Oh, The Things I Know

People don't just absorb radiation from television. They also glean valuable information from the ol' plug-in parent. Just one spin through my 82 channels gives a little hint of the type of trivia currently taking up valuable cranial real estate. I just can't understand why I've retained this knowledge. Not only can I identify the theme song of "Night Rider" within two notes and speak assuredly on the three popular medications for erectile dysfunction, but I know the names of every character on "Murphy Brown" (Jim Dial, Murphy Brown, Frank Fontana, Corky Sherwood-Forest, Miles Silverberg). It would seem that other vital information passed down through the ages would take precedence, but no: I can point out Nicole Ritchie in a crowd, but not which berries are the poison berries.