A couch potato's couch trip. (Remote Patrol).

Thanks for seeing me; I know your schedule is busy with other patients, Dr. Melfi.

What line of work am I in? No, not waste management. Not literally. I watch sports on TV, although in August it gets refuse-like. All-the-way-to-Labor-Day WNBA playoffs on four channels, for instance. That's part of the reason they've sent me to you. I've developed, um, issues.

Like, I'm looking at the made-for-prime-time Battle at Bighorn. Tiger Woods mowing down Sergio Garcia, Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino--the gallery glitterati include Al Michaels and Melissa Stark--and it hits me: I don't give a hoot. I can't tell anyone (especially not my editor) about these feelings, let alone explain 'em. But the next day, Nielsen said ABC's rating fell 16 percent from last year, and I have an epiphany: Mainly, I'm not nuts. The game and the messianic man simply have contracted overexposureitis, like Regis and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Who wants to watch golf Monday after five tournaments on the tube Sunday? My final answer: Tiger was grandslammed down our throats all summer; I just coughed him up.

And something else ... All the NFL studio shows are getting makeovers--a three-man desk and rotating analysts for Fox NFL Sunday;, new casts at CBS and HBO; Fox Sports Net is moving NFL This Morning to Saturday night and adding a live band. And ESPN is hiring Bill Parcells. That should make me happy; the Tuna tells it straight because he's a made man, and he's got stugots. ...