Mankind, I mean men, are in danger of losing all that's good, and holy to them. The culprit isn't the other sex, but the chinless wonders of the new economy, and their dreams of interactive television.

Women need not read further. No offense, but it's a guy thing.

One of the joys of male friendship is the ability to sit on opposite sides of the couch, and flip through the odd forty eight channels of television with a drink in one hand, and some snacks lying around, sort of random, but really in a defining pattern, an abstract expression of the bond between men, and men and Doritos . Occasionally, you might even say something to each other like, "Man, I hate Lifetime ." Or, sometimes you might even say, "Man, who watches PBS anyway?" There's a little bit of interaction, a little bit of conversation, and the odd bit of emotion, like when you're watching Sammo do a spinning kick and you realize that chubby guys can kick ass, too. It makes you a little teary, but you don't cry. "Man, I hate Lifetime."

All the male camaraderie in the world doesn't mount to a hill of a beans if the insidious threat of interactive television goes unchecked. Unfortunately, interactive television can mean so much, and so little all at the same time. In its basic form, the EPG is the mainstay of interactive television system. At least, I have heard people talk about EPGs as if the mere presence of some sort of monster channel surfing interface will make everyone interact with their televisions.

No one interacts with the their televisions! I find myself saying that a lot, but then, I am prone to repetition, repeating myself, over and over again.....

Beyond EPG, there's the promise of TiVO and Replay . Essentially, these two companies provide technologies, boxes, whatever, that allow you to simultaneously play and record television information, as well as a host of other gimmicky devices that are based on taking a stream of television programming and organizing it on a hard disk. So, the most engaging demonstrations of TiVO and Replay television viewing involve someone watching a program, a very important live program such as a Super Bowl Broadcast (or the Champion League Cup Final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich for the more worldly). Suddenly there is a knock on the door, or your microwave popcorn is ready, "Ding!" What to do? Can't leave in the middle of a live broadcast. It's an unwritten law of live sports events on television. You just pause the moment, and everything gets recorded on a hard disk in compressed MPEG2, and when you come back you can watch the event from where you left off, fast forward through the ads, and catch up with the live broadcast later. Something like that. Sure, it beats video tape, and I am sure that in the future almost any high-end set will probably have some sort of hard disk and storage mechanism, but I'd swap it all for the return of Abe Vigoda to prime time television.