Chronic bronchitis sucks and so does the SciFi channel

Three times a year or so, I get asthmatic bronchitis and am laid up for a good week. I usually have to go to work at least part of the time, so I am consoled by the possibility that I might make other people sick. Whatever trifling cold or allergy attack I get moves to my lungs and becomes an infection calling for antibiotics and rest. I took off Friday and did nothing all weekend except stay in bed with the SciFi channel on in the background. Big mistake. It seems that the SciFi channel has some kind of schlock giant insect/mutant monster/other unusually large or aggressive varmint movie factory and/or owns the rights to the most godawful of the genre.

In and out of consciousness, I alternated between my own nightmare world of giant vermin attacking my house and the SciFi movie of the moment. One involved harry Hamlin and mutant rattlesnakes threatening a housing development. The shortsighted and greedy developers would not even warn the public, let alone shut down the project in time for a massive government study and eradication project. Bought off mayor wouldn't back up the concerned fire chief. I fell asleep, but I assume that the developer and mayor got their comeuppance by snake. Jaws and Night of the Lepus were the ultimate of the genre, and every other movie is just a pale imitation of one of these classics. Piranha was pretty good, too.

I prefer the variation on the theme where it is the government itself that unleashed whatever horror is at work because of some weapons program or mind control scheme. Them comes to mind as the paradigm. And most of the Godzilla movies are of this ilk. I read somewhere that Godzilla is America. Big, hulking monster destroys cities but ultimately befriends Japan and only destroys cities out of benevolent motives. Later, monster buys lots of consumer goods on credit and destroys cities only during shopping sprees.

Anyway, my weekend of "horror" has addled my brain. To SciFi, I say, I need more Battlestar Galactica and other quality SciFi fare. Pick up some series that didn't make it on the networks, like Enterprise or Firefly. Play some reruns of old science fiction programming like Red Dwarf or Dr Who or Babylon 5, for God's sake, but don't make any more giant vermin pictures. Do we really need Mansquito, for crying out loud?

The natural disaster flicks also sucked. As much as I enjoyed seeing Manhattan reduced to rubble in Aftershock, I couldn't help but compare this to the original Earthquake with Charlton Heston and Victoria Principal. A little more destruction and a lot less Sharon Lawrence agonizing over her mothering skills next time, please. And the one about the Superstorm really hugged the root. You didn't even have any decent special effects so it seemed just like a regular hurricane. And if the government knows how to stop hurricanes, that's great, not sinister, so the whole evil military story line made no sense at all.

And to think I asked my wife to spring for the more expensive cable package just to get access to this crap. If only I could have found the remote.