Spending a chunk of money every month for digital expanded cable with the sports package, HBO family of channels and an HD box is quite a commitment, so the value has to be extracted from it on a month-to-month basis. In order for that to happen, it requires a day-to-day effort. That means watching a good bit of TV and really using the features that push the price up. This can be accomplished by only watching the HD channels, which is not hard to do since almost every major cable channel has an HD version to enjoy. And for whichever don't, there are those few "HD only" channels that show stuff that just looks better in HD.

In an effort to make all this "getting your money worth" happen, it means you are forced to subject yourself to some interesting (awful) television. The haven for this just might be the FearNet movies that are available On Demand. As bad as these movies are, there is no surprise involved. Just reading the descriptions tell the story. Everything from Midnight Meat Train to Gravedancers is available, but are exactly as bad as they sound. Midnight Meat Train did have Vinnie Jones in the cast, but his role was as a serial killer that doesn't speak (his tongue was ripped out, duh), works in a meat processing plant and brutally murders people on a "special" subway train at midnight every night. Just remember, it's free...so long as you pay for the service each month.

Ok, so this desire to get the most out of TV is all bad, specifically the On Demand aspect of it. There's the potential to watch some good stuff, including last night's selection, Adaptation. Then there's also Tremors and not just In Demand, but In Demand in HD. Life is sweet.


High-Definition programming can, however, make almost anything worth watching. Case in point is Modern Marvels on History Channel. The name Modern Marvels sounds pretty exciting and brings to mind images of skyscrapers, bullet trains and modern warfare, but that's not always the case. Last night's episode was all about coldcuts and tonight features turkey. Ok, maybe even HD can't save an hour-long show about sandwich meat, it's history and place in society.

Of course, "special" cable features isn't solely to blame for all the crap on TV. This blog has pointed out several examples of bad/annoying TV over the past few months, but there's an unlimited amount of material to critique. Commercials may be carrying the banner of bad television currently. Very possibly this may be best illustrated by McDonalds decision to market their Chicken McNuggets by referring to fanatics as "Nuggnuts", as in "nuts" about "nuggets". Ok, even as a childhood fan of McNuggets, this is gross. Nobody, especially PETA folks, is under the assumption that McNuggets are "good" food, but they have a certain charm. This charm is hardly helped by calling people who eat them Nuggnuts. However, Nuggnuts probably really get into coldcuts in HD.