this season's guilty pleasure

As the regular crowd gathers every Tuesday night in the Old City for the Einstein Simplified show, parking spaces can be at a premium, especially on nights when there's a show at Blue Cats. You probably know that I've been a member of the comedy improv group since 2002. Tonight, for the second week in a row, my wife and I were thrilled to find some TVP outside Patrick Sullivan's. TVP, or TV parking, is a term my friend Rodney Lee Conover would use to describe a parking space as close to your destination as the spaces where characters on television regularly park. Of course it would slow down the show if the characters had to waste time walking back to their car. There's a famous "Seinfeld" episode which is the exception to prove that rule.

I noticed a TVP apologist in prime time last week. The October 29th episode of "Journeyman" actually included some dialogue to explain away the too-good-to-be-true parking. As brothers Dan and Jack left a building, Dan asks Jack, "You parked in a bus stop?" Jack, a cop, replies, "Who's going to give me a ticket?" I guess the writers felt the need to include a nanosecond of realism in a show about time travel.