SecretAgentMan - Part of your text contains this paragraph:

Television is the opiate of the masses, they say. Well, if you watch too much television, you can spend years getting pretty much nothing done. Goofing off at work, complaining, drinking, partying, doing things like that instead of learning what it takes to get ahead and doing something about it.

I am not disagreeing with the TV is an opiate message. However I'd like to put a spin on it. I usually don't watch commercials. I turn off the volume and wait till the show returns. One day I simply didn't do that for whatever reason and lo and behold up pops an ad that blows me away. Not because it was cute, entertaining, etc but because it contained one sentence.

Blew me away. This company married their core business w/a another core business. I loved it so much I am now trying to do the same thing locally. If the local population loves it then the national population will love it. Or at least that's my thinking.

No one else is doing it. If it works, I"ll lay out the premise and the how to. If not, I'll slink silently into the night with another failed idea hanging off my belt.

I guess what I'm saying is it depends on how, and maybe what, you watch television