Cavemen. No, seriously.

We have a cafeteria here in the hotel. It has a TV, and usually at lunch time it's playing CNN. For the last two weeks, it's been playing Maury Povich. I would change it, but the glazed expressions of the hotel employees at they stare at the screen trembling with excitement to find out the paternity results makes me think that snapping them out of their semi-comatose state wouldn't be safe.

So, I sit and try to read my history book while the trash on the TV screech and holler and point accusing fingers at each other. For two weeks. I can actually hear my brain cells dying. They make little popping sounds, something between Rice Krispies and bubble wrap.

I mention Maury Povich because I think those missing brain cells are what made me decide to watch "Cavemen" on ABC. You know, the guys from the Geico commercials. The half-hour insurance show.

I thought I should watch it basically so I could bitch about how awful it is. It's fun to bitch about things when you're bogged down with work and school and life and the only time you get to vent is on your stupid blog that nobody reads.

I'm shocked and ashamed to say that the first episode was actually pretty funny. There was no talk of insurance. There was talk of cars, but only because one guy, Nick, was leaving the gym and one of the other guys needed a ride. The plot was that Nick was dating a homosapien, which is apparently huge in a bad way, and there was a lesser plot about one of the other guys (who had just moved to town) who wouldn't get off the phone with is ex-girlfriend.

Doesn't sound like much, but the one-liners and wit here well played and there are tiny injustices toward the cave men that echo injustices toward certain races and cultures in the world today. The landlady yells at Nick because his roommates are making "that primal grunting noise." She keeps calling him Joel, he keeps insisting he's Nick. She says, "Oh, hahahaha. Really? You guys should think about wearing a colored ribbon in your hair or something."

Doesn't sound funny, but it's delivered flawlessly and actually got a smirk out of me.

Pilot episodes don't always account for what a show will be (see "What About Joan"), but this one was pretty decent. There's nothing else on at 7:00 on Tuesdays, so unless you plan to *gasp* read a book on Tuesday nights or something, this would be a safe bet.