An unusual thing happened last night as I flipped the TV channels between Law and Order and the Boston Bruins. They won.
I try to dodge the ads. So far, the most successful technique I've found is to switch between two sports events, or a sports event and a show or a movie. I know, I know, I should get a Tivo, but I'm too old fashioned. So I just switch channels to avoid the ads, but trying to do it switching between two non-sports shows is an exercise in futility.
I think the networks are in collusion. They schedule their advertisements to run concurrently, so there's no point to changing channels when the ads come on. And do they ever come on. It's upwards of five minutes of really dumb ads with only seven to twelve minutes of showtime in between. One hundred and eighty million TV sets across the nation sync up on advertisements. But with sports, the networks can't always tell when there's going to be a break in the action, so when you switch to a hockey game you might actually get to watch it.
I switched to the Bruins, down 1 to nothing at the end of the first. At the first intermission I switched over to Law and Order, a show about a mob hit. Came the commercials, I switched back to the Bruins. At the end of the second period they were down 2 to 1. Back to Law and Order, the police continued their investigation. I was on a roll, really getting quality time on my TV.
Back to the Bruins. There's hope for them, I thought. It was early in the third period, down by only a goal. Stranger things have happened, I thought. They might stage a comeback. Then the Capitals scored. 3 to 1. Back to Law and Order. It was fairly interesting, so I stayed with it for a while. Then came another the commercial break, so I switched back to hockey. I stared in stunned surprise. At the end of the third period the score was tied at 3.
Ordinarily it's the Bruins who get caught out on the ice too long, while the other guys make their line changes and get fresh legs out there. Last night it was the Capitals who got trapped in their own end while the Bruins skated circles around them. About 2 minutes into overtime Patrice Bergeron set up Brad Stuart in mid-slot with a nice soft pass, and Stuart hammered it into the net for the game winner. And it was just when I was thinking there was no way the Bruins would win a shootout.
So the Bruins won the game, the jury on Law and Order said, "Guilty," and all the while I skillfully maintained a very high showtime to ad ratio. A clean sweep if I do say.
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