Like everyone else, I sat transfixed in front of the TV yesterday, and every time I heard President Obama’s ubiquitous campaign slogan — “Yes We Can!” — I thought of the can-do father of that phrase, Bob the Builder, and how he too would make a fine President, if only he weren’t British.

I sit transfixed in front of the TV quite a lot. While trying and failing to turn away from VH1 the other night, I watched a so-called celebrity arrive at “Sober House” high on heroin, its gummy residue still evident on a square of tin foil. The camera panned the offending Reynolds Wrap and I said to my wife: “Imagine what heroin does to your insides.”

“Never mind that,” she said, glancing up from her book to the residents of Sober House. “Look at what heroin does to your outsides.” Then she returned to her reading.

A few days earlier I watched with fascination as a local TV weatherman blamed a much-hyped snowstorm for failing to make good on its promise. Instead of bringing a foot of snow, the untrustworthy weather system only delivered half that total. “This storm really underachieved,” said the gravely disappointed weatherman, who seemed inclined to have the storm grounded, or at the very least sent to detention.

The weatherman’s name, not incidentally, is Joe Furey, in the grand tradition of great TV-weather names: Storm Field, Sam Champion and a personal favorite from my Minnesota childhood: “Barry ZeVan, the Weather Man.”

“A long, long time ago,” I wrote this column on the dismal state of the NBA, set to “American Pie”.

Now Kevin McElroy sends me his excellent update.

“Why do so many Parkers go by three names?” I asked out loud while watching the Sugar Bowl.

“You mean, like, Sarah Jessica Parker?” my wife replied.

“And Alabama’s quarterback, John Parker Wilson,” I said. “Eva Longoria Parker. Camilla Parker Bowles. Mary-Louise Parker . . .”

“The real question is ‘Why do so many Marys go by three names?’” my wife said. “Mary-Louise Parker. Mary Stuart Masterson. Mary-Kate Olsen. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Mary J. Blige . . .”

She had a point. And so I did what I always do when losing an argument: I began talking louder. “Colonel Tom Parker,” I said. “Ray Parker Junior . . .”

“Candace Parker just married Shelden Williams,” my wife said helpfully. “Maybe she’ll become Candace Parker Williams.”

I said the only Parker I could think of without three names has a three in his name: South Park creator Trey Parker.

A long silence ensued, after which my wife announced she was going to bed.