by "Buck"

June 8, 2005

I was reminded the other day of something I had completely forgotten.  About 10-years ago we were selected by the A-C Nielsen Company as a “Nielsen Family.” This is how they come up with the ratings of television shows.  We were apparently selected at random.  A dry phone call with a few questions was the first step.  Apparently I met the qualifications and they sent a guy to the house to do a follow up interview.  He asked some more specific questions.  He wanted to know what we did for a living, how many kids, how much money we earned as a household income.  How decisions on purchases were made…etc. etc.


The whole thing is very Big Brother-like.  The come to the house and attach some sort of monitoring device to the back of your TV.  The device is hooked to the telephone and every morning at 2:30 or so, it would call a toll free number automatically and relay the data from the previous day to some central computing center.  The device had no impact on the TV—other than to record every time it was turned on and to what channel.  I was a little unnerved by the whole thing, but figured hell—how often does a hillbilly who chews tobacco, drives a truck, and owns firearms get a chance to have such a prominent role in the selection of programming for the masses of an entire nation.  Let me just say those TV hunting and fishing shows had a bang-up year. 

It was also during my time on Nielsen that the X-Files carved itself as a good show to a legendary show.  Once they removed the Big Brother spy box the series plummeted.  Oh, I’m sure I’m the reason why when my box was recovered.  Surely it made no difference that the show’s writers were showing signs of cranial mutation.  I’m fairly certain the final season was written completely under the influence of highly hallucinogenic narcotics.  The thing first moved from Friday to Sunday—bad time slot—then the writing fell off the map and the plots got complicated and completely across the jagged edge of even remotely believable.  I’m fairly certain the series finally included Scully
spontaneously combusting while dressed in a rabbit suit standing in the middle of a Louisiana swamp.  Its likely Mulder was reprogrammed by space aliens to interrupt White House briefings by jumping to his feet and acting out parts from the lost episodes of Gilligan’s Island.   I mean the thing just got fucking unreal---more than usual.  You know what I mean?   What the hell?  

There’s been a running discussion on the WVSR this week about Jeff’s planned purchase of new wheels.  I advocate the Chevrolet Silverado since that’s what I drive.  Such discussions on the WVSR are couched in creative humor, but back here in West Virginia—that’s serious fucking business.  The loyalties to automobiles in this state are unreal.  FORD fans always claim it’s an acronym for First On Race Day.  Others will claim it means Fix Or Repair Daily or Found On Road Dead. ..And so it goes.  It used to be that nobody, and I mean NOBODY had a good word for the imports.  All of the old WWII vets had a real Jones for Mitsubishi—and anything Japanese since Mitsubishi specifically built the Japanese planes during the war.      Trucks from Nissan, Toyota, Datsun, Mazda, all were referred to as “rice burning Jap crap.”  In their early days—it was true, it wasn’t uncommon to see holes rusted through the bodies.  However, in recent years they have created some damn superior shit.  Plus, Toyota is not only accepted in West Virginia, it’s now praised because of a plant near Charleston that builds the engines and transmissions for the Camry.  About 15-hundred jobs will do a lot to heal old wounds.  

Speaking of cars, Chevrolet is now so desperate to sell its vehicles it’s gone to offering regular customers the GM EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT!!!!!   It’s only a matter of time until BOGO is instituted on car lots across the country.  

Well, I’m out of shit…gotta run.

Buck Out

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