They can't cancel us. We're Public Access.

St. Paddy's Day at the club was lame, although the old ladies (one of my key demographics) loved my scally cap. There was no way I was actually going to don one of those stupid bright green plastic derbies that fake Irish people wear on St. Paddy's. I'm authentic, you bleedin' tossers!

Instead of going out to party after work, I got myself a pizza and turned on the local public access cable channel. Pathetic, you say? A little, but there's something kind of fascinating and train-wreckish about it. There are some innocuous shows where my neighbors talk about cat grooming, and another one where incredibly old people talk about how much the town has changed since 1872 and how the giant dome that topped the Jordan Marsh at Shoppers' World was one of the great architectural wonders of its time. It's gone now, replaced by an Olive Garden. Who needs a dome when you can have neverending breadsticks?

Sandwiched between shows like this are a couple of interesting programs. One is a broadcasting of video production projects from my high school. There was no honest-to-Allah video production class when I was there a mere nine years ago. These kids are so damn lucky. They have real equipment and giant plasma screens for their editing! Most of their projects are music videos. I'm actually kind of impressed that most of them pick halfway decent music. I was shocked that a kid born in 1990 would be compelled to make a video for Bohemian Rhapsody rather than something by Fall Out Boy or some other crappy current band. After watching a few of these videos, certain motifs began to emerge:

1) A good 75% of these videos feature the hero of the piece being awakened from a blissful sleep by an alarm clock

2) Teenagers spend a lot of time running down hallways (these are the AV geeks, so there's no athleticism to their running)

3) Teen girls (especially the AV geek ones) feel a lot of pressure to be pretty, when sadly, they're not

4) Heart wipes and pixelated dissolves are the editorial transitions of choice for the iPod Generation

5) Skater kids think anything they do that is captured on video is hilarious, particluarly when they're not wearing shirts

In addition to the high school video stuff, there is a whole series featuring this guy in my town who is determined to rid Framingham of those awful illegal immigrants (this isn't an actual picture of him, but you get the idea). Over the last couple of decades, thousands of Brazilians have moved to my town. I'm sure that some are illegal, and some are not. Naturally, this scares the shit out of old white people who have nothing else to do but complain. Framingham is actually nicer than it was 10 or 15 years ago, so I don't really see the problem. If your beloved New England hometown is going to be "overrun" by illegal immigrants, you could do a lot worse than the good folks from Brazil. Brazilian food is awesome, the chicks are hot, they know how to party, and our soccer team will be kicking some major ass. But anyway, this dude with his lame ass show has made it his mission in life to keep these people out of his town. He's so crazy, he actually took a video crew and some fat dude with a rifle to the Mexican border in Arizona to show how serious he is. I have no idea how two pasty-ass middle-aged dudes with guns in the Arizona desert are supposed to keep us Framinghamians (some 3,000 miles away) safe from illegal Brazilians, but whatever. They get an "A" for effort, and a big fat "F" for geography.