Surfing

I started watching the Red Sox...but Colorado's coming back, and I don't need the stress. So I've flipped to A&E and my lone TV addiction, The First 48. It's not that I'm a big fan of blood and guts; it's that I love stories about figuring out puzzles. One of my favorite movies is The Hunt for the Red October, which is partly about Jack Ryan's efforts to figure out what's going on.

The show follows homicide detectives in various cities--Miami, Memphis, Dallas, Detroit and Cincinnati--as they attempt to solve murders. (The title refers to the fact that if the detectives fail to get a solid lead in the first 48 hours after the crime, their chance of solving the crime is cut in half.) The fact that a good 1/3 of the episodes I've watched take place in Miami--and which show the real Miami CSI make it impossible for me to watch CSI: Miami. The irony is that reruns of CSI: Miami air on A&E right before the (relatively) real deal.

In a lot of ways, The First 48 is the anti-CSI; as far as I can tell, it gives some sense of the reality of police work. Among other things is it gives some sense of the grind of police work, as you chase down often dead-end leads, and it shows that, more often than not, DNA is irrelevant. And even when it is relevant, it takes a long, long time for comparison. There is no database that will give you a fingerprint match--the database will give potential matches, but the technician needs to examine the potential matches to make a firm determination.

I'll be checking back to see how the score of the game goes...but I'm not staying up. I'll find out what happens when I wake up in the morning.