I kind of landed on a show on TLC tonight about a 750 pound man and his treatment. The advertisers in the commercial break I’m watching now? An ad for What Not to Wear (a show in which catty people abuse fashion don’ts until they become fashion do’s) and pretty people eating candy bars. Why, why, why do we end up confused about body image in this country?

Update: next commercial break … Loreal ad with Andie McDowell trying to zip up a tight dress, Tommy Lee being a sexy rocker, and then an ad for chips.

I’m not saying that TV makes this stuff happen. We all hold personal responsibility for our bodies and so forth. But man, shows about body image (and body health) on commercial television can’t help but have contradictory ads given who pays for most of our TV shows. It’s just kind of who we are, but it’s pretty creepy when viewed under this particular microscope. Blech.

Governor Ahnult Schwarzenegger has a budget problem. Last week he let a bunch of people go, and this week he ordered that over 200,000 state employees be knocked down to minimum wage until a budget is approved. Here’s the problem: the payroll system where the change would have to be made is written in COBOL and is about 30 years old, and apparently last week he canned most of the remaining part-time programmers old enough to know how to modify it.

It doesn’t happen often, but I really do relish these moments when I realize that Illinois doesn’t have the only short-sighted moron of a governor in the country. Phew!