I haven't owned a black and white television in 20 years, but a lot of people in the UK still do. In fact, 30,000 of them, according to the story at BBC News.

That seems like a lot to me, but I figured I'd ask TV Squad readers if they still watch one or not. Sometimes I'll watch a color movie in black and white (by turning off the color), to see how it looks and see if it gets any better (note: does not work with Pauly Shore movies).

If I was to pick the Top 5 things I hate about television, the coverage of the NCAA Tournament this month would be near the top of the list. It interrupts regular shows, and I truly don't understand why people get so ga-ga over COLLEGE basketball, unless you went there or something.

But I do like the brackets set up, and we can use it for other things in life, including TV! Jacksonville.com has a tournment of their own going on. They're trying to pick the best sitcom character of all-time and they need your help. Go here and vote for your favorites in Week 1 (the second round is this Wednesday). Make sure you read the directions carefully.

Speaking of brackets, I picked up the new book The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. It's a clever idea: get an expert in a particular field to set up a tournament about everything in life (puncuation, sports rivalries, dogs, political issues, etc) and keep on narrowing them down til you get the champ. There's a lot of TV-related ones in the book, including game show catchphrases (by Ken Jennings), animation characters (by New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast), black and white TV shows, talk show hosts, and several more). Lists like these are argument starters for sure, and the entire outcome depends on how you start the brackets, which is rather random (unless you do something like talk show hosts, which you can at least start by nighttime, daytime, or region). Why are certain people/items placed together and not in another bracket? So it's probably not precise, but it's a ton of fun.

[Thanks to Toby for the tip.]

Various things I've been thinking about lately.

1. I don't know why I didn't notice this before, but the guy who plays Horn-Rimmed Glasses Man on Heroes, Jack Coleman, is the guy who played Steven Carrington on Dynasty in the 80s! I didn't recognize him at all. Not that I watched Dynasty. I was a Knot's Landing guy. Great hair though.