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Working all night long, every weeknight, has sharply decreased the time that I have available to me for watching television. Since beginning my exploration of the internet, my viewing time as even further diminished. I now spend far more time reading than channel-surfing.

I've become much more selective with respect to what I will watch. My normal viewing consists mostly of news and Star Trek. (all four series). The rest is just background noise; with a few exceptions. "Gilligan's Island," for instance, makes a great bedtime story.

It seemed oddly coincidental to me at first that there could possibly be two shows on at the same time that I would wish to record -- and only one VCR!

But thanks to the "rating war" though, It is likely to be more probable than not. Last Thursday night for me pitted the conclusion of Stephen King's "The Shining" on ABC against ER on NBC while I was downtown feeding a tape drive.

"The Shining," a three-part mini-series, started last Sunday and the final segment aired Thursday. I was disappointed by the 1980 movie starring Jack Nicholson and apparently so was Stephen King. This was a must see. Julie and I watched the first part on Sunday, and she recorded the next two installments.

In a previous column, I wrote of "list servs," and that I had narrowed my choices to one list. That list, called RPLIST, is for the discussion of Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). On Tuesday, I received in my mailbox, from a member of that list, an announcement that RP was to be a topic on the NBC evening drama, "ER" ... Thursday night.

Julie's sister Jill agreed to record "ER" for us, and so there was no problem getting both shows recorded.

"ER," was for the most part, a disappointment.

Maybe I should have held off reading email from the RPLIST concerning the show until after watching the tape. I almost didn't watch it at all after reading several reports of the inaccurate, misleading portrayal of the disorder. But, there were two or three list-members who defended the producers of the show and the balancing effect of differing opinions brought about a very interesting discussion. By the time I watched it, I already knew of several flaws to watch for which made it difficult to render an objective opinion.

While there were some problems with the depiction of the disorder which I and the others on the list know so well, I thought that it was amazing that an emergency-room physician would even make the diagnosis at all; let alone offer advice. A trauma center is not the proper place for it.

In my opinion though; most misleading of all and to be expected from an emergency-room doctor wishing to ease the anxieties of their patient -- in this case the patient's parents -- is that they implied that there were treatments. When in fact there is only one treatment which has been proven scientifically to slow the progress of retinal deterioration, and even that I believe to be tentative. There is no cure; no happy ending ... yet.

But even with inadequate research behind it, the mere mention of Retinitis Pigmentosa helps to raise public awareness . In the future perhaps I will need only mention that I have RP and will not always need to explain further.

With all of the email that I have read about the treatment of RP by the producers of "ER," both pro and con, one common thread echoed throughout: Frustration over being misunderstood.

Now "The Shining" on the other hand, was excellent. I enjoyed watching this mini-series far more-so than the movie. If I could get it in an e-text format, I'd read the book again as well. I read it in the late 1970's, and it was the first of several Stephen King books that I have had the pleasure of reading.