Tonight, after a wonderful evening spent at the house dining and coversing with my friends -- a young married couple with their two lovely kids -- I wandered downstairs to do what I've grown accustomed to doing on a Wednesday evening: turning on the TV to watch The West Wing and Law and Order. I usually pay close attention to the former but have the latter act as background noise while I answer email or surf the Web.

Unfortunately -- or fortunately -- the reception tonight was so terrible that Channel 11 was just a noisy mess. I turned off the TV, cursed the cabling in the house, and found my way to my computer in the quiet of my room. Ah -- this is so much more conducive to concentration, peace, and productive reflection.

So why void does the TV fill -- or seems to fill -- that gets me to turn it on in the first place?