Overheard on the TV...

You hear some of the strangest things on television.

Well, I don't know for sure about you. I certainly hear some odd statements on TV sometimes. Especially on the morning shows and on the cable news channels. And I don't even watch FOX Noise.

I tend to keep cable news channels on when I'm working in the mornings, since it is a good way to make sure I hear about breaking news (and, oh, Lord how I hate that phrase, especially after they still classify the news as "breaking" several hours after its first announcement...see today's story about A-Rod's use of performance-enhancing substances as a great example of this) that relates to my work so that I can incorporate it into my work. Most times, thought, the TV is just noise in the background.

But, every once in awhile I'll hear something that catches my ear and makes me sit up and say, "WTF?"

Earlier this morning, for example, I was listening to MSNBC. They were talking about the A-Rod thing and someone being interviewed asked anchor newsreader Contessa Brewer if she is a Yankees fan. Her reply was, "You have to be, if you live in New York City."

Huh? There's a law? I wonder how many people in NYC haven't gotten that memo?

As stupid as that statement was, I heard an even sillier one a couple of weeks ago. I wrote down the quote, it was so amazingly odd, but I didn't note where I heard it. I think it was on the Today show, but I'm not sure. Wherever it was, it was during a dieting segment and was from a person-on-the-street interview.

A woman said, in response to a question that I didn't hear, "As a woman, you always try to watch what you eat."

I wasn't aware that there was some genetic imperative that makes all woman obsessed with every morsel of food that enters our mouths. I know that the diet industry does its best to convince us of that, and they certainly seem to have reached success in the case if that woman. But, sheesh, just because I have two X chromosomes, does that mean that I am supposed to be obsessed with food?

Ah, well. It is a media-driven culture we have here, and conformity has always meant a lot to the American people. But still...

Does that Yankees' comment mean that I have to be a fan of the teams at the university across the street from where I live simply because I live here?

And, probably more important, will there be a quiz on win-loss records?