To cleanse the palate. Can it really be “futuristic” if it reminds you of a set from 1960s sci-fi schlock? I keep waiting for George Takei to walk out and tell Shep that he’s detected “an anomaly” in the health-care sector.

In an age where the hallmark of bleeding-edge tech is smallness, he chose to boldly go where no anchor has gone before with 55-inch touchscreens, which must be murder on the eyes of the staffers huddled over them two feet away. I will say, though, that the sheer volume of content they appear to be sifting through reminds me a lot of the evolution of the blogging experience over the last six or seven years. At first I was a cable-news and RSS man; then came Facebook; then came Twitter; and amid it all, new news sites and blogs worth monitoring seemed to sprout up every day. Trying to juggle it all while cranking out posts sort of feels like the bit here where Shep starts scrolling aimlessly through remote video feeds while keeping up a semi-coherent monologue. So there’s my official excuse for half-assed content going forward. It’s not that I’m an idiot, I’m just really distracted. (And kind of an idiot.)

Exit question: Is that Flipboard that Shep is showing off on the mega-iPad near the end? Or some Fox News proprietary analog?