The Commercial Channel

Wife watches QVC. I refer to it as "The Commercial Channel", and avoid it like the plague I think it is. Well, sort of.

It is rare that I'll sit and watch QVC. One thing does fascinate me about it, thought, and that's watching the real-time "items sold" ticker at the bottom of the screen. It's just amazing how many of some of these things they'll sell in a day (or even just in a show). It's a hoot thinking of the QVC warehouse (only a few miles from here, actually) holding tens of thousands of one of these things, all being loaded onto (one would imagine) gobs of trucks and being sent out to the huddled masses, remotes in hand.

I do have to chime in here that I'm not implying that the things they sell are junk. I do pretty much refuse to buy stuff from TV ads (think "Ginsu Steak Knives"), but I will readily admit that the things that Wife has bought from QVC have been good quality items, many of which we regularly use. Our comforter, feather bed, George-Foreman-alike grill, pressure cooker, etc., all came from QVC, and are all good things.

And one more thing: QVC takes live callers on their shows. Some of these people sound like they know the hosts and speak to them daily. That scares me. I catch Wife watching once or twice a week, and buying something maybe 4-5 times a year, (or more often than that when the scrapbooking shows come on), but a QVC addict? Yikes.

But on to my point. I broke down and actually bought my first thing ever from QVC. (First thing ever off a TV ad, too.) It's one of those joystick-based video games, with 6 Namco games, including two of my all-time high-school favorites, Bosconian and Xevious. I let the family give it to me for Christmas, which involved a few days of waiting, but hey, 'tis the season, right? Anyway, I'm having fun.