Now See Hear

Been doing a lot of indoor training these days.  I'm not quite at the "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" stage, but I'm getting close.

Here's something interesting I've noticed though.  In my garage, I put my Blackberry on the treadmill's display tray and rock Pandora, giving me sound but only the garage door to look at.  At the gym, I have the TV's to look at but, since I keep forgetting to bring my headphones, I have no sound.  As you can see, I have the basis for an interesting experiment, "Which passes the time quicker?  Sound but no visuals, or visuals but no sound?"

For me, having music but nothing to look at passes the time much faster than the muted TV screen (Quick aside, why don't gyms just keep the Closed Captioning going at all times, I mean, doesn't that make the most sense for everyone involved?).  Anyway, just looking at people on TV but not being able to follow along is really boring.  The good news is now I finallyI understand why dogs can sleep at a party.  When you have no idea what's going on, sleep is about all you can do.  But music?  Music in just about any setting, including running on a treadmill next to my car in a cold garage, can take you places. Maybe a song sparks a memory, maybe an emotion, maybe a thought, or maybe it just allows your mind to wander, in any case, time actually moves along pretty fast when I'm cranking my Bon Jovi channel*.

So I'm wondering, is this just me?  What do you think readers who I assume number not lower than one (Hi Katie!) but not greater than five?

Finally, a note to ESPN.  I've noticed on my silent stalker watching days, that you show a lot of radio shows on TV.  What gives?  Why are you heading backwards along the technological trail?  What's next, having the fuzzy black-and-white hour?  Describing the days sports highlights using shadow puppets?  Using silhouette drawings for athlete pictures?  Sure E! pulled it off with Howard Stern but that was because everyone wanted to see Porn Stars.  I'm sorry but one really cares what Mike and Mike look like.  Bottom line?  If you have to use TV time to show radio shows, maybe, just maybe, you have too many channels and not enough programming, and I say this because watching a radio show on TV with no sounds in time passage death.

*That's right, I have a Bon Jovi channel in my Pandora.  I play it loud and proud.