The Fall Season Debut

Ahoy there! In this day and age, we have become increasingly dependent upon the ol' tele to provide us with our compass, not so much as to where the hell we are, but rather when the hell we were there. Labor Day for some reason historically has been the traditional kick off of the new fall shows. They try to bring back all of your favorites with a bang to capture that excitement that they left you hanging with on that season finale that seemed so long ago.
We are inundated with commercial after commercial about the upcoming shows, so much so that if we can piece things together in some sort of Pulp Fiction montage, we probably already have the entire first episode figured out by the time it airs. This season is no different as I can recall seeing advertisements for the "new" fall lineups all the way back to the NBA playoffs in June and I am still seeing the same ads today. It has about the same effect as Lauren asking for junk food again and again and again (and make no mistake, she literally asks for some junk--no specifics, no hiding the fact that the cookie, brownie, yo-ho or milkshake that she starts craving at 8:30 AM after her syrup drenched pancakes is completely bad for her--she starts out with the "Hey Mom, I want some junk" and doesn't let up until she has been placated with those morsels of goodness). The TV network execs figure that if they just keep playing the commercials over and over, sooner or later we will either get so annoyed that we will watch the damn show or that it just starts sounding like a really good idea.
My favorite part of this fall season is that the networks have just given up on giving any kind of name to the shows--now they just come up with a number and it suddenly is supposed to resonate true to all of us. It started a couple of years ago with 24 on Fox, which by all accounts is a damn good show, but I refuse to watch it because I know that I will ultimately be sucked in and be forced to purhcase seasons 1-5 and my empty and hollow existence would only become more so. Later the number craze manifested itself on one of those WB/UPN/FX/USA network shows called The 4400--at least it was some sort of random number. Now we have The One, The Nine, and Six Degrees making their debut on ABC. If my information is correct, and why on earth should any of you doubt it--this blog is a respected resource of topical, accurate information--Eight is Enough and Three's Company are making their long awaited returns in January (I can't wait to see what thespian they are able to find to reinvent the genius that was Mr. Firley--it's gotta be DeNiro or Nicholson--you can't just replace a Don Knotts) and NBC has found a way to make the movie Seven into a wacky sitcom with Ross from Friends playing the Brad Pitt role just as a way to confuse Jennifer Aniston. Talk about your hilarity and hijinks. Two and a Half Men already exists and the Gehrig and Dimaggio families are not willing to relinquish the rights to the numbers Four and Five believing that they have been retired, not only for the Yankees but for all humanity. Negotiations are ongoing, but after the Party of Five debacle, I don't know if they will ever get another shot.
With the arrival of the new fall season rapidly approaching, this is as good a time as any for me to reset the bar and get back to cracking on everybody and everything in my life. While I haven't had the budget to overwhelm you with commercials all summer, this preview edition of EBTPF should serve the same purpose of whetting your appetite or annoying you to the point that you read just to shut me up. It all begins tonight with the true start of the college football season as my beloved FSU takes on those bastards from Miami. This is traditionally the day that Kim is forced to wrestle the butter knife from my monkey grip as I try to remove my spleen as another Seminole kicker has inexplicably pulled a Vanderjakt and pushed a 23 yard field goal wide right (or even wide left now--at least we broke it up a couple of years ago). We have the NFL season and your defending NFC South champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers ready to tackle the most ridiculous schedule I have ever seen. The baseball playoff drive is on and the Ryder Cup is right around the corner. Needless to say, there are plenty of great postings for the sports fans out there.
Not a sports fan you say. Fear not my friends, we have plenty of fodder for those of you who enjoy reading about my angellic children. Lauren starts preschool tomorrow. I expect the deluge of notes home from her teachers to be extraordinarily blogworthy and her daily antics here still can easily coax a good 5000 words for those of you who crave such topics. Hunter always provides meaty topics and we are just a couple of months away from the entire clan coming for Thanksgiving weekend (when the Bucs just happen to be playing here at Texas Stadium--more on that little nugget later). I have a new job to discuss and could easily provide a lenthty diatribe about how much Kim enjoys me coming home smelling like a bizarre combination of garlic and sweat or how much fun I have trying to understand what the hell my non-English speaking trainer is trying to say about the right way to stretch pizza dough. We have a new beast of a puppy who is as goofy as he is poorly trained--I expect to have plenty of material for the animal lovers out there--but there will be no freaking pictures of any more of the rats. I have to draw the line somewhere.
There is also plenty of the old classics--your favorites from last season--Poppy Joe, houseguests, random rants, road trips, crazy neighbors, not to mention the idiosynchrocies of the good people of Dallas. So climb aboard and consider this your inundation of previews for the upcoming season. I look forward to getting back into a groove and providing a daily dose of my sick and confused perspective for the rest of you. My thoughts are fresh, my keyboard is dusted off and I will be making this a part of my daily routine. I hope you enjoy and if not--too freaking bad. Hopefully we'll have some new readers and contributors this year as well, and more importantly, I hope and pray that you can't smell the garlic and sweat through these postings--some things are better not to be experienced.