Ah, Monday night. Broadcast wasteland. Still, there are highlights:

• David Blaine: Drowned Alive seems unlikely to be able to live up to its title. Still, I'm transfixed by the man's overpowering lack of charisma. Unfortunately Stuart Scott, a talented professional broadcaster, is on hand to emcee the whole thing, lending the proceedings an inappropriate air of competence. Right now he's interviewing Actual Yale Doctor about the horrors Blaine has faced during the past week (spent immersed in a sphere of water in Lincoln Center). Skin breakdown! Fluid loss! And, most disconcertingly, briefly elevated liver enzyme activity that began to correct itself before the big finale, but is still being used to imply that death was/is imminent. Paging Morgan Spurlock! Mr. Spurlock to the front desk! Someone's stealing your bit!

  ALSO GREAT: They're using flesh-colored wind guards on their headset mics. It makes everyone look like they've got enormous goiters on their faces. My man Stu was smart enough to say no to this idiotic scheme, however: he's got the black wind guard, so it just looks like he has a huge, cancerous mole. I told you he was a pro.

  POTENTIALLY GREATER: The discussion of how David's London fast "wreaked havoc upon his metabolism". Translation: HE TURNED INTO A BIG FAT LOAD.

  Man. I'm kind of surprised/alarmed at how much I dislike this idiot. Let's move on.



• I really enjoy commercials for gardening products. The spokesmen crack me up: they're invariably older but craggily virile men — ex-firefighters looking to spend more time weeding with their beloved wives, mostly — who confidently expound on the merits of whatever revolutionary advance in dirt technology they're peddling. I always get a kick from the recognition of another demographic's Marketing Achilles Heel. Much easier to see others' than your own, I suppose.


• Telecom commercials! First, the cable company bragging that it supplies steady jobs. Now there's a good lobbying approach: pass preferential legislation for our industry because we employ people. Of course, whoever they're going to lose their business to probably also employs people, so I'm not quite sure what they're getting at. Perhaps this is a DC-area narrowcast meant to scare politicians with cable repairguy constituents. Still, seems like a pretty lame argument.

  Next up is AT&T, which, among a series of pledges to do things like "bring us the future", let loose one or two interesting tidbits. First, a thinly-veiled appeal to network neutrality advocates — "we won't block access" was the wording, I believe (which isn't really specific enough, but it's interesting that they're addressing it). Second, they promised to observe local right-of-way. I can't remember the wording, so I can't be sure, but I believe this is tackling the municipal broadband legislative question.

  If they meant these pledges, good for AT&T. But even moreso, good for us: if the telecoms are feeling threatened enough over these issues to create commercials filled with friendly promises rather than commercials filled with self-serving lies, the EFF must be making progress.