Reading and writing would seem to be a good day's work,and most people would feel they had accomplished something during their vacation if they did that.

But mostly I've been websurfing and watching television, while on vacation. I could, with very little change, turn into one of those annoying guys who spend their lives in front of the boob tube.

Barb is getting out; she saw KATE AND LEOPOLD today; but I'm sorry, that particular movie had "chick flick" written on it ten miles high, and it just didn't sound that entertaining...and I think she wanted to drool after the guy who was Wolverine by herself. Brian, Eric, and myself stayed home.

I have grown addicted to LAW & ORDER on A&E. Oddly enough, the more up-to-date stuff I rarely watch, and I used to inwardly laugh at the marathon runner who was in the gym and would always put in her tape of LAW & ORDER to watch while on the treadmill.

Yet I am falling under the same spell. Everytime I hear those opening strains, the duh-da-duh-duh-uh, I forget what I was doing and get enwrapped in the detectives and the district attorneys. Today I found out they will be doing a LAW & ORDER marathon on New Year's Day. I have no interest in organized sports, and little more in parades. What do you expect I will be watching?

Riiiiiight.

Brian introduced me to a delightful game show called SMUSH on that cheesiest of networks, USA. The whole thing seems to take place in a huge bar, the host takes it utterly non-seriously, the losers are retired to the bar.

Unlike the utterly easy WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE, I know I wouldn't last two rounds at this. It requires a free-wheeling mind and a good memory for entertainment trivia. I have one but not the other.

The idea is to link two words or phrases together. For instance, "Jolly Old Saint Nick" and "fear of enclosed places" would become "SantaClaustrophobia".

Then they do that with three words or phrases.

Then four.

There's a visual round. At the end you can win eight thousand dollars. But for my money, there's a lot more talent in winning this than Regis' millions....

You really have to think fast on your feet for this...

It also helps that the host is usually grabbing munchies, flirting with the women, and obviously going to the bar immediately after the filming.

There's an hour before dinner when both NIGHT COURT and NEWS RADIO comes on. I can resist neither show, with Phil Hartman, Andy Dick, and John Larroquette (sp?) being among my favorite comics.

You would think I would be mostly watching the sci-fi network. Yet you cannot mindlessly watch sf dramatic shows over and over...or at least I can't. Even when STAR TREK was put on in the afternoons, after a while I reached the saturation point.

Yet humor? That I can watch almost forever...as long as it's not repeated too often.

(Brian is addicted to SEINFELD reruns, and could comfortably watch them forever. I, on the other hand, have reached my limit on SEINFELD. Knowing the next turning, the next annoying thing they do, ruins it for me. It was an ingenious show, and still is---but I can't watch them forever, the way some people do LUCY reruns.)

Then I round out my day---since I'm usually writing these entries between eight and ten---with Letterman and if I'm lucky, and can keep my eyes open, Conan O'Brien.

Sarcasm and post-modernist humor to lull me to sleep.

Odd how addictive a few dozen channels can be....

I remember vaguely, as I stuff my face with some of the Christmas leftovers, I was going to exercise a lot during my vacation.

Yep. Any day now.

(Oh, I did take Eric for a walk yesterday, but it wasn't arduous.)

Other than writing and reading, I am doing nothing productive this vacation, it seems.

Which, for most people would be enough...yet it seems like I'm somehow betraying my Puritan ancestors. I should be building a barn, or writing fifty pages a day, or making a great painting, or something.

Anything but being drawn into the all-consuming void that is commercial television...