Nocturnal Admissions

I'm up again. Woke up at 1am and couldn't get back to sleep. I now have the cleanest home office, all you friends with August birthdays have your cards written and addressed, and I've made some headway in organizing our online photos. Now I'm exhausted and settling in to watch TV in the hopes of maybe catching another hour before Bambina decrees that it is "morning time!"

Just in case you are a person who sleeps at night, let me tell you what you are missing on television:

1. The Knife Show. That's right. A whole hour of opportunities to purchase various swords, scabbards and daggers. It's a medieval home shopping network.

2. No fewer than three entertainment programs featuring that new Eddie Murphy movie "Meet Dave." Does it even need to be said that a) Eddie should cease making movies, and b) you know the movie is going to be god-awful when the voice over begins, "Starring Eddie Murphy...and Eddie Murphy!" I mean, how many movies can this man make in which he plays every character? What, does he get overtime or something? Make him stop.

3. A rerun of Larry King Live in which we ponder whether UFOs are targeting the Great State of Texas.

4. Suze Orman hectoring some poor woman about her interest in buying a $14,000 quilting machine.

5. An infomercial for a 4-DVD set on Making Instant Internet Cash. It features various people standing in front of palatial homes or horses with graphics like, "Made over $100,000!" Followed by a large-breasted woman speaking to her large-breasted friend in a poor-man's-IKEA living room talking about her friend who made "serious instant cash!" You can always tell you're viewing a legitimate offer when everyone in the commercial is talking about "the product" and "the system." You just wonder if the shmos calling in have read the fine print on the screen saying, "Unique experience. Individual results may vary."

6. Various other informercials for weight loss, penis enlargement/stamina enhancement, and of course all the home shopping jewelry channels.

7. Jesus Jesus Jesus. However you like The Word, you can get it on one of about 33 channels. Gospel-inspired? Check. Classic big-haired Trinity Broadcasting style? Check. Young and hip Christian pop? Check.

8. Any number of rap/hip hop videos that are inexplicably not parodies. I mean, how many times can you make a video with women dancing "up in da club" while you do that beatdown move, then cut to scenes of men and women dancing in slo-mo as you tell your "baby girl" or your "shorty" something she needs to hear? How early '00's is that?! And why are Diddy and Usher in 50% of them?

And now I will attempt to get some shut eye, without even giving you a decent segue from that last item. Put it on my tab.