I have a new alarm clock. It wakes me without fail sometime between 7:25 and 7:55 every morning. With enthusiastic slobbery licks to the face. And I, in turn, reinforce my alarm clock’s behavior by stumbling out of bed and taking it for a run at a nearby soccer field.

I’m swearing off of TV. Well, not entirely. Probably just live TV. The last holdout for me was my weekly Michigan football game. As of the blown tackle in the backfield by Burgess midway through the third quarter on 3rd and 4, I decided I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t put up with the disappointment. Watching Lloyd Carr coach football is not fun and I’m tired of feeling like I’ve wasted three hours of my day after the game. I have no doubt that the talent on the Maize and Blue is worthy of the preseason number three ranking, but the play is completely uninspired.

So now it’s down to watching downloaded commercial-free episodes of The Apprentice, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or maybe Kitchen Confidential. Even the usually solid Office hasn’t been doing it for me this year. Basically what I’m getting at is that TV brings me nothing but feelings of disappointment when I watch it live. So I won’t do it anymore.