For on-going, ever-changing, cheap home entertainment, nothing beats having children. Well, not cheap exactly. If you're planning to have a child, you'd best be prepared to pay medical costs, daycare, the cover prices for a vast array of comprehensive parenting manuals which contain mutually-contradictory advice, pre-school testing fees, school enrollment fees, school picture fees, school picture retake fees because the first set of pictures make your child look like a member of the marsupial family, fashionably-ripped clothes, new fashionably-ripped clothes because the old ones aren't fashionably-ripped enough, driving lessons, a new car to replace the one which was tragically lost at sea during the driving lessons, car insurance against the next unforeseen disaster, orthodontia, eye wear, personal technology, SAT study guides, ACT study guides, study guides for re-taking the SAT and the ACT, professional tutoring for the SAT and ACT, bribes to get college admissions officers to look the other way when they see the SAT and ACT scores, college tuition, college graduation costs, and a parental subsidy for the first post-college year as your offspring try to establish themselves. All things considered, the cost of raising a child to productive adulthood is comparable to the cost of the average space shuttle mission, but with far less chance of being featured on the national news. (Although, in an interesting coincidence, if you do have children it's a good bet that just like the astronauts, they will lose one-hundred-thousand dollars worth of tools before they move out.)......

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I blame Mother Nature. She's decided that she doesn't want anyone living in my part of the country any more, so she's taken a page from the Slum Lord play book and is trying to run us all out by making the area uninhabitable. Slum Lords generally try underhanded tactics like turning off the heat or electricity so the building is cold and dark. Mother Nature has pummeled us with several thousand tons of snow so the state is cold and dark.

Less hardy souls might be tempted to move, but not me. I've decided to stay and fight. If you'd like to simulate my experience of living in a winter wonderland, try this simple experiment.

Go to the store and buy the biggest box of instant mashed potato flakes you can find. Dump the entire box into a tea cup. Clean up the mess using a sugar spoon while somebody periodically pours crushed ice down the back of your shirt. When you're almost done, send your friend to the store for two or three more big boxes of potato flakes.

Really......

When it comes to selecting a tough and dangerous occupation, there are plenty to choose from; snow plow driver in Alaska, nuclear plant safety inspector, and the salesclerk in charge of convincing size twenty-four women that a size eight dress won’t stretch that much no matter how long they hold their breath. There’s one risky job that tops them all, though ... Reality TV Cameraman.

I’m not talking about the folks who work on competition-based shows like Project Runway, Top Chef, or Judge Judy. Those kinds of programs are rough, but at least they take place in controlled environments like a fake loft, fake restaurant, or fake court room. The really dangerous shows are in the genre of wow-you-actually-do-that-for-a-living and include programs like Storm Chasers, The Deadliest Catch and (most frighteningly of all) Bridezillas.

The creation of reality television is a relatively recent broadcasting innovation. Young people will probably think I’m making this up, but in the early days of television, producers believed that they actually had to have a script and actors if they wanted to make a show. By today’s standards, that’s as quaint an idea as the buggy whip, the A.M. Radio, or only giving mortgages to people who might conceivably be able to pay them back.....

In terms of sheer tonnage, the United States it the world’s leading producer of weapons-grade bureaucracy. Nothing officially happens in this country until it’s been recorded on a complicated and mysteriously-named form, approved, counter-signed, and carried to its final resting place in a dusty filing cabinet. It"s not our fault, though. After all, the country was founded on a written document that was born in a committee, crafted by a series of votes, and signed by one guy who then turned it over to fifty-five of his friends so they could countersign it.

Building on that humble beginning, the United States has elevated bureaucracy to a art form. If bureaucracy were an Olympic event, the United States would be the hands-down winner in every competition. (Of course, given the difficulty involved in filling out the necessary "Permission to Train", "Permission to Apply for Permission to Travel to the Site of Competition", "Travel Pre-Authorization", "Approval for Travel", "Permission to Compete", and "Permission for a Discrete Moment of Celebration Upon Achieving Victory" forms, we'd probably never have a competitor who actually made it to the games.)....