So you may or may not have heard of Hulu, but if you haven’t, please feel free to come over and have H-T give you a masters course.  Hulu takes the available online television and movie content and puts in all in one easy-to-veg-out-for-eternity location.  And H-T is pretty certain it was created with him in mind.  Besides having lots of Simpsons episodes (his current guilty pleasure), Hulu has let him discover “quality” programming he never even knew existed.  Where else could he have found old episodes of the A-Team, The Incredible Hulk, and Battlestar Galactica, and chanced upon classic movies like Planet of the Apes and The People That Time Forgot - - all in one place??  They can’t call you a couch potato if you are actually in a computer chair, can they?  So what is the new term for people glued to their internet on-demand programming??  Streaming Video Slugs??

H-T has lost all interest in our satellite television programming.  I mean who has the patience to wait for a show until some big-wig at a television studio in Anaheim decides to air it according to his whim?  Not H-T.  He wants customized programming on his schedule.  In other words, what he wants, when he wants it.  (I blame all those Beverly Hills 90210 reruns I watched while I was pregnant with him, and on bed rest.  I knew those narcissistic snots where no good for such impressionable fetal ears!)

When I was his age I had this little 13″ black and white set in my room, and I actually had to get up from the bed and turn a knob each time I wanted to change channels.  And at that time, we only got 3 - - plus PBS if I stretched the rabbit ears all the way out and wrapped aluminum foil on both ends (But who wants to go to all that trouble for another Benny Hill episode??!!)  H-T gets visibly shaken when I describe the barbaric scenarios of TV watching in the Pre-Cambrian era of my youth.

I’ve tried to explain to H-T that there are a few downsides of this new era of entertainment on demand. He will never ever know the sense of accomplishment that comes from peeing, pouring yourself a Dr. Pepper, feeding the cat, and finishing off a crossword puzzle all before the end of a commercial break.  He will miss out on that giddy butterfly feeling that comes over your stomach when you know that thisis the night you will finally find out whether Luke accepted Lorelai’s proposal.

Yep, H-T and his generation will never know some of the joys of doing TV “old style.”  What if everyone could have known who shot J.R. just by heading to the computer and clicking a mouse?  Would it have had the same “oomph?”  I just don’t think so. But what do I know….I’m just a couch potato.

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