Damn you, DIY Network!

And Food TV, while we're at it.

I'm at the point in my life where, while I'm not exactly raking it in, I'm doing well enough to get digital cable TV. And among the 3000 channels that are available, Food TV and DIY Network are among the most sinister. They ought to make a special V-chip just for them.

If you're not familiar with these, I don't blame you. Approximately 2900 of the aforementioned 3000 channels are quality pay-per-view porn channels. Not that I would know. But these two in particular are evil in that they give any ordinary, everyday shlub with a modest disposable income a false sense of capability and know-how and the belief that a) hey - I can cook like that, despite the fact that I spent 14 fewer years studying at Le Cordon Bleu than the smarmy dude running all over the set yelling BAM, not realizing that his audience is cheering for the garlic, not him (although I suspect that if he were passed through an appropriately sized press they would go just as wild, having kicked it up yet another notch) and b) I can redo my living room in weekend for under $1000 and give it a trendy designer look.

Well, $169 and one day into it - the living room debacle - there's Ralph Lauren Chamois-colored paint (that's the color, the folks down at the wherehouse store kindly mixed it in some Behr quick-dry flat latex) all over my ceilings and carpets. Oh, yes, some happened to have made it onto the walls. The $1.57 dropcloths are still relatively clean though. I guess the reason they get $1000 budget on those weekend-makeover shows is to replace the carpeting, get new clothes, and get an industrial shampoo for their hair after the things start going badly.

The thing they don't show on these shows is that the production crew is comprised of a team of licensed-contractor set designers to whom building an entire house during their union-mandated cigarette break is child's play.

Oh well. I learned which end of the paint brush to hold after a couple of walls, so I'm well on my way up he learning curve, like that poor tugboat on the cover of that George Clooney movie I never rented. Perhaps it will be done by week's end, when the house will be full of partying women and babes -- don't get to excited, it's just a baby shower. I should have used oil-based paint with the fumes that kill bugs, that would keep the party short. At least I have a hard stop on my adventures in DIY ineptitude.

Maybe instead I ought to move forward with the painted carpet look, and send some naked photos of myself on it to Paige Davis. Nah, she probably gets about 250 of those everyday.

Never mind. I'm hungry. It's time to cook something.