Curse You, Steve Jobs

Stop me before I download again. I’m having too much fun watching itty-bitty TV shows on my iPod.

Look: There is a stack of improving books on my bedside table. But they go unread while I follow the comic misadventures of Brenda Leigh Johnson in The Closer as she fights crime in Los Angeles. (Think Beverly Hillbillies meets Columbo.) I know all this iTunes spending is wrong, but I just can’t stop.

Odd how compelling that 2.5 inch screen is. Like your own secret window into the screwy brains of Hollywood screenwriters. Reminds me of the short story by H.G. Wells, “The Crystal Egg” about a London antique dealer who becomes obsessed with the images he sees in the titular object. Turns out it’s a television link to Mars. I’m not kidding: that’s the story. Read it yourself: EGGEGGEGGEGG.

Or maybe it’s the intimacy of the stereo headphones. Television drama after all these years is still fundamentally radio drama. The voices are so distinct and so hyper-expressive you can enjoy most shows pretty well with no picture. Or maybe it’s Kyra Sedgwick’s big, red…

Oops! What happened? I seem to have downloaded another episode… When? How? I must have slipped into some kind of a fugue state. Gosh… Well, whatever. Bye!