Watching Obama on TV just now...

... I realized how rarely I get my news this way. It's irritating -- simultaneously too fast and too slow. I vastly prefer to read the news, and by that I mean read the news on the internet.

For many years, I got the news from the paper New York Times, which I absolutely loved picking up from the front walk every morning and paging through. Even once I started blogging, and had my computer on first thing in the morning, I would get my news by turning the familiar, substantial big pages. But over time, my habits of clicking around and through places on line became so ingrained that it felt like a chore to go through the newspaper the way I'd used to. I no longer had the feeling that the news existed in the order and proportion determined by the paper's editors, and after throwing too many newspapers in the recycling bin unread, I canceled my subscription. I can't see myself ever going back.

But what about TV? Isn't it pleasant to take a break from reading and watch the talking heads? No, I don't find it pleasant at all, as that taste of "Fox and Friends" just now made obvious. Too much inane blabbering, filling the time, maintaining a flow, desperate to keep us from switching channels, not to mention the commercial breaks (with teasers -- wait 'til you hear what.. -- about stories that I've always already read on the internet). If I ever watched the network evening news shows, it was more than 20 years ago. For a while -- during the Clinton Era scandals -- I obsessively watched the cable news analysis shows, and that habit persisted for a while. But it's utterly gone now.

I watch "Meet the Press." That's it. Not "Fox News Sunday," not "60 Minutes," not Bill O'Reilly or Chris Matthews. I watch "The Daily Show," if that counts. And I probably still believe that election returns are something you watch on TV. You need to see those maps changing colors and numbers rolling up and Wolf Blitzer strolling around on a big glitzy set. That's the event, right? Or maybe that will be gone too. I was just reading this guide to watching the returns:

Aim to have the popcorn popped and to be on the couch by 7 p.m. Eastern time. That’s assuming you have a day job and haven’t been glued to the television all day.

Ugh! What a terrible way to live. If you don't have a day job, go out and play... or hang out on the internet.

The networks are not supposed to call a state until all the polls in that state have closed. But there will be lots of raw data online, so you can go on the Web, check the returns and try calling the state yourself.

And, so, why are we watching TV?

The suspense starts in Indiana. Most polls close at 6 p.m. and others at 7....

Also at 7 p.m., polls close in Virginia and Georgia, and polls close in most of Florida and New Hampshire....

At 7:30, polls close in Ohio and North Carolina.

Won't a quick check of the internet at 7 ET and 7:30 answer all our questions pretty well? Or, if we want the graphics -- and I do -- won't 5 minutes of CNN at those 2 times give us everything we want?

At 8, Pennsylvania and Missouri finish voting.

Maybe these states won't be anti-climactic. If not, I'll be staring at the pretty lights and colors on TV like everyone else. Maybe. Or will I be on line, looking for text to blog and interacting with the commenters right here... as I do every day? All the flashiness and noise of TV only seems to disguise how inert the experience of watching it really is.