...it's not 90210

I love the local news. It's my favorite guilty pleasure. It all started with the mayor of a nearby town and a dog napping story. Napping as in stealing, not a mid afternoon siesta.

Every night we would tune in to find learn the latest in the saga of Puddles the dog who the mayor had renamed Panchito. The entire defense was originally based on "that's not Puddles, his name is Panchito."

"Well, madam mayor, your 'Panchito' looks a lot like the 'Puddles' I left with you to dog sit last week."

Several felony charges later, Puddles was returned to his owner. News in this obviously sleepy corner of the world is usually slow. But I keep an eye on it for the real gems.

Several months ago, a reporter explained how DNA kits could be used to help find missing persons. She explained that if you took a saliva sample from the victim, blah, blah, blah. I was too busy laughing to hear the rest.

Excuse me, but if you can find the person to take a saliva sample, why don't you just then declare them found? Maybe I should be a detective. Or maybe a sales rep for the DNA test kits. We will guarantee that you will solve 100% of the cases where you can obtain a saliva sample from the missing person. Definitely missed a calling there.

Last night, while trying to gloss over the ever increasing homicide rate, they explained that there has been a lot of activity recently in what the neighbors say is a "nice neighborhood". They go on to interview a woman who is talking about all the boarded up crack houses and the prostitution that takes place in them. But everybody keeps to themselves, she just wishes that people would stop shooting each other. Yeah, nice neighborhood. Maybe she should work for the Chamber, she makes it sound so nice.

This will soon be but a fond memory, we're going to Directv. We bought an HDTV last year or maybe it's been two years now, but on cable we have about 4 HD channels. Not really worth having one if you can't watch a show in one. Our local channels don't broadcast in HD so we have the option of getting them from elsewhere. What they neglected to tell us though was that there was a 45 day delay in getting the HD network channels, so we have about 40 days before the awesomeness ensues, and 40 more days to watch the local news for all it's priceless stories.