One of my life’s biggest disappointments was not being used in an infomercial. Yes, I was an honest and willing participant - speaking about a product that “changed my life.” Just the chance of catching myself on late night TV or radio would have been nifty. Infomercials are still happening every day, with cheesy hosts and semi-random celebrity appearances. The last infomercial I saw was a marketing piece on some amazing new kitchen gadget. “As Seen on TV!” This thing sliced and diced, but it couldn’t cut a tin can (so I had to pass on the amazing, one-time special offer). Commercials annoy us when they get in the way of what we want to watch, but what if we actually want to watch an hour-long commercial; let’s find out how much better our life would be with Product X. What else but “Paid Programming” can keep you entertained in the wee hours of the morning? Yeah, you can make fun of guys in sweaters and pants that never crease, but if I had a dream job, I suppose that would be it. Since I get excited over the stupidest things anyway, why not make a living from getting excited over the much more stupid things? Then again, perhaps I’ll receive an inheritance from some unknown relative and make an infomercial on my own. I can see my idea now: Lockergnome Late Night! “In just fiiiiiive daaaays, you can have the world’s most wonderful PC sitting on your desktop! I’ll transform your entire computer into a mega-machine.” Eh, it could happen.

The airtime doesn’t really matter, ’cause you could set your recorder to capture it when you’re asleep. In fact, I’m surprised that nobody has bothered to port the idea of the infomercial to the Web? Marketers have a near-unlimited amount of bandwidth, and I’m tired of seeing the same sites over and over again. Yeah, it’s paid programming, but… are these products and services not benefiting people? In all honesty, how many things have you ever purchased from infomercials? Even if you didn’t call the operators standing by, did you see the sucker sitting on a shelf in some store and not think twice about getting it? C’mon, we’re all friends here - infomercial maniacs. Not addicts, per se - but curious folks who love to see what’s new and better than what we’ve already not got. Without the infomercial, I might never have known the power of a chamois. Without the pioneering spirit of the video-based entrepreneur, my television would be filled with nothing but color bars at 3AM. We watch ‘em, knowing they’re super-cheesy - but we watch ‘em, nonetheless, because the producers are THAT good. Are you tired of watching ninety-second commercials during your downtime? Is your wallet ready to explode? Then you need infomercials! See, there - I’m real good at doing this stuff. Now all I have to do is figure out what to sell, and I’ll be set.