Chapstick Country

Odd weather around the country this year, and no less so here. Coming off one of the wettest springs since they started keeping records, we are now into the driest summer on record. One tiny bit of measurable rain on one day in July, that's it. 

This week, we had an east wind that, along with dropping trees and a lot of small limbs hither and yon, also dropped the relative humidity into the teens, getting into Las Vegas numbers along about Friday. 11%? That's not Willamette Valley, that's Mojave Desert dry, and membranes do get crispy ...

Supposedly the rain will start this weekend, at least there is a fair chance of it, and it will be a relief to folks whose lawns have been crackling underfoot, and those of us who are starting to look like lizards every time we come back from walking the dogs. Much more of this? We'd have to start wearing stillsuits and setting the thumpers for the sandworms ...

Jack Ohman's Editorial Cartoon Today

Gotta love equal opportunity skewering ... 

From today's Big O, here.

Hands Off Sesame Street!

Chapdelaine

Listen to how he keeps the bass line going with the melody. Amazing.

Had to Share This One ...

Practice

Writing fiction, like any activity that needs a smidgeon of talent and a bit of skill, requires practice. You start wherever you are and you learn what you need to learn to get better, and then you do it until it gets better. 

(Pretty much that's how you approach almost anything, but today, we are talking about writing.)

Yes, there are naturals who have so much talent and innate ability that they hit the ground running and are leagues ahead of the rest of us; they are the exceptions to the rule. For every one of them, there are hordes of us, and those of us with lesser abilities have to do the work. Might not take the ten thousand hours, but it will take more than a few. 

You hammer out a skill, you sharpen it, you learn how to slice and dice with it, you add it to your tool chest, and then find another skill, and so on until you get enough tools to build a scenario that works.

There might be a may to skip this part, but I never found it. You have to put ass in chair and  hands to keyboard–or pencil or pen or chisel–and transmit words from your mind into your chosen medium. And the more, the better. 

How much is enough? I can't say, it's different for different people, but you'll know when you are getting closer. I realized I was putting enough words through my hands when I knew that I mis-typed something because it felt wrong under my fingers. 

I'm probably written nine or ten million words by now, and starting to get the hang of it.

You also have to keep practicing or you lose chops, but there comes a point where you have done enough work so it starts to pay off. 

Until then, it is time in grade. You have do it. 

And you have to be willing to look bad in the process, because that's also part of it. When you are a newbie, you don't know what you don't know, and more often than not, the way you find out is when somebody points to it: Hey, dumb ass! You just reinvented the wheel, which, you know, didn't need to be reinvented. Or: You do realize you can't hiss the word 'damn,' don't you? Or: What, you got exclamation-point poisoning ... ?

No way around this, I ever found, either. Been there, said that, looked ignorant. Because I was ignorant. No crime in that, but there is a cure.

It's not enough to take classes, get a fine leather notebook, or associate with writers. Knew a woman once decided she wanted to be a writer. She hung out with writers, was married to a writer, and she sat down and cranked out a novel. With more than a little ghostly help from her husband, it was good enough to get sold, but when she took it to one of her writer-friends and asked for a cover quote, the response wasn't what she wanted: I'm sorry, but I can't put my name on this book and say I loved it. Because I didn't, and face it, it's not very good, is it ... ?

Ow! Ouch!

She wanted to skip that part and be good from the git-go. And don't we all? Not how it works. So many of the so-called overnight success stories come from years of effort. That's the rule. If you are the exception, I got nothing for you, have at it.

Eventually, the writer who wasn't very good learned what she needed and got better at it. It's not rocket science, but in her case, it was kind of like learning only a tiny bit of a foreign language, and developing a terrific accent in the process. You sound like you know more than you do when native-speakers hear it, and you are apt to get overwhelmed when they respond. Fake it until you make it sometimes works, but you can get caught out, and that stings.

I'm a writer because I hang out with writers? Not so.

You are a writer because you write. You have to do the work.

Here's the trick, such that it is: Figure out what you want to do, what kind of writing, then set out to learn as much as you can about how to do it. Practice, practice, and then practice some more, and eventually, if you keep at it, you will get better. Maybe you get to great, maybe not, but the willingness to do the work will let you improve and maybe get to where you can be as good as you can be. It is true that perspiration makes up for a lack of inspiration, at least to a degree.

And do have fun. Because if you can't, why bother?

Constant Reader

Modern novels have a somewhat different flow from those written, say, two hundred years ago. In the age of yore, with less to compete for one's attention, a book could move in a stately manner, no hurry, plenty of time for long descriptive passages, and things that had little to do with the plot, if indeed there was any such, could unfold in a leisurely way.

Reading a book by candlelight is not the same as doing it on your iPad.

Today, with TV, movies, comics, the web, and all like that, stately–if not to say, plodding–books have a harder go of it. If your reader gets bored, he or she can put it down and move on to something else with little effort ... and never return.

Along with the pacing, certain literary conventions from back in the day have also faded. One such, the authorial aside to the reader, shows up now and then, but mostly it is gone, and good riddance.

By this, I mean a pause in the narrative in which the author addresses the reader directly, breaking, as it were, the proscenium arch. E.g.: "Tom was mightily surprised by such a revelation, but of course, dear reader, you could not help but know this was coming to pass, as this kind knowledge is invariably the province of the well-educated person such as yourself ..."

The biggest thing this does is stop your reader's suspension of disbelief and jerk him out of the narrative to remind him that he is reading a story. Rather like hitting a pothole in your car hard enough to knock the hubcap off. You have to stop, park, get out, collect the thing, toss it in the back, then resume your journey. It is an irritant you don't need.

There are people who still do a version of it, though it is not so blatant, and it is one of my personal quirks that I hate it when they do it.

These days, it tends to be heavy-handed foreshadowing, usually at the end of a chapter, and more often than not, offering a sense of doom 'n' gloom. 

Our Hero just had a knock-down, drag-out fight scene, kicked a bad guy's ass, and he's feeling okay about that, but then he has a had-I-but-known moment. 

Yeah, I kicked the sucker all over the ballroom, but, had I but known what was going to happen, I wouldn't have felt so pleased with myself.

Well, okay, if it is in third person past-tense, this is technically legal, but it surely does grate.

You can get away with this once, maybe even twice, but if you hammer this more than that in your novel, it makes me want to put the book down. First, it stops the action, because, Why are you telling me this? Why don't you just, you know, wait until it gets here and show it to me? Second, it sets us an expectation of dire happening that overshadows the narrative and what is the point of that? If I know you are going to do awful things to the guy's girlfriend later, I am going to dread it, and get pissed off at you for ruining the rest of the ride.

Don't get cute. Just tell the story.

I know a writer who does this; I like her books, and I wish she wouldn't. It would be so much neater to lay in foreshadowing in the context of the action, so when the shit hits the fan, you would realize that if you'd been paying attention, you'd have seen the clues. When the writer smacks you in the head with a brick four or five times, you just want to call her up and say, "Yeah, yeah, okay, I  get it! Move on!"

Traffic

We have, in Portland, an HOV lane on I-5, leading to the bridge to Vancouver. In this case, HOV means two people in the car.

This is on one of the busiest stretches of road in town, and the lane limits traffic from 3-6 p.m. Weekdays. There are times when I have to go that way, because to get to Washington from here, there are only two paths–unless you want to drive toward the coast for an hour and a half, cross at Longview, and then drive back another hour and some from there. 

The HOV lane. It is a bad joke. And irritating no end when you are stopped dead one lane over and you look up to see cars whizzing past, a goodly number of which have but a single person in them.

According to the "official" tally, the number of scofflaws is a hair above 20%. One car in five.

The ticket, if you get stopped is, I think, $140 or so.

I dunno how many vehicles use this lane during HOV hours, but judging by the number who blew past me, and for the sake of argument, let's say it's two thousand. Means four hundred are liable for a ticket.

Here's a suggestion for the city: Hire four or five traffic enforcement officers and sic 'em on the HOV lane. If they can catch half those cheating the lane, that's 200 x $140, or $28,000 a day. $140,000 a week, over half a million a month.

Of course, that will dry up pretty fast as people realize they will likely get a ticket, but at least the stupid lane would be used legally.

Or just open it up for everybody, which would make ever so much more sense ...

On the Move

Got my nephew and niece-in-law and their toddler visiting for a few days. The baby is nineteen months old. (Youngest grandson  is now six, and you forget how it is with a toddler. It comes back pretty fast ...)

A complicating factor is, the baby and our boy dog share a name. Call one, the other comes to see what you want ...

So the dogs are trailing around behind the baby, trying to herd him. And of course, he is constantly on the move, playing, babbling, sometimes screaming for joy. And toddlers love danger, of which there are kinds you also tend to forget. No, you don't want to stand up on the dog ramp there, you'll tumble right off. Um, if you slide off the bed like that, you'll probably fall and clonk your head, c'mere ...

Keeps you alert.

We are pulling up the decorative stones we laid under the overhang out front, to plant things, and we set the pavers in sand, which gives us a nice sand pit. Babies love sand pits ...

I have to go take a shower, quick, before baby patrol begins again. 

Never a dull moment. 

Funny Political Ad

Okay, it's the silly season and I've tried to mostly stay out of it, but this one is worth watching, just because it's Samuel L. Jackson.

You saw it here first.

Safe for work (the f-word gets bleeped) unless you work for a Republican, and maybe even then, 'cause even if you don't agree with it, it is funny ...

And Then There is This ...

So, the bound galley for Ramal. It is officially a January, 2013 release, which means it should be on the racks Christmas Eve–and there is terrific marketing, hey? 

Need a last minute gift? Over here! Over here–!

Maybe gift cards to book stores will cause a major surge in sales between Christmas and New Year's. And, of course, Spielberg, looking for a new space opera project, will get into a bidding war with George Lucas for the movie rights ...

Look at the picture. You don't see me holding my breath waiting on that one ...

Though I am onboard the e-train and copacetic with the idea of reading more stuff on my iPad than in treeware nowadays, there is something to be said for having a tangible, no-batteries-needed paper book in your hand that makes it more real. If I had to guess, I'd say that however many copies it sells, it will probably move more in the e-realm than in paper; the biggest thing there being that once it goes up into the electronic markets, it stays there, no strip-the-covers-off and returns.

Well. Whatever. The "First in a New Series!" it says on the cover, and there will be at least two, because I've already written that many. A third is contracted, and barring sudden illness or accident, I'll get that one done. After that? Depends on how well they do, I suppose.

Probably Ace will let me put up a chapter or so up here for promo as the pub date draws nigh.

Yeah, yeah, I'm still working on the next Matador book. Slowly ...

Artists Versus Their Art

On the heel of the Andy Williams obituary, some musings about artists. 

Williams was, by all accounts, a stand-up, laid-back, nice guy. Hard to find anybody who had anything bad to say about him on a personal level.

You like to hear that about artists you like.

Other artists who have achieved some renown in various fields sometimes aren't so nice. And the question for some people–me included–is: How much of a pass does being good or even great as an artist buy you?

Where do you draw the line, if you do? And should you?

Some people can separate it easily. There's the guy, over there; and over here, his music/art/movies/biz, whatever. The two aren't the same. If you don't know anything about the artist, can't you appreciate what s/he has created without that?

Sure. 

But if you know he was a total scuzzball? Does that matter?

I myself find this easier if the artist is question is dead. Nobody is perfect, and if Picasso was an asshole, well, he was Picasso, right?

It's a slippery slope, and for me, at least, it depends of how much of an asshole somebody was.

I know folks who were happy that Michael Jackson died. Not so much that they wanted to see him gone per se, but that knowing what they knew about his personal life, they couldn't listen to his music. They didn't want to buy any of it, or help make it more popular, because they didn't want to see him benefit by that. 

How good does a song have to be to excuse pedophilia?

William Burroughs and Naked Lunch. Brilliant book. But: That he got plastered down in Mexico and killed his common-law wife–he put a glass on top of her head and stepped back a ways to show everybody what a good shot he was by knocking it off. 

His aim was low. Hit her in the head.

(For me, even the idea somebody would shatter a glass on top of my head shows how drunk everybody must have been. Really? Flying glass shards?)

Johnny Carson took over The Tonight Show when I was in junior high. I watched him, on and off, for the thirty years he was the king of late night TV. I thought he was funny, a great interviewer, and like Stewart and Colbert today, that was the place to get your news and be able to laugh at it, instead of crying. 

I read recently an unathorized bio of Carson, and while you have to take these things with a grain of salt, there was a whole bunch of stuff I did not know about the man.

He was a mean drunk, and when he got lit, he beat his wives. He cheated on them all with a slew of women, both right before, and right after, "I do." He was a terrible father; not so much abusive as inattentive. He tried to fire Ed McMahon because he couldn't stand to get upstaged. Ed took the hint and dialed it back. (Apparently the bit that Gary Shandling did with his sidekick on The Larry Sanders Show, a really funny send-up of late night, was dead-on.) Carson was autocratic, held a grudge, and smoked himself into an early grave. 

Not to say he didn't have good qualities, but those bad ones, taken together, make me wonder: If I had known this about the man when I was watching him on the tube, would I have continued to do so? 

Truth is, I don't know. I like to think I would have changed the channel. I would now. 

It's all relative, isn't it ... ?

Andy Williams

Andy Williams

1928-2012

Like Perry Como and Bing Crosby, Andy Williams was one of those laid-back crooners who never seemed to get too excited or upset when he delivered a song. Starting as a kid in the 1930s with his brothers, on the road, on radio, then onto a career alone, he cranked out a series of pop hits, the best known of which was "Moon River," which became his signature song, the title of his bio, and the theater he eventually opened in Branson.

One of the kings of Easy Listening, Williams was not a writer, he made his name doing covers, movie soundtracks, and standards, but he was butter-smooth and he picked some winners:

"Music to Watch Girls By," "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," "Charade," "Born Free," "Dear Heart," and my favorite, "Can't Get Used to Losing You," which is one I keep in my repertoire. Written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, it's got a catchy, jazzy, syncopated flow. 

On his TV show, which ran for years, he would feature groups like The Jackson Five and The Osmonds, and he did a Christmas special for years that let you know it really was the Christmas season.

Been a couple hip-hop and rap singers who've used his stuff in mash-ups, but chances are most of my younger readers won't know who Williams was unless they happened to hear him on a visit to Grandma's house when her Victrola was going ...

He was eighty-four, and he stayed in front of the mike almost to the end. 

Adiós, Andy.

Florence, Oregon

We went to the Chowder and Blues Fest on the coast Friday and Saturday, held in the picturesque little town of Florence. Supposed to be gray and rainy and cold the whole time, turned out to be mostly sunny and short-sleeve shirt weather. Great.

Some of the groups or single players were pretty good, some not so much. One guy had pretty good chops, but he was using rhythm track loops on some of his song, i.e., pre-recorded backing, and a couple times, he started the song at a tempo, say 80 bpm, and when he got to the loop, it was running at 70 bpm, which meant he had to slow down. Time was, I wouldn't have caught this.

Our favorite restaurant, Feast, née Crave, has shut down. We tried to find a replacement, but couldn't. Food wasn't bad, but what is supposed to be the best place on town, according to reviews, didn't come close. Ah, well, maybe we'll stumble across another gem someday ...

Yard Work v2

Mostly got the juniper bonsai-ed. Looks better than the pictures, actually, but you can get an idea of what a wall of green turns into after about six hours of snipping and lopping. Filled up the green recycle bin and a big paper bag, with about that much more piled up waiting.

Still have to clean up a bit, a few more trims here and there, cover the ground with bark dust, like that, but pretty much, it is done.

Resonator Guitar

Here's a documentary on the resonator (steel body) guitar. Runs an hour and a half, the last few minutes in a second video, so it's probably a bit long to watch if you are at work, but if you don't how these things work, you might find it interesting–I did.

Better to go to YouTube and watch it there, and full screen is better. 

Deals Not Done, Roads Not Taken

Got a note from a newbie writer who got an offer to do some writing work. A crappy offer that basically winds up giving all the rights from now until the end of time away for what amounts to virtually nothing. 

Don't do it, I counseled.

Easy for you to say, the writer allowed. You have a track record.

But listen, I said, there are times when it absolutely isn't worth it. If they were gonna give you big bucks for a flat fee? Yeah, that's something about which you'd have to think. But they aren't. Your end is all the work; their end is almost all the money. 

Some years ago, my agent was approached by the assistant of a well-known fellow in the writing and publishing biz. For this discussion, let's just call him ... Big Name Icon. 

Biggie was contemplating the creation of a new cross--platform universe–books, comics, TV, movies, games, T-shirts, like that, and would I be interested in becoming a minority partner in the project?

Why me? Because of my credits in shared universes: Conan, Aliens, Star Wars, Clancy. They thought I had the chops. 

Well, thanks, I was interested. Say on.

Said they:

Here's the deal: You would create a bible, write the first novel, upon which the rest of the universe would be based, and work hand-in-glove with Big Name Icon Himself! Sit down, kick ideas back and forth, get in on the ground floor. This could be huge. 

Cool. What are we talking about for, you know, my end?

The assistant named a figure. After I picked my laughing self up from the floor–the amount was less than I was getting for my own midlist books, I allowed as how that seemed, I dunno, a tad low. Want to explain why would I go to work for somebody else for less than I was making on my own? Where I didn't have to answer to anybody for any thing? 

Well, Big Name Icon, who created other major universes, got stung back in the day, and he's not as well-heeled as everybody thinks he is. We don't have a deal with any publishers yet, so he has to pay you out of his own pocket.

Oh, okay, I understand that. I'm willing to take short money up front for a piece of the action on the other end.

Um ... well, see, Biggie got stung on that, too, so he's not really interested in giving away points. 

No points? 

Huh. "Minority partner" doesn't seem to mean what I thought it did.

So let me see if I have it straight: He wants to pay peanuts for me to create his new universe from scratch, write a hundred-thousand-word novel, and not allow me to participate in the profits if it takes off?

Well, yes, but think about it: You get to work with (can I get a WAH-WAH ECHO SFX HERE?) Big-Big-Big-Name-Name-Name-Icon-Icon-Icon! Hand-in-glove! And first right of refusal for additional novels.

For the same piddly flat fee?

Well, after things take off, I'm sure that can be adjusted.

Oh, okay, so we are talking about writing escalators into the contract? They sell like ice water in Hell, the fee goes way up for each subsequent one?

Well, we don't want to, you know, nail it down quite so tight.

Hmm. I think I do know. From where I sit, what it sounds like to me is you want me to hand you the bar of soap and bend over.

I'm sure Big Name Icon won't have any trouble finding people who would fall agog on themselves for a chance to drop his name in conversation, but you know what? I'm not them. Thanks for dropping by; don't let the door hit you on the on the way out, hey ... ?  

There were and probably always will be people who will try to convince you that all-for-them-and-none-for-you is a great deal. Don't do it.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If it sounds as if you are about to get the splintery shaft? You probably are ...

Donkeys and Elephants: The Silly Season

If the results didn't matter so much, it would be really funny–the every-four-year circus that is the run for the U.S. Presidency. Billions spent, and come election day, a winner will be declared.

Let's get this out of the way first: Both sides shade the truth and spin it in their favor. Both sides outright lie. Both sides campaign in poetry, and the winner will govern in prose. Always been that way, and this cycle won't be any different, save that it will cost more.

Most of the promises either side holds up will, unless history is absolutely no indication, not come to pass. Whoever gets the job will move toward the center from where he started; it's the nature of the beast.

Friendships get made and unmade during the silly season. People who ordinarily can sit on different sides of the fence and have a conversation over the top rail get testy and personal and things get said that produce more heat than light. Enough heat to burn up communications.

What a fucking idiot you are, to believe that? Are you insane? Can you not see what a liar your guy is? 

Heard it; said it; I am not the guy to cast the first stone; however ...

Politics is how the world works, and the word "compromise" is a necessity. If you truly believe that your view, whatever it is, is the only valid way to look at things and you won't give an inch against the devils who say other? You can't get anything done.

And that's the point of politics, at least in theory: To get things done. To help the common folks get through their lives. To make the country a better place.

We lose sight of this. We forget how we felt the day after 9/11, when even old hippies who had no use for government unfurled flags out front. When, for a brief and shining moment, we were what the name says: United.

Didn't last, that feeling. What a shame.

I used to be a Republican. I was a fiscal conservative and a personal liberal, and the party reflected that. I don't think it does any more, and evidence of spending us into a hole? Look around.

Trickle down economics? Please. 

I used to be a Democrat. My feelings about social programs altered, and I became more liberal than I had been. But the D's sometimes offer things with which I don't agree.

Taxing the millionaires and billionaires? That isn't enough to balance the budget. I confess that having somebody who can buy yachts without asking how much the cost have to pay his or her fair share of taxes? Why, that doesn't bother me at all, but it won't fix the problems.

Now, I register Independent. And mostly vote for the D's because more of what I agree with comes from that side of the aisle. Not to say that they have it all together, certainly they don't. But overall, at this point in my life, I'm much more the bleeding heart liberal than I am conservative. 

I'm pro-gun, pro-choice, pro-personal freedom, anti-war. If you are black, brown, gay, straight, rich, poor, sick, healthy, there should be a place for you in our society. I see that the D's have a larger tent than the R's. 

Has Obama done a perfect job? No, don't be even more silly. Did he do a better job than George W. Bush? Absolutely. Did the R's dig us into a deep hole surrounded by war? Were the D's complicit in allowing it? Yes. That's how I see it. Do I want four more years of what got us there? Nope–but I don't blame Obama for it: The horse was lame when he got it.

What is best for the country? Who can say? I'm willing to give Obama another term to see what he can do. I don't expect him to entirely fix things–nobody can do that, and if you believe he or Romney can bail out the ship of state and make it look brand spanking new? You haven't been paying attention to history. Who is better to keep it from sinking?

No, government is not the answer to all our problems. But letting granny die because she can't afford medicine, even from Canada, is not an answer I like. 

(Normally in these discussion, I don't bring up religion, but since everybody else and her kid sister has? I don't believe Jesus was a Republican, not given what He did and said. I doubt he would have been a Democrat, either. He was a radical. But consider what he said about rich men and the poor and sick. About casting stones. And I surely don't think He and the Lost Tribe of Israel spent a lot of time in the Americas. Have you actually read The Book of Mormon? I have.) 

You weigh this and that, and then you choose. It's not just about whether I'm better off than I was; it's about is the country as a whole better off than it was. I see that it is and more so under Obama than it would have been under McCain. Or Romney. So that's how I'll vote.

Whatever you believe, you should seriously weigh the issues as best you can, and make your choice as informed as you can make it. Don't drink the Kool-Aid from either side. Do the research. Be honest. An educated electorate is better than one that is not. Do the work.

Favorite Lines

In 1964, leading man Cary Grant was starting to get a bit long in the tooth. He wasn't far from retiring–he was only sixty, and he lived until he was in his eighties–but he knew he couldn't keep playing lead roles, he didn't want to do character parts, and so he bowed out gracefully.

The movie Father Goose, with Leslie Caron and Trevor Howard, was one of those madcap screwball romantic comedies so popular in the thirties and forties, a genre in which Grant was as good as they got. 

Been almost fifty years since I saw it, so my memory is sketchy, but bear with me.

The set-up is, it's WWII, and Grant, a beach-combing curmudgeon and hard-drinking fellow, is recruited to spy on Japanese overflies on his island in the South Pacific. He reluctantly agrees to do so. One of his scruffiest roles, no suave character here. 

Pretty quick, Caron, playing a French school teacher, arrives with a gaggle of little girl students, on the run from the Japanese. Grant has no use for them, and calls on the Navy to come and fetch them, but of course, they can't, so he's stuck.

Grant and Caron's characters detest each other on sight, so you know where this is going, it being a screwball romantic comedy. They are at each other constantly, calling each other names, and, of course, the Japanese are coming, so that clock starts ticking. 

The teacher and girls hide his booze in order to blackmail him into doing stuff they want. It ramps up. Grant keeping calling his Navy contact, telling him to get them off his island.

Caron is just as eager to get off the island. They call each other names: Grant allows to the Navy contact, Howard, that Grant is a filthy beast; Grant counters with calling her Little Goody Two Shoes.

After much merriment and looming Japanese,  they fall for each other. And they decide that they want the captain to marry them, over the radio. 

One of the officers goes to fetch the captain. Says, "They want to get married."

The captain stares at him as if he's just turned into a giant tree frog. The line, delivered in amazement:

"Married? Goody Two Shoes and the Filthy Beast?!"

I can remember laughing my ass at least partway off when I heard that. It was the best moment of the film for me.

Written by Peter Stone and Frank Tarloff, both of whom wrote a lot of movies and TV on their own.

Get Up and Move!

Article in today's Big O by David Stabler on exercise. Basically says, exercise is better than diet in a lot of ways, vis a vis physical and mental health, and if you sit too much, you do yourself harm, even if you do work out.

Worth a gander.

I have to point out: The study that claims sitting and watching the tube will lop a couple years off your life is more than a little bit of a reach. The abstract is here, the full text here, and if you read it and look at the methodology, you can see it's one of those meta-data examination things that obviously doesn't eliminate enough other factors to be definitive. 

There might be a causal link is not the same as there is one, and the popular press tends to seize on anything that they can stir or shock a reader/viewer with–they are forever trumpeting a new cure for cancer, a live-forever potion, based on a small study with mice and despite the author's denials that s/he said any of that.