Tue, January 8, 2008
Suck it, Jericho!
I am not a Nielsen household. Not even a little bit. Even if I were, I wouldn't tell you, because Nielsen asks its panelists not to tell anyone – or I assume they do, I don't know because I haven't met with them or signed up or anything. (Although they said I could tell "friends and family," just not "strangers." So those of you who know me can ignore those false denials; everyone else, just ignore this part.)
As excited as I am to throw support behind my favorite shows (Yay, 30 Rock! Yay, Life!), and take a divot out of American Idol, I would not recommend signing up for this if you have the option. They had to put a little wire into every single piece of my entertainment setup, and then jumble those wires together into other wires, and shove those into a big box which plugs into another big box, and the whole system just looks like a rat's nest now. The technician (who was very conscientious and couldn't have been a nicer guy) showed up at 5pm and left just before midnight. During that time, I attempted to play Peggle and keep my mind off things, but every time I looked over he had something else cracked open in his lap like an otter with an oyster shell. My precious TiVo! Sliced open and poked in the guts! I don't have children and never will, but I imagine if someone came into my house and forced me to watch while they raped my kids, the feeling would be about the same.
But the hard part is over. This weekend, I'll have to reverse-engineer his handiwork and re-run some of the cables to reduce the clutter, but at least everything is plugged back in and functioning properly. Now all I have to do is watch excellent television exclusively. Last night, I watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, then fell asleep watching Conan which means I gave ratings to about 20 minutes of Carson Daly. Fuck! I'll have to be more careful. Also, should I delay watching struck shows off TiVo for seven days so their ratings won't count? I'm too far away to bring donuts to the picket line – it seems like I should at least do something to help.
As I've said before, the Nielsen system is outdated, pointless, and it's ruining television. And they employ some seriously ridiculous in-home technology. But it's not going away soon, unless the strike implodes, the WGA goes out on its own, and we start watching absolutely everything online. So I'm going to do my best to affect change from the inside. Unless they find this entry, at which point they'll yell at me and then he'll have to come back and rip open all my equipment again to take out his toys. I only hope he'll be as gentle the second time.
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