Tag: Popular Culture

New research on the television watching habits of Americans could shed light on the obesity epidemic. The results: we sit on our asses a lot. And by “a lot,” I mean pretty much most of the time.

Nielsen has announced the results of its second annual media consumption survey, which found that television and Internet usage continues to increase…

The measurement company said the average person in the U.S. watched 142 hours of TV a month, up 4% from last year.

The average American watches 142 hours of TV a month, up 4% from last year

People who used the Internet were online 27 hours a month, up 6%, and those who watched video on mobile phones watched three hours a month, unchanged compared with a year ago.

“Americans keep finding more time to spend with the three screens,” Nielsen vice chairperson Susan Whiting said. “TV use is at an all-time high, yet people are also using the Internet more often — 31% of which is happening simultaneously.”

But who could blame us? Between the two-year presidential campaign, the Olympics in China, watching one wheel at a time fall off of the economy, the horrific siege of Mumbai, and all the other news, there’s just a lot to keep up with. And with 4.43 million of us unemployed, what else have we got to do?

We’ve reluctantly — because we don’t want to abuse our supernatural powers — dusted off the Pensito Review crystal ball to make a few predictions for 2009.

• On her first trip to Eastern Europe as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton is met in Bosnia with sniper fire.
• Adam Sorkin creates a new West Wing-like television program based loosely on The Jeffersons sitcom where a black family moves into the White House and has to deal with a bunch of weird white people in Congress in a lot of forced, uncomfortable situations.
• In his last few hours as president, Bush pardons Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Michael Vicks, Mark Cuban, Ken Lay (posthumously), Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley, Todd Palin (DUI), Ted Stevens, Duke Cunningham, Larry Craig, Bill O’Reilly (sexual harassment), Rush Limbaugh (prescription drug fraud), Phil Spector and O.J. Simpson.
• Eliot Spitzer and Jon Edwards buy a Winnebago and a digital camera and hit the road for Panama City, Fla. during spring break for a new reality program called “Guys Gone Wild.”
• It’s June 2009 and they’re still counting votes in Minnesota.
• Jamie Lynn Spears, Angelina Jolie, Katie Holmes, Bristol Palin, Clay Aiken and those 17 high school girls in Gloucester, Mass., volunteer to be sterilized by aliens as a gesture of interplanetary goodwill.
• The newspaper industry completely collapses, bankrupting Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zeller, and leaving the West Framforth Argus-Beacon the only print newspaper still publishing in the United States.
• With its bailout money, the U.S. auto industry retools and comes out with the coolest hybrid ever made, called the Iaccoca. Unfortunately, although the vehicle initially is greeted with excitement and was hailed as having the potential to single-handedly cure our dependence on foreign oil, due to its name it is consigned to the dustbin of history alongside the Edsel.
• In a desperate attempt to maintain its momentum from the presidential elections, Saturday Night Live starts doing skits involving Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — and nobody notices.
• After poisoning our dogs’ food, our children’s toys and our toothpaste with melamine, China refines its efforts to kill members of both political parties by flooding the post-election market with lead-glazed Barack Obama commemorative plates and MSG-infused “Palin in 2012” T-shirts.
• Larry King finally stops doing whatever it is he does.
• On his first day in office, President Barack Obama signs Executive Order 1256 decreeing that no one, and he means no one, is supposed to pay one iota of attention to any celebrity who goes by just one name. That means you, Cher, Madonna, Beyonce, Oprah, et. al.
• Newt Gingrich gets fatter, uglier and meaner.
• So does Jeb Bush.
• Al Gore just gets fatter and more saintlike.
• General Motors apologizes to the American people for the Hummer, calling it “the single most obnoxious thing we ever did” and adding, “Our heads were up our butts, but we get it now. Buy a Chevy! LYLAS!”
• It’s October 2009 and they’re still counting votes in Minnesota.
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints apologizes for its role in the defeat of California’s Proposition 8, which bars gays from entering into a civil marriage contract. The Mormon Church issues a statement that to atone for its actions, it will immediately stop posthumously baptizing Nazis and Jews. Pinkie promise!
• In what has been hailed as a further effort to seal his hetero creds, a honeymoon sex tape was released on the Internets of closeted Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and his blushing bride Carole Rome engaged in sexual acts that are illegal in every county of the state. The grainy, poor-quality tape confirms that Crist’s famous tan is an all-over one.
• Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin agrees to appear on the cover of Playboy Magazine. “How many hockey moms do you know who can have four or five kids and still have a bodacious bod like this?” asked the former Miss Wasilla.
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