Why do I do it?!

I haven’t been getting as much sleep as I should lately, to the point where it’s not even cutting into my “beauty sleep” portion as much as it’s cutting into my “ability to function as an active member of society” portion. Of course, the rule of thumb is that the average adult needs a good eight hours of sleep each night to awaken the next day fully rested, however I’ve got to say that I’m increasingly finding faults in the fuzzy math behind these calculations because from all that I’ve been able to deduce, these numbers don’t in any way account for the sheer volume of hypnotic, late-night television that a guy like myself may encounter on any given night…

That’s right – while I’d love to be able to blame global warming or the rising costs of gas or even simply good, old standby, President Bush, for my inability to embrace a decent night’s slumber, but at the end of the night (typically around 3:30am as of late…), I can no more blame ill thought-out foreign policy for my effective bedtime than I can blame the man in the moon or the makers of my pajamas. In reality, all of that blame can be focused on one single, solitary appliance in my home, even though I’ve come to love it very much over my years. And that particular appliance is … the microwave!

No, no – just kidding. Of course, it’s the TV, although one might make a crude joke or two that I appear to be particularly fond of the microwave also…jerks. But even above food that is horribly bad for me, the TV is certainly to blame in this case for keeping me up night after night with its delicious blend of alternative programming that nobody in their right mind watches – at least not before midnight, anyways. And I don’t necessarily even find myself getting lured into the endless infomercials for kits on how to make millions selling real estate or how to turn my cordless drill into a really crappy weed wacker like most would assume, although I must admit that I certainly had my share of RonCo nights just like everyone else back in the day. My problem these days, on the other hand, lies not so much in old TV shows and infomercials as much as it does in really, really bad movies – you know, typically the ones that you vowed never to watch again when you saw them the first time, and yet somehow now you can count on instantaneously kissing away an easy two hours of your time when you come across them on cable at one o’clock in the morning.

And mind you, I think it’s important to clarify that I’m not talking about any of those good movies that you watch time and time again whenever they come on, no no! (Die Hard 3, Uncle Buck, and Ocean’s Eleven all fall into this bucket for me…) Nope, here I’m talking about those horrible, if not absolutely abysmal flicks that if Hollywood had any sense would’ve never actually been made in the first place, but somehow by the grace of late-night TV are still floating around out there so somebody can make a profit off of the commercials that we’ll endure during these 2am adventures. Am I the only person who has this problem?! For some reason, I’m thinking a big, fat, emphatic “No!” because otherwise, would stuff like this really still be making it to the airwaves???

Scott’s “Current Rotation” of Really Bad, Yet Irresistible Late-Night Movies…

· Deep Blue Sea – there’s just something about genetically-altered, killer sharks chasing after Samuel L. Jackson & LL Cool J that always keeps me on the edge of my couch!

· The Punisher – this one actually almost makes my list of decent comic book movies, basically because it was being shot right here in Tampa about the time I moved here, but at the same time, it’s still at the bottom for a reason!

· Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle – I haven’t really been much of a fan of stoner flicks since, oh, I graduated from high school, and yet I still think that Doogie Houser’s appearance in this film makes it worth watching over and over and over…

· Fast Food Nation – this one I really don’t understand because I think the slaughterhouse close-ups are just disgusting, and yet every single time it comes on, there I am watching Fez and Avril and Greg Kinnear do…stuff.

· My Super Ex-Girlfriend – we’ve all had crazy ex-girlfriends, but how many of us have ever had one of them throw a shark at us when they found out about the new girl?! Suddenly having the stuff that you left at her house strewn across the lawn really doesn’t sound so bad…

· Lake Placid – Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda go hunting for a giant, man-eating crocodile that’s been terrorizing a small lake in Maine. Did I mention the giant, man-eating crocodile?!

 See something irresistible to you that I should be wasting my time with? Just want to ridicule me on my horrible, sleep-wrecking taste in movies?! E-mail me and let me know what keeps you up late at night … as long as we’re still talking television, anyways…