Get your own dinner: Mom's watching 'Hardball'

[DeepModem Mom]

Palm Beach Post: Get your own dinner: Mom's watching 'Hardball'
By Emily J. Minor
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 25, 2008

....There are addictions and then there are addictions, and right now I am sporting one of Betty Ford proportions. I cannot get enough politics. It's sick. It's a time-suck. It's way worse than watching an America's Next Top Model marathon. But I can't stop.

On primary Tuesdays, I am paralyzed by that little electronic ticker in the corner: 4:39:18, 4:39:17, 4:39:16 ... until the polls close.

But it's not like I need official results.

I've already checked the polls, memorized the census data, tabulated numbers on the over-50 college-educated white, female voters and have a giant wipe board precariously positioned on my lap so I can map this out for me and the cats....

On this journey to the White House, I've fallen in love with MSNBC, mostly because these nuts go on and on. The world could be falling apart, and they'd still be pontificating about what might be inside Hillary's head.

I love this about them, so much so that, whenever I can, I watch Chris Matthews on Hardball at 5 AND at 7, just to see if they'd added one little nuance. I'm thinking, maybe, Rachel Maddow will blink once instead of twice or Pat Buchanan will say something that's not infuriating or Chuck Todd, their statistical guy, will drop his pointer stick....

Apparently not everyone thinks it's crucial to know the morning spread on the latest Rasmussen tracking poll.

Pity the fools.

And I'm also thinking about things I really shouldn't be thinking about.

Like Hillary.

Whatever she does to her skin, it's working. And I love those suits of hers, the ones with weird pop-up collars. I even went on the Google, looking for her designer. Barack looks swell in a flag pin, and those kids of his. Good grief. Could they be any cuter?

I'm even obsessed with my peeps, the pundits.

Rachel Maddow has a girlfriend who's a famous artist. Keith Olbermann still collects baseball cards. Chuck Todd grew up in Miami. Chris Matthews is a movie buff, and he's married to a TV journalist. And just the other night when the Kentucky votes were coming in, Nora O'Donnell - btw: she had twins last May and she's due with another baby in July. omg - came out looking all pretty and when she was walking toward the camera - "giving the numbers," as we in the biz say - she twisted her ankle, ever so slightly....

Clearly, I am out of control....

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/accent/epaper/2008/05/25/a1d_minor_0525.html

[gristy]

1. Now that is very funny

I suspect too many of us can relate! :D

[SharonRB]

2. LOL

:rofl:

Welcome to my world.

:hi:

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Hi, Sharon!

Even if supper might not be on the table at your house, I know you do lots of important things -- despite your "addiction" --

:hi:

[ruby slippers]

3. I can relate...heck, I watch Keith Olbermann three times EACH night....

I was a Nielsen family last week and I was almost embarrassed to turn in my diary. It was on CNN or MNSBC except for a few times when my hubby watched Deadliest Catch and American Idol. But, it certainly made it easy to fill out and was great for the ratings for the news networks...I have five TV's and they were all on all day long....

And, I thought I was doing bad when the Anna Nicole trial was on....

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Nielson! LOL!

Me, too. I never turn 24/7 news off. Sometimes it's on mute, but not off.

[ruby slippers]

8. I'm being serious. We really were Nielsen's.....and they paid me

a whopping five bucks to do it, too....wow!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. Chris Matthews' wife

no longer does the news on Washington, DC TV. She left a few years ago to go to work for Marriott.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. News buff that I am, I noticed that error, too -- but decided I'd leave it in...

so as not to interrupt the flow of the piece. (And she thinks SHE'S a news junkie! She should meet US!)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. I'm pathetic, I know

I know their kids' names. I don't know why I know that, but I do.

[Berry Cool]

10. This reminds me of the people who watch shopping channels or The Weather Channel all the time

to the point where they get to know the private lives of everyone on the channel and can recite chapter and verse. They know who's dating, who's getting married, who's pregnant, etc. It's like their own personal soap opera.

[SharonRB]

11. Of course we all know that John King and Dana Bash

are getting married and that John King is converting to Judaism. Well, at least, I knew that.