Hello, Wm.™ Steven Humphrey here, editor of the Portland Mercury. Our regular contributor Elinor Joneser is out today collecting bottles and cans in order to afford rent for her one-room hovel located somewhere near the airport, and therefore will not be able to write this week's edition of "Thursday Night Recaps for Poor People." I have offered to write it for her, in between a pedicure appointment and my golf game with the Oregonian Editorial Board.

Full disclosure: I do not watch "network" or "free" television. I subscribe to the Platinum Satellite Service, which costs $50 thousand per month, is completely commercial free, and features shows the poor will never see—such as "The George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson Show" in which the pair cleans the wealthiest Americans' toilets… nude of course. Or "Count the Money" where poor people try to count piles of the enormous wealth we have and they will never even dream of having. (Very amusing.) Or "The Hunger Games." Not the movie. The reality show.

Anyway. This was my first time of watching any of this "free" television, and I must say, in comparison? Extremely disappointing. I'm not sure why you waste your time with it. But then again I also don't understand why you wear clothes purchased at discount stores. Ah, the mysteries of life. Let's begin.

• Community — Apparently there are "higher" institutions of learning outside the Ivy League, and some of them are for poor people. Such is the setting for this situational comedy which actually seems accurate since no one in the show seems to be learning anything. One of the students becomes alarmed when a carnival comes to town, because one of the carnies has a mysterious, sexual hold upon her. (I admit in my younger years I was also similarly transfixed—by a Brazilian maid I met on a stopover while sailing around the cape. I thought I was in love with her—until my father brought me to my senses and had her murdered. I was young and stupid. I no longer believe in "love," though there is a soft spot in my heart for "murder.") Anyway, this show was confusing and stupid.

More after the break.

• 30 Rock — Sigh. Another "workplace" comedy? Where are the shows set in polo clubs? To my relief there is one Republican on 30 Rock, and enough black employees to fulfill governmental employment regulations that are important because they supply much-needed tax breaks. Apparently, these people run a TV show or something? Why aren't anyone in any of these shows doing what they're supposed to be doing? This is why you and most people you know are poor. This is why Elinor Joneser is out collecting cans and bottles. You're distracted. Do what we tell you to do, and tonight perhaps you won't be eating out of a dumpster filled with syringes and urine-soaked pants. I didn't understand a single thing that happened in this show.

• The Office— Again. CAN… YOU… PLEASE… PUT… IN… ONE… FULL… DAY… OF… WORK? Seriously, I'm beginning to think you people are pathologically incapable of labor. Let me put it in the simplest terms possible: Companies offer a service to their customers. Employees provide that service. In exchange for said service, employees earn MONEY. They then turn around and give this money back to the company for services that they already provide. And the cycle continues. WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT FOR YOU PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND? Last night's episode of The Office was occasionally amusing.

• Up All Night— I did not view this program because I was engaged in a bit of a "prank," to be perfectly honest. My cigar club cohorts (Chad, Chip, and Mitt) and I thought it would be jolly good fun to go around to some of the local can and bottle recycling machines, and replace the machine's receipts (which hobos give grocery stores to receive their recycling money) with slips of paper that read, "GET A JOB, HOBO!" Oh my god, we laughed and laughed and laughed. In fact, Mitt correctly declared it, "the jape of this or any other season!" And thusly, I did not watch Up All Night—and according to my sources in the lower classes (the concierge at the Heathman Hotel)—no one else does either.

Next week, Elinor Joneser returns to review something titled "Parks and Recreation"— the latter of which she does too much, and the former of which she will one day reside.