In Continuum.

The television is an evil device, and I have a perfect explanation as to why. Everything that is dangerous to mankind comes with a sort of short form somehow, because the actual name of it would instill too much fear into the hearts of people. Like, people cannot just say "weapons of mass destruction". They go with "WMD", because that sounds like a brand of shoe polish or teeth whitner, or something like that. It's like, if you tell your citizens that the country is under the threat of weapons of mass destruction, you are going to cause the kind of panic you wouldn't want to be responsible for. But if you tell your citizens that the country is under the thread of WMDs, well it's not so bad. It's just WMDs, right? How bad can it get anyway. That is the miracle of short forms, they have the ability to hide the real danger of the object itself. That is also why a bunch of deadly diseases out there have short forms, not only because their scientific names are too long for any humans to read properly. They are deadly diseases, and short forms seem to make it better. Television is commonly known as T.V., and it is just a subtle way of telling everybody that it is a dangerous thing, but don't tell anybody about it outright.

Yeah, the television is a dangerous thing, but we all have one in our homes. Scrape that, we all have two, three, four, and maybe more. The most that I have heard in my social circle is ten televisions - TEN televisions in the house. I don't know why anybody would need more than two really, but they probably have a lot of rooms. Anyway, televisions have invaded our homes in ways that'd only be possible in a science fiction story with a bad ending. By bad ending, I mean the ending whereby mankind dies and the aliens prevail. Televisions have crept into our houses and our bedrooms more swiftly than our computers and our internets. In fact, I dare say that there are more televisions than there are computers in our homes, in this world. And you have to stand in awe at the fact that televisions have stay in our homes for so long, that you just don't see it being dethroned anytime soon. Anyway, televisions are dangerous, you never really know what festers in between those black and white lines when you switch to a blank channel. That is the kind of danger we are talking about, the sub-conscious kind that works with your mind on a sub-conscious level. That is probably why the Riddler used it as a weapon in Batman Forever. But nobody remembers that movie anymore, because it sucked.

So, television, I think it has made a migration from the television itself onto our computers. It is strange how my generation watches the television on our computers - which doesn't really make sense at first, but think about it anyway. It's like saying that I make my cake on the stove, which seems odd. But really, a lot of my television consumption happens on the computer, because I watch television shows on my computer. Local television isn't anything worth watching at all, so I do not bother with that at all. Or rather, local television isn't even worth the effort of me pressing the button to turn on the television, so I do not bother with it at all. And as for cable television, there are times when you can find a gem or two, but they are usually too far behind the American broadcast. They are only halfway through season five of House, for example, while I have already watched what they broadcasted on their television a few hours ago. On my computer, I get to skip the commercials and I get to watch episodes back to back to back to back. I get to do a lot of other things while I watch my shows, and I get to dictate when I want to watch them, how I want to watch them. The couch is a very comfortable place, but it will never beat the bed. That is also why when you argue with your wife, you migrate to the couch - natural law.

I think I have been a fan of the television since I was a kid. No, not a fan - a victim. I remember when I was young, I used to watch the television a lot. I was in Taiwan, and you know how it is with parenting. It is a full-time job that is probably the most difficult one in the world. You have to juggle between your day job and taking care of the children, and sometimes that can get quite difficult. So you want something to entertain the children while you go off to do your own things. The television, then, provides the perfect distraction for the children. If the program on the television is entertaining enough, the children will stop doing whatever that they were doing and watch it - I am sure there is a scientific study somewhere to prove such a thing, but I am quite certain myself. Television has this special way of drawing people in, and I was probably the kind of kid who was put in front of one because my parents wanted me to be distracted. I watched America's Funniest Home Videos a lot when I was young, and I remember watching Bob Saget speaking mandarin, not knowing that it was actually dubbed. I recall coming to Singapore and watching the same show on television, and being surprised by the fact that he knew how to speak both languages. My parents laughed, but that is probably my earliest exposure to television ever - Bob Saget speaking mandarin.

I watched a lot of cartoons when I was younger though, but I don't remember watching it on the television, if you know what I mean. Like, I remember the cartoons and the characters, but I don't remember watching it on television, though I know it probably came from there. I came to Singapore not knowing a word of English, which was why my choices were rather limited when I was much younger. It was either channel 8 or nothing, and I went for nothing all the time because channel 8 really sucked - except in the mornings. In the mornings, I remember them showing a lot of cartoons from all over the world. They had the dubbed version of Snoopy and Friends, Garfield, and these were before Cartoon Network came around. Then there were the Japanese animations that were, sadly, dubbed by the Chinese from China. Every fan of any kind of animation would tell you that the worst dubbing comes from China, because they tend to make young characters sound like forty year old hags. Anyway, I remember watching this Japanese animation about a superhero made up of tomatoes that saved garden fruits in the mornings. Then, of course, I also watched the animated version of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Those were confusing times.

So anyway, what made me want to write this entry about television is because of the marathons that I have been having over the past couple of days. I recently caught on to the Battlestar Galactica craze, and I am sinking fast and sinking deep. It is a brilliant science fiction show that is just everything a good show should be. I've had the mini-series and season one in my computer since June of last year, and I have no idea why I've never gotten around to watch it. I think it is because of other television series at hand at that time, or maybe I was just too stupid. I suggest a very well blended cocktail of both, in which I am very guilty of for the most part. Anyway, since most of the shows that I regularly follow (Lost, The Office, House) are coming to an end of their respective seasons, I thought it'd be appropriate to dig up this old ghost and see how it rubs off on me. Oh yeah, it rubbed off well alright, and I am now hooked and wanting more. I am clicking on episodes after episodes like nobody's business, like that other time when I managed to get my hands on full seasons of House. You know how it is, TV series and holidays go very well together especially when you have nothing better to do. Oh yes, a great marriage indeed.

There is something captivating about this box that we have in our houses I suppose. Well, I suppose calling it a "box" these days would be rather inappropriate, since efforts and money has been put in to make it look less like a box and more like a painting that moves and gives off sounds. Yes, that is the evolution of television sets, everything is trying to be bigger and thinner at the same time. You start to wonder when the television is going to become our entire wall or something, because that seems to be the logical route that it is taking right now. If you have ever wondered how life was like before computer went mainstream, think about how life was like before television went mainstream. Even in my parents' days, they had television to entertain them, though there weren't necessarily a lot of channels or colors. Everything was in black and white, and my mother's house was the only house on the street with television back then. Everybody would go to her place to watch television, and that was how things worked back then. I remember a story my mother once told me about how my aunt and uncle, being brothers and sisters, used to fight each other over the television. The fight ended when he threw a fruit knife at him.

That is the hidden power of televisions, and it is just sitting there in our living rooms, waiting for humans to murder each other. They are planning a coup, an elaborate plan to take over the world once the humans are no longer. It will begin with the humans fighting each other for the remote control, then the channel to watch, then it will proceed to the second stage of the invasion whereby humans would acquire television sets for themselves. That is where the brainwashing starts, when the televisions would team up and send messages through the televisions subtly. And the humans would be brainwashed like zombies like they already are now, and they'd act out the will of the televisions. They will start wars and kill each other, they will start widespread panic across the society. People would be afraid of each other, start killing one another, and be afraid to leave their homes because of disease, murders, natural disasters, and all kinds of reasons that'd potentially kill them. So they stay at home with their water and their food, and then when they get bored they watch more television. Oh yes, more television and more entertainment, more brainless drones in our society. That is our future, that is how television will take over the world. Wait, wait a minute - the future is here, the future is now.

I have been watching too many episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and I have equated the television to Cylons. Yet, if you think about it, it's funny how the television is at the center of the living room. Well, I suppose in place of the television, with have the computer right now, which really is a smarter and more interactive television if you ask me. I mean, if you stow away the keyboard and the mouse and turn off the computer, doesn't it look somewhat like a television somehow. It just works differently anyway, and it can play whatever that is on the television if you so wish. So I guess television, or T.V., is a formidable force of the future whether you like it or not. I remember learning in one of my courses that scientific studies have been done in regard to the adverse effects of putting a television in a children's bedroom. I am never going to do that to my children, and my house is going to have only one television. Even so, I am probably going to lock my channels to the bare minimum, like Animal Planet and Discovery Channel or something. Those are the channels that you really need anyway, and those are the channels that my children are going to watch. If the televisions want to take over the world with channels like that - hey, it's not so bad now is it?