Now that we live in the age of television, do we really need 200 channels to watch? Is it necessary to have four or five Request Channels alone, in addition to your two ESPNs, 3 HBOs, and Sweetin' To The Oldies volumes one, two, and four? Do we need to spend hundreds of dollars a year on cable bills when most of our channels are public access, in Spanish, or advertise Lorrie Davis hair products 24-hours-a-day? Soon computers will be merging with television making the largest entertainment deal since the Disney-Westinghouse and Turner-Time Warner deal. Then we can play Kings Quest while watching Shop Till You Drop on Lifetime.

Aside from having multiple movie channels and nauseating infomercials, how much time do we spend watching television? We spend hours a day channel surfing, barely picking up anything we are watching but still being able to judge the show. This is what the average American living room sounds like now: "The bomb exploded, killing doz-, CLICK, the murder occurred shor-, CLICK, the blast destro- , CLICK, Marcia Clark was furi-, CLICK, the child was taken fr-, CLICK, the accident smashed throu-, CLICK, the serial killer was arr-, CLICK, it slices, dices, makes mountains of curly fries, acts as a home liposuction machi-, CLICK, su pelo es muy boni ..." These sounds fill the living room nonstop while the viewers are receiving an unhealthy dose of gamma radiation and end up watching unpredictable Mexican sitcoms in closed caption. That's American values for you!

Well, who can blame them? Television asks so much and gives so little. No, wait, that's NASA. Anyway, television asks so little and gives so much. Children spend more time with television than with their parents, and in some cases, it raises them more than their parents do. That's scary. No, Count Chocula is scary. Television is a part of our lives, no matter how much great programming it brings into our humble homes. ?