Outside the Lines

I’m not trying to hate, but Outside the Lines might be the shittiest program in the history of television. No, really ESPN, your decision that there wasn’t enough off-the-field bullshit that you already put into your programming was spot-on. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s turning on a network claiming to be all-sports and actually seeing a game on.

Oh, man. All I can think about as I write this is how much I hate watching sports. That’s why I watch ESPN in the first place, right? Because I want to know the latest updates from Capitol Hill! I need to know what a high school in Bumfuck, New Mexico, is doing about the recent influx of boys trying out for field hockey. I want to see that so much more than more highlights of LeBron going off for 60 last night! Thank God you’re here for me, OTL, or I’d have no idea that the Vancouver Canucks have had the same equipment manager for the past 52 years! God, my dick is hard just thinking of how much I’m learning about the soccer goals they’re making out of used bamboo sticks in rural China!!! How did I ever live without this knowledge!!

No, but seriously. I’m so glad you’re leading the charge to make ESPN the next MTV. There’s nothing I hate more than turning on ESPN and actually seeing a competition of some kind. Uggh, right!? Sports just gross me out. I can’t stand them! That’s why I turn it to ESPN in the first place. That makes sense, right? I mean, I wish there were literally hundreds of other channels that I could turn to if I wanted to watch the bullshit you put on your show, but there just aren’t, so thank god you…wait a second! There are! There are entire channels that just talk about news! There are even channels now that talk about courts!! Lawyers and judges – all day!!! This is crazy! I totally forgot, but if I want to watch shit other than sports, I actually have that option!!! Wow, I’m using so many exclamation points!!! You know what’s not exciting at all though!!??!!

Outside the Lines. There. The mere mention of that show calms me down. In fact, I think I might be clinically depressed now. I’m surprised I’m able to keep typing, because I’m bordering on catatonic. Outside the Lines. Wow, my pulse is down to 30 beats per minute.

Outside the Lines. Wait, am I still alive? Or have I entered some sort of “6th Sense” type of existence, where I’m actually dead but can’t tell? I think hearing the name of that show three times in a minute may have literally bored my heart still. I’m not sure. Oh man, I hope I’m dead. Then I can haunt the bathroom of the visiting clubhouse of some old minor league ballpark in Whogivesashit, Missouri, and they can do a two-hour special on me. Hmmm…if only there was a show that was willing to waste so much time on something so pointless. Man I wish a show like that existed. Dang!

Wait a second! I think I just might know a show that could….what’s that, ESPN? It can’t? It’s already booked til the end of time with other shittier, more meaningless stories? What about next Thursday? Really? Are people that interested in the chair-volleyball program they started for seniors down at the local Y? Oh, okay. I’m sorry.

You’re right, ESPN. You know best. I guess people are technically less likely to change the channel if they’re asleep. Good point. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go – Project Runway’s on, and unlike people that watch your network, I like watching a heated competition. I’m not hating on Outside the Lines, I’m just saying.




NHJB