this is column is some refuge for rampant misogyny. That’s why next week, we’ll talk about polygamy!

This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2011.

Jordan Green is from Portland, Oregon. He is the Editor-in-Chief of BurnsideWriters.com and the co-author of "Besides the Bible". Jordan has also worked as a courier, a barista at a large coffee purveyor,...

12 replies on “New TV Column: The Idiot Boksen”

  1. While I hardly like Auburn, I will be very happy to see the SEC once again pound those bitches in the Pac-10 into oblivion. Pac-10 football is what’s insufferable. Hard hitting, pound you in the face, shove the ball up your arse in front of 100,000 people SEC football is where it’s at. Oregon Ducks…BAH!

  2. Interesting that from Arizona you would note Alabama ranks 43rd in education, according to your source, but fail to mention that Arizona is ranked 50th.

    The oh-so-bright Oregon tops the bottom quartile at 38th. The Oregon-Arizona connector state California, supplier of many OU and UA football players, comes in 46th.

    If you were brighter, you’d look for another tool to prop up your low self-esteem.

  3. Hey, RollDucksRoll, that’s what the “Er … maybe we shouldn’t cast stones with that second one.” line was for…to make it completely clear I was aware Arizona was at the bottom of that list.

    Perhaps if you’d been brighter, you would’ve caught that. I guess the difference between #46 and #38 (because I went to school in Oregon, if that’s not clear enough for you) is somewhat substantial.

    And it’s UO, jackass…we’re not talking about Oklahoma.

  4. Hey, I don’t live in Alabama, Oregon or Arizona. So, I don’t have a dog in this fight. Just don’t like deceptive or misleading writing. It’s not about what you might have known, it’s about an intent to deceive your readers, to whom you did NOT make clear Arizona’s ranking.

    “Jackass?” Aw, it got its feathers ruffled.

  5. excited about the Onion SportsDome … and still torn on who to root for on Monday night.

    good read Jordan!

  7. @RollDucksRoll: Good, I’m glad you missed my numbers slip-up.

    We’ll have to agree to disagree on whether that was clear or not, but the reason I mentioned it in the first place was to get that joke about Arizona’s education in. There are a few worse things I could’ve listed about Alabama than education. Fortunately, I have a nifty hyperlink there to lead seekers to the truth.

    In all sincerity, thanks for commenting…this is my first column here, and I actually greatly enjoyed the fact my first comment was antagonistic.

  8. Actually, you slammed Alabama three times. The second was fatness. The third was education. Any reader paying attention would have thought you were saying Arizona folks are fat. Perhaps you regarded the third as the second since the first appears to be utter ipse dixit.

  9. Good point. I meant the second hyperlink, but it could definitely be confusing. I have learned something today.

  11. If RollDucksRoll truly didn’t have a dog in this fight, he/she shouldn’t have attacked the author’s intelligence and self-esteem right off the bat. There are nicer ways to point out shortcomings in an article. And to this reader, it was perfectly clear the author recognized Arizona was lower in education – seems that’s what the whole paragraph was set up to do.

    Anyway, good read. Go sports!

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