Ask The Slouch

These are 23 (more) facts, tried and true, about the widening world of sports television:

1. Watching the TV talking heads during presidential campaign coverage, I now realize I have been way too hard on Shannon Sharpe.

2. One day, I believe, ESPN will colonize Antarctica.

3. I used to have six or eight channels and couldn't wait to turn the TV on; I now have 60 or 80 channels and can't wait to turn the TV off.

4. Sadly, my health insurance does not cover emotional damage from gazing upon "Lou Dobbs Tonight" or "Worst Week."

5. Is it my imagination, or is Wednesday the only night of the week there's no college football on?

6. I saw myself recently on HDTV. I don't have a face for radio, I have a face for ham radio.

7. They say that marijuana is a gateway drug to more serious substance abuse. Sporting-wise, I view baseball's newfangled replay review as a similar threat.

8. China has so many TV sets, right now somebody in Beijing is watching Milton Berle.

(Column Intermission I: I have found an antidote to mindlessly watching sports TV every weekend. According to the New York Times, a Buddhist temple in Thailand offers, for a small fee, the chance to climb into a coffin while monks chant a dirge, then climb out again cleansed and reborn. I'm going to do this during March Madness, and I am also recommending this to everyone at ESPN.)

9. If the marketplace drives America, how is there not a women's beach volleyball network?

10. With Chris Russo now beamed worldwide on satellite radio, I sure hope Martians don't have weapons of mass destruction.