Things I've learned from watching Soap Network During the Serial Bowl VVVVVV:One Tree Hill

1. There is a still a job market for makeup artists that learned their trade on the pageant circle. Surprisingly, the stars of the shows are much more stylish than the commercial ladies, which is not saying much.

2. I am in love with the guy who sings the freecreditreport.com jingle.

3. It isn't completely a lie. If you're an overweight late twenty something who's preoccupied with breaking up with her boyfriend and therefore is sitting there drunk, depressed, with ideas for homemade chandeliers going through her head....then you turn on the soaps because you can't watch Zoolander one more time, and you've already seen the Project Runway marathon the last two weeks they ran it...then they will really start to fascinate you. Even as background noise.

"I forgive you"
"Take it back."
"I forgive you little brother."
"You take that back you son of a bitch."

4. Christmas episodes can be very startling if you're not expecting them. Normally you would expect lots of overwrought drama from these shows, so the Christmas theme, like the whole Jimmy Stewart thing, it gets sprung on you all of sudden when you realize one of the characters is supposed to be dead, but you didn't know that because the last rerun episode before this showed the character very alive. Then you get to hear "Its a Wonderful Life" in the background of the hospital bed, because they at the network have foreseen this eventuality and they know you're drunk anyway, so they're willing to help you out a little.

5. I wonder what it's like to work at Soap Net, or at One Tree Hill. I wonder if all of them are sarcastic ironic recent grads with marketing degrees, or if they are old, chubby,and unhappily married like their audience. Or both. That is a very real segment of America. In other words, is it art?

6. CHRISTIAN ROCK MUSIC IS EVERYWHERE. I don't understand how or why, but I swear it is. Insidious little beasts.