A couple of things are rolling around the inner-tubes today which get regularly discussed here and I've been peppered with requests for my take on the Globe and Mail column predicting a Stephen Harper sneak attack on the CRTC as well as predictions that some former CTV sports exec being hired by Rogers implies an impending takeover of the network.

Okay, for starters, it's August. Is everybody familiar with the "dog days of summer" and "slow news day" concepts?

When people are wilting from the heat, only a big news story or wild speculation gets most of them to pay attention. And I think both of these items fall into the latter category.

At least I sure hope they do. Traffic from creative types on Facebook and Twitter all day was very supportive of Konrad von Finckenstein and his commissioners, indicating they've finally seen the light as far as our cause is concerned and we don't need to go back to square one with somebody new.

I hope that's true, although I've yet to see any tangible evidence. And revealing that a regulator shares the artists' point of view in this country might bring about an early demise quicker than any politician with an itchy hatchet hand.

However, three years of turmoil in the industry (all under KvF's watch) might be all any of us should be required to tolerate. And an explusion would at least give one member of the gang a chance to catch up on his reading.

As far as Rogers buying CTV. That doesn't make much sense given the convergence between television, internet and mobile that is ramping up.

Does Bell really want to lose their television presence? What will Rogers have to divest in order to be allowed to take possession? Figuring all that out could take another couple of years of CRTC hearings plus whatever spending restrictions become self imposed to pay for the financing.

We could be looking at another lost decade of production.

Oh God, maybe that's why they're doing it….

Okay, take a deep breath and step into the light. There really is a future coming that's better than what we have now.

Every time I write about some out of the box idea somebody is pursuing to counter some world problem the cheerleaders of doom are championing, I get slammed by people saying, "It'll never work".

Well, here's one that is. Ripped from the pages of today's NY Times and just in time to cushion the blow of those increased electrical bills sliding through the mail slot. Affordable solar power so simple and cheap it's literally plug and play.

While the shadows eternally lengthen around our industry, this might be proof that we need to detach from accepted or promoted methods and bask in the sunshine of a whole new way of doing things.

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I had lunch with a couple of WW2 fighter pilots today at a BBQ marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. One was a redneck from the prairies. The other had come out of the backwoods of Quebec.

Both sought to serve their country and wanted to learn how to fly. And they both had struggled. The redneck because he'd only stayed in school to Grade Four and the lumberjack because he couldn't speak English.

But they both worked hard and also tried to get past the "Two Solitudes" that divided the country back then, where men in the mess hall still arranged themselves with English Canadians on one side and the French on the other.

This afternoon they still chuckled over how they finally met. As the Quebec pilot described the encounter…

"My friend Jacques and I were from the same little town. We'd never been around so many people. And because our English was not good, we didn't want to embarrass ourselves or say something the English would make fun of. But our Sergeant said we had to talk to them, so we practiced in the barracks every night and one day decided to try speaking to somebody at breakfast.

We flipped a coin and I lost, so I had to go first. I picked out this guy at the next table who looked kind of friendly. But I didn't know what to say. Jacques said, 'Ask him where he's from'. So I leaned over and said, 'Hey, where are you from?'

And he says, "Saskatoon, Saskatchewan" and I turn back to Jacques, who says, 'What did he say?'.

And I said, 'I don't know. I don't think he speaks English either.'…"

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Much as I don't want to damage the Sponsor/Creative co-dependent relationship, I'm one of those people who DVR's a show and skips past all the commercials.

If I'm watching live sports, I use those ad breaks to go the bathroom, make some popcorn or get another beer -- whether or not its the same brand that's bringing me the game, I haven't a clue.

The advent of the VHS tape was, for me, right up there with Salk Vaccine and putting a man on the moon. It meant I never again had to endure a long commercial break just when we were getting to the good part.

I know that TV commercials are economically important to my industry, often extremely creative and can tell me a lot of things I should know. If they pop up after the final credits or before the story kicks in, I'll watch 'em.  But the minute they intrude on what I really want to spend my leisure time doing, I tune out.

I have a theory that if the experience of watching a TV series on its initial broadcast was identical to a commercial free DVR viewing, the number of people getting episodes from bit torrent streams would plummet.

This is actually a theory I've had since I was 18 years old. During my 18th summer, I visited England for the first time, discovering there were no commercials on television but they had them at the movies.

What I noticed most was that if you were watching a TV series over there, you engaged a little more because nothing was distracting you from the experience. "Kicking you out of the story" as I came to call it.

You simply weren't being reminded every 8-10 minutes that you were sitting at home staring at a box. Nor were you making mental notes to put "this" on your grocery list or stop doing "that" in polite company.

And while the novelty of watching commercials before a movie quickly wore off, what didn't was how hard the advertisers worked to compete with what they were all aware would follow. Their message had to stick with you past the James Bond car chases or interludes with Catherine Deneuve. So they pulled out all the stops and really went for it.

They also weren't locked into a standard 15 or 30 or 60 second slot. Some of them ran 3 or 4 minutes. Some flashed past in 6-8 seconds. There wasn't a clearly defined and unalterable period of time they had to fill.

I seem to recall the same dynamics being at play when commercials first arrived in movie theatres here. Now they're the same ones you've already seen a dozen times on TV, five dozen if you've been watching a CFL football game on TSN.

Do Canadian sports networks have a rule that you have to run the same three commercials in every break?

As a result, commercials in movie theatres have become as intrusive and annoying as they always were on television. Maybe the repetition does register with consumers on some level, but I can't be convinced its in a good way.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see if an advertiser could hold your attention and really sell his product in a 10 or 12 minute slot off the top of a show? Do you think they could keep you interested enough that you wouldn't spin the dial to see who was on Larry King or what Snooki was wearing?

Wait. Somebody has already done it.

What follows is a nine minute commercial from Germany. Unless you can read German, I defy you to tell me what its selling. I had to watch it twice before I made the connection. But I know that the next time I'm in Dusseldorf and need stuff like this, they're the guys I'm going to see first.

And isn't that the kind of viewer reaction every descendent of Don Draper wants for their clients?

Stop interrupting my story to tell me yours. You're putting up the money, you go first. Or last. Whatever suits you. And take as long as or be as brief as you want. I'm convinced that if we weren't stepping all over each other we'd both have happier and more receptive customers.

Think about it. And following this important message -- Enjoy your Sunday.

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