I don't now, but I used to.

I used to watch a decent amount of TV. I'd get up in the morning and watch CNN while eating breakfast, come home and catch the news, and maybe grab an episode of "The Simpsons" with Don. Now I can honestly say I watch maybe a half hour to an hour of TV of week. I don't watch a lot of TV now, but I used to.

But that got me thinking: what do I do with my time now?

I only have to look at the hand prints on my iBook to know what I do. I'm on the computer constantly, either writing blog posts like this one, or that one, or researching trips and trip ideas, or doing tons and tons of reading, or I'm actually inside the computer trying out DIY projects and living to tell about them.

And I'm not alone. People are watching less TV these days, and finding far more productive uses of their time. Just like me.

In fact, I feel like I'm busier nowadays than I ever was when I was in tons of organizations and zooming off to meeting every night and spending a ton of weekends in Adrian. Now, I look back on that time and wonder, "How the heck did I manage?" I guess I managed by spending my time differently. It's no better or worse than before.

Now, though, I actually look down on people who watch a ton of TV. "Jesus," I catch myself thinking, "don't they have anything better to do?" It's not very fair. Television can have its redeeming qualities. But to me, the real world happens outside of that glowing box. Maybe I've said this before?

The change began, I think, when I first discovered MySpace in the spring of 2005. It became my cognitive heat sink. I read the vast amount of blog posts from back when I first discovered MySpace and - again - I wonder where I had all that free time. My political and social and personal thinking was all there, out for everyone to see, and now I'm lucky to post something new to MySpace once a week. I don't post to MySpace so much these days, but I used to.

Part of it is that, while I'm not involved in so many things as a whole, I'm deeply involved in the organizations I participate in. It seems my to-do list for my recycling group is never ending. But what could be a better cause? My political and environmental passions both get stoked, and I'm doing what I love. Same with Rotary.

So all that time I spend watching TV - wasted time, when you get down to it - I'm busy doing something else. Not to say that watching TV is a bad thing. I still adore my "The Office" episodes, and football on Saturday, and watching "Wheel of Fortune" with grandma. But the news? I listen to NPR religiously on the way to and from work. Or I read it online. And trust me: I'm reading or listening to the smarter news these days.

After that, I'm busy taking walks or going for a bike ride or undertaking whatever "wouldn't it be fun if..." project that shapes and grows my brain a little bit. It's been a blast. What's more, you'll never hear me utter the words, "I'm bored." Never.

Because I'm never bored these days. But I used to be.

What's up, Chuck?

I've never been a big newtwork TV guy.

"The Office" changed all that, of course - being the first show I have to watch every week, especially now that the new season is underway.

But I caught a bit of news about NBC's new "Chuck."

And hey, it's not half-bad.

I mean, classic and thinly-disguised G5 Macs, a gorgeous blonde, and some pretty cool action sequences; what's not to like?

I'll check out episode two tonight, just to be sure.

Any other new favorites you've seen this season?

"Summer's over. Now get back to work."

Thank friggin' god - just a few short weeks 'till the fun begins again.

Pam Beasley may be my new Desert Island Woman.

Turn off your TV and live

Ask any service club, bowling league, church social committee, or Greek organization what their number one problem is, and chances are they'll all answer the same:

Membership.

Declining numbers in organized activities is a serious crisis in areas as diverse as the civic square to the college campus. Fewer people are joining, and many groups face extinction is they don't increase their membership numbers.

My own Rotary club, and Rotary in general, has dealt with fewer members for years. In a weird twist of the phenomenon, the number of Rotary clubs is increasing, while the membership of each club is decreasing, by as much as 20 percent. Our breakfast club used to have as many as 45 members. Today, we can barely keep 30 coming to meetings.

Robert Putnam, in his book "Bowling Alone," helps to answer the "why" question, as well as the "how much." According to Putnam, the decline in inolvement in civic groups, politics, church attendence, family dinners, participatory sports clubs - in other words, everything that makes America what it is - is an epidemic that has been taking place since the 1960s. Group after group, study after study, survey after survey shows Americans participated in life as we know it in record numbers after World War II.

And then something happened. It all went away.

What's to blame? Putnam says it's several things: commuting, urban sprawl, women entering the work force, generational differences, and - probably most of all - television.

All this disengagement has come at a price. Studies show that people who are rich in "social capital" (those bonds that tie families, towns, neighborhoods, and groups together) live better, happier, healthier, safer lives. If you're a homebody, you're twice as likely to be depressed. On the other hand, if you're active in your community, you reduce your chances of having a serious medical issue.

A lot of this might seem like common sense. After all, if you're well connected in the community, or even if you have a big family, you increase your chances of getting a ride to the hospital if you need one.

But what Putnam shows that, to me, is so remarkable is why all this is going on. The "Greatest Generation" were a hearty, active bunch. Their kids? Less so. THEIR kids? Even less so, and so on. That's the generational difference (even though Putnam never says exactly why Baby Boomers are less active than their parents).

With the invention of TV and electronic entertainment, Americans are more likely to sit at home, alone, in front of a glowing box than they are to invite friends over, go to a city hall meeting, or attend a church social.

And because we're spending more time in our car, traveling to work and across town to the strip mall, we have less time to devote to the public good.

Putnam shows the steady decline in involvement since the '60s, despite all that's happened historically in the meantime, but I can't help wonder about 9/11's effect on the country. For instance, other things being equal, Putnam shows our generation is more likely to volunteer. Did 9/11 do anything to increase that further? And we all heard stories about how church attendence grew after the attacks, but how has it fared since then?

Also, Putnam can only hint at the Internet's involvement in our gradual disengagement. The Web was pretty new when he wrote "Bowling Alone," and - like TV - it may take awhile to study the long-term effects of AIM, eBay, and Amazon.com.

I've been reading a lot about these "The Sky is Falling" scenarios lately - the financial crisis, Peak Oil, global warming, the rise of polarized political voices - and it really makes me wonder what this country is going to look like when my kids are my age. If America is all about a participatory democracy, what happens when we stop participating?

The image of an America where everyone is locked inside their home, afraid to go out and play, cynical and suspicious of their neighbors is a frightening one. And all we can really do is do our little part to make sure we're active in the social sphere, whether it's family or church or work or whatever.

To sit in front of the TV is no way to live individually, let alone as an entire country.

As KMFDM would say - "Turn off your MTV and live."


[a big thanks to Cassandra for letting me borrow the book!]

Tattoo 'Pepsi' on my behind.

I think sitting through movie theater commercials is a situation where everyone is absolutely outraged, but no one does anything about it.

Why pay to see a commercial? It's silly. But no one exactly gets up out of the theater in protest.

I've noticed a similar trend with product placements in movies and TV. From what I've read, everyone is shrugging it off - "Well, it'll cut down on the cost of production" - when really the integrity of art and culture is suffering.

Last night's episode of "The Office" had a glaring example, where one of the characters uses a new shredding machine - with a "Staples" label clearly slapped on the front - and brags about its ability to shred CDs and credit cards (and lettuce for a salad). The commercial that came right after the scene was, of course, one for Staple's new, sleek shredder.

Coincidence?

Later, I caught a bit of "30 Rock" where the writing crew is drinking Snapple, making fun of product placements in TV shows, but then cut to - you guessed it - a Snapple ad.

The worst for me, however, was during the "Talledegha Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" dinner scene, where they all gorge on Pizza Hut, Pepsi, and Doritos, and then praise them to tiny, infant baby Jesus. It was a giant commercial for Pepsi - even worse than the stock cars that carry the logos on the hood.

Carrying a sponsor's logo on a vehicle - or a badge, or a uniform, or whatever - somehow doesn't upset me. No big deal. But these placements in movies, where it's so obvious not even Wayne and Garth ("Little, yellow, different") can satirize them enough.

Do we just throw up our hands and say, "oh well?"

I guess one recourse is to boycott the shows and movies that do this kind of thing. Except now just about everyone is doing it. And that would mean, in the case of "The Office" especially, that we'd be giving up great art for ideals that won't survive in a market-driven economy (and hey, Pam makes it all kind of worth it).

Even video games are getting into the act. I noticed it while swinging through New York in "Spider-Man 2," but the game developers didn't give Spidey the ability to take a crap on a billboard. Dang.

Maybe I'll keep a count going, and whoever annoys me the most - that's the show I'll stop watching.

But soon I'll run out of things to watch, and I'll have only books as a getaway plan.

Unless Pepsi pays for a billboard in the next Neil Gaiman novel...