I got an HDTV. I've changed already.

The other day I sat and watched a visual tour of a botanical garden in Sarasota, Florida.
Right now I am watching some concert, I think called "The Jammys." If I scan around and find a show on next that is just close-up shots of different types of wallpaper, I'll probably stay up and watch. It will be the best-looking wallpaper I've ever seen.

Now - to the companies who are too cheap to shoot their commercials in HD - I'm not buying your products. You are the black and white small space ads of TV. I'm talking to you, Garden State Brickface, Windows and Siding!

My bad.

He doesn't look like Turtle from Entourage. He looks like Linderman from the 1980 movie
"My Bodyguard."

Sorry.

...and how many of them look like friendly Jewish or Italian donut-shop owners from Brooklyn, or "Turtle" from Entourage?

What I'm talking about.

1.) A typical rich-all-her-life New York lady in a fur coat, slipping on the ice not far from Central Park. For all I know she may have been a patron to the arts, a good wife and mother, a desirable neighbor and model citizen. Don’t care. Still funny.
2.) Steve Martin, picketing with us WGA writers outside Time Warner.
3.) Actor James Spader, not picketing with us, probably doing holiday-related shopping. He strikes me as a Brookstone guy.
4.) Someone of indeterminate sex (because of all their layers of clothing) performing an “air hanky” outside of Grand Central station. Over a planted tree in the sidewalk. Revolting.
5.) Diamond Dairy Restaurant. A New York treasure.

...when there's a news story with Ayman Al Zawahiri's picture as the main graphic, I want to hear something that isn't 100% "chilling." Can't these guys stop the tough talk for one single second in their sorry lives? Just once, when this guy's mug is on Al-Jazeera and CNN, I'd love the message to be something like,

"Americans, be it known that I want, God willing, for the streets and oceans and rivers of the east and west to run red with your blood, but first - I just wanted to say, seriously, have a kick-ass holiday. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and best wishes for 2008."

Ok, it's not quite at Don Knotts level, as a friend described my disposition during the machine-gun-toting- guards-at-St. Patrick's-Cathedral days after 9-11, but it's getting close. And it's only day 2 of the Writer's Guild Strike, .

I'm just not used to this downtime. Or the articles that make it sound like we're a bunch of calligraphers and this thing called the printing press was just invented. (Point of interest - Sumner Redstone was likely alive when the printing press was invented.)

I have to get it together. Time for a hot bath!

(Dan eats more of his Fleer porkchop, then doubles over in pain.)

I now know, with 100% certainty, that I will not be hanging out with these guys.
While that still leaves lots of options - perhaps too many, still open, it's something off the list. It's a step in the right direction.

I found them through a random Google Image search, so one would have to wonder how or why I would end up hanging out with 3 weightlifters (or possibly two weightlifters and one mathematician who simply likes meatball subs a lot) over Labor Day weekend. Stranger things have happened. For instance, Mother Theresa lived in religious doubt for decades.

Here's a photo of the tallest man in the world meeting the shortest man in the world. I imagine minutes after a few of these pics were snapped, there was a lot of "okay, now what?"

And then I bet there was a bit of nervous chuckling, then tall-ey and shorty sat down to lunch, hashing out the plot points of their action flick "Tiny and the Tree" over salad.

Either that, or they both quietly exited the meeting, went outside, and tossed themselves into oncoming traffic, creating the need for family members to immediately contact specialty coffin manufacturers.

I've talked about this many, many times before.
When you have a narrow street, and you fill that street with Americans and Australians and Europeans in red jumpsuits who have been drinking sangria for 11 hours straight and who have for some reason recently developed a desire to mess with bulls, and you then fill that street with angry bulls, guess what?Someone's going to get gored by a bull.

It has happened every single year since I have been on this planet. And every single year, news anchors all over have reported on this event, as if this were a new, unique interest-worthy newsstory. It is not.

"This just in - the first annual Miami-Dade Punch a Shark in the Gills Contest ends in tragedy..."

High 5, John Davidson. You're no longer hosting gameshows. You're no longer the faceman for "That's Incredible," the show where the audience was treated to a series of stunts, especially ones involving people trapped inside things, or doing things out of fast-moving cars. It was also a show, if I remember correctly, in which the paranormal played a large role. People would say something was paranormal, film something with bad special effects as "proof" it was really paranormal, then all of America would just nod in awed agreement that it must be paranormal.

(Question - as hosts, you guys had to think everything was incredible, right? It's in the title of the show. What if you happened to not think something was incredible - would you be forced to take "That's Incredible" medicine to change your mind? Get back to me)

Anyway, John. Those days are long behind you. Now you're dressing like a country Liberace, carrying a guitar designed by an italian pastry chef, and most likely writing librettos about wizards. (Nope just checked. Sounds more like what a secret disco album put out by your dad would sound.)

Today is already okay. I saw a video of old men fighting on the Alabama Senate floor!