Slouch: TV dinners should be eaten watching TV

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

1. Is it my imagination, or are there now more ESPNs than there are Starbucks?

2. I don’t want to say college football games take too long, but the other day during the Wake Forest-Georgia Tech contest on ABC, I digitized all my divorce court hearings onto DVD.

3. If people are going to talk on a cell phone while they drive, why don’t we just install small TV screens onto the dashboard as well?

4. Given little choice, I’m not adverse to watching a good bull ride.

5. When Joe Theismann gets a traffic ticket, I’ve got to believe he automatically uses a replay challenge.

6. Just like Sean “Diddy” Combs has to have Proactiv, Couch Slouch has to have NFL Sunday Ticket.

7. Every time – every time – I graze upon Fox News and glance at “Hannity & Colmes,” I don’t know which one’s Hannity and which one’s Colmes.

8. If I were born before television, I guess I would’ve complained a lot about radio.

(Column intermission I: As the nation awaits to follow our finest student-athletes navigating the Bowl Championship Series, I am reminded of the words of author Elbert Hubbard: “College football is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.”)

9. I would turn down the sound on “Monday Night Football” and turn on the radio, but then I’d run smack into, you know, Norman Esiason.

10. Call me old school, but I hate when people eat TV dinners when they’re not watching TV.

11. I assume we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, and when we get there, there will be a bad cable package and only three radio stations, none of which play jazz.

12. Memo to Schick Quattro: I’m a complex fella, but I don’t know that my beard is so complex it needs four blades to shave it.

13. I know it’s TV, but I hear Stephen A. Smith before I see Stephen A. Smith.

14. Its full name is the “remote control,” but, frankly, we control nothing.

15. The other day NBC’s Johnny Miller was in Los Angeles and wanted to make a left turn off Wilshire Boulevard onto La Cienega during rush hour but he hesitated and had to wait until the next traffic-signal change. I think he choked.

16. You know, I just don’t think we see enough of Jay-Z.

(Column intermission II: As the nation awaits to follow Barry Bonds’ final, painful steps past Hank Aaron’s career home run record in 2007, I am reminded of the words of philosopher George Santayana: “America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences.”)

17. If you’re gonna have sideline reporters, just be done with it and hire Joan Rivers on the red carpet.

17a. On the other hand, my compliments to CBS for eliminating sideline reporters on NFL games. It’s environmentally correct!

18. They say that everything evens out eventually. I don’t know who “they” are, but I don’t believe them.

19. Outdoor Life Network, then OLN, now Versus. Next: Oblivion.

20. If instant replay were around way back then, I’m thinking the Ming dynasty is cut in half.

21. In my honest opinion, whoever invented the pretzel was a conflicted and tormented individual.

22. If I had a son, I wouldn’t want him following in my footsteps – I’d only allow him to watch six hours of television per day.

23. eHarmony.com, my butt.

Ask The Slouch

Q. David Stern’s NBA regime has succeeded in regulating players’ dress, stopping them from entering the stands, getting them to keep their guns at home, changing the ball and controlling Mark Cuban. Is his next dictum going to be restricting Bill Walton’s haphazard comments or restricting Craig Sager’s fashion eccentricities? (Sean Silva; Malibu, Calif.)

A. Actually, I have an NBA question for you about the brothers who own the Sacramento Kings – is it one Maloof but two Malooves?

Q. To address changing circumstances, have you and the NFL talked about collaborating on flex marriage? (Frank Milano; Delmar, N.Y.)

A. Didn’t Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson give that a whirl in 1972?

Q. Do the Cincinnati Bengals get a corporate discount from their bail bondsman? (Keith Lutz; Chicago)

A. No, but they receive a new season of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” on DVD with every fifth arrest.

Q. “Star Wars” droid C-3PO was fluent in 6 million languages. I bet he never heard Shannon Sharpe. (Dave Gelman; Beachwood, Ohio)

A. That’s not in the form of a question, but it’s worth 10 bits.

Q. If the New England Patriots’ coaching staff adopted a Casual Fridays dress policy, might not the only options be burlap or nudity? (John Slusar; Bonita Springs, Fla.)

A. Pay the man, Shirley.