Even when I was nine years old, I preferred sitting on a river bank with a wet bottom drowning worms (I was attempting to catch trout). I would do anything - anything at all to get out of the house when Crossroads was on. It really was beastly and I was shocked even then that so many people had so little going on in their own lives that they found it interesting. The disgusting "reality" TV shows, the "look at me cult" and the exaltation of mediocrity in general makes the off switch the most attractive part of a television for most of the time!