Do not attempt to adjust your TV screen. Your national and local news anchors and reporters are all off doing outlandish crazy things to get your attention this month.

Yes, it is time for November sweeps gain. The Nielsen rating system uses certain months to analyze who watched what station and when, so they can give the stations the report, then the stations can show the report to advertisers and brag about how many people love to watch their station, then charge the advertisers more money.

Conversely, if ratings are low, advertising revenues go into the toilet, so it behooves each broadcasting company to make sure they have a good month during November (there are other months too, like May and February, but November leads into the Christmas season, which is the super-retail season, so it tends to matter that much more.

The result is what you see right now on your TV. Matt Lauer reporting live from Greenland/North Pole, with cohorts in the Antarctic and equator, all collaborating live with Meredith Vierra in New York (Today Show, btw) to explain to us “dumb masses” why we need to live without lights and gasoline and how the earth is melting. All of this is part of NBC’s initiative to make this week or month “green”, bringing global warming awareness to all who watch TV.

I also noted that NBC is using their real name more now, “NBC-Universal”, as in , Universal Pictures the studio. Interesting they don’t bring focus on the parent company name, General Electric (GE).

I guess it would sound a bit bit odd taking energy saving tips from a company with a name that contains the word “Electric”, huh? So they go with Universal and call this a Universal initiative. Whatever. Have fun with that.

All this means is that I will have a green peacock symbol at the lower left while watching Bionic Woman and Heroes, rather than the rainbow-colored one. By the way, watch for all kinds of crazy plot twists and turns in all of your favorite shows this month. These stunts are also meant to attract more viewers to pad the numbers.

Now, as a consumer, I would prefer the TV stations step it up ALL the time, not just during Nielsen-critical months. It’s almost as if I wish I had a large-scale time-shifting TV, like a Tivo that shifted months, not just days. That way, we can go about our busy lives in November (tell me your month isn’t simply jam-packed??) then watch all of the exciting TV shows whenever we get around to it, say January or so.

True, you can already do this if you try hard enough and have a Tivo with endless amounts of hard drive storage, but c’mon…I want to know what happens to Katee Sackhoff’s bionic character as soon as possible! (Side note: Sackhoff is WAY hotter and more interesting than the actual Bionic Woman (WhatsHerName) …which is sad. Worse even, is that her younger sister, played by Lucy Hale is way cuter than her, too. But I digress…)

Another stunt to watch for is Tuesday when Dr. House ends up having to go help the CIA diagnose someone who is dying/dead from a possible bio-terrorist attack.

OK, maybe that sounds sort of cool, but seriously, that’s not your typical House episode, now is it? Just watch and you’ll see how crazy all of the writers get (urged by the networks, of course) on all of your favorite shows (assuming they all still have jobs this week…Oh, and by the way, the writers know that this is sweeps month and know that it would be a harder blow to the networks to go on strike during this critical ratings review month).

Oh, and you won’t be seeing a single rerun for the entire month, IF the strike ends like….now.

Did you see the Late Show with Conan O’Brien tonight? It was crazy! After starting the show with a bit (very funny) about the emergency exits, and after the first guest, Anderson Cooper, the actual alarm in the building went off. Right in the middle of taping. Conan wasn’t sure if the segment they were trying to tape was going to make it so he combined fine improvised comedy with obvious disgust with the way the taping was interrupted. And it didn’t stop there.

After deciding to keep the whole alarm fiasco IN the show, they moved along to the next guest, the stunning Paget Brewster. OK, so it seemed. But the actual interview was interrupted twice by this same alarm/problem. Conan was about to blow a gasket but maintained enough composure to make it through the show. Paget was very charming and a good sport through it all, but they had to cut the meat of her interview short due to the lost time from the alarms.

I didn’t realize that taped shows were under such strict time guidelines, but apparently they are. So what we have as a result is late night talk show history. I believe Conan comes on another cable channel during the day (previous day’s show) so look it up if you want to see it. Of course, someone will put it on youtube soon, and then it will probably get taken down by NBC or something. Anyway, I had to mention it. (Update: you should be able to see the show here at NBC.com as well)

And was it just me, or did Lara Logan on Jay Leno just completely mesmerize everyone with her smarts and beauty? You should look that one up too if you can. It was a very sober interview about the things she has seen in war and her life as an international journalist (currently with CBS). James Spader was amazing on the show as well.