May 17, 2005

Well, as long as one of us is sleeping on the couch...

why not make it both?

I've been hit with the "Caesar's Bath" meme, which is essentially five things that you feel are over-rated by your peers. Apparently, it's taken from a Mel Brooks line in History of the World (Part I) -- "Nice, nice. Not thrilling... but nice." This was passed on to me by my wife, who's first item on her list of five was a lengthy diatribe about the poker explosion, which is understandable -- I can't deny it's gone a bit too far, but I must say I rather enjoy it. So, as long as she's sleeping on the couch, I might as well list something that will keep her company.

1. Sex and the City / Desperate Housewives Two shows that are successful for the same reason -- a good number of men are scum. Not only is it refreshing for women to see strong female characters (because, let's face it, there aren't that many strong female characters out there), but men (and teenage boys, I'm sure) watch because it lets them see women with wet t-shirts (if any shirt at all) on network television. What bugs me about DH is what bugs women about most other shows -- the men depicted are not real men. One cheated on his prim-perfect wife with a dominatrix prostitute; one is never home, leaving the wife to run the house AND watch the three children; one is a white-collar criminal; and the only decent guy (who's trying to fall in love with Teri Hatcher's character) is a cop-killer. The secondary male character seem to only be around to get into the women's pants. Not real men. Sex and the City does indeed have real men and decent plotlines; sometimes things end up being the fault of one of the four female characters. What bugs me about it is the dialogue -- I swear this conversation takes place while writing each episode:

Writer1: Man, this storyline is great, but we're a couple minutes short. How're we going to fix this?
Writer2: Hmmm... How many dick jokes do we have so far?
Writer1: Well... Nine, I think.
Writer2: NINE? That's IT?!? Quick, write in a lunch scene and include at least four more.
Writer1: That's great TV! Men are scum -- Ha Ha!
Writer2: Indeed, and is there any way we can make Samantha sluttier? I think a couple more vibrator references should do the trick.
Writer1: YES!

The other thing that makes me chuckle is that my wife (who I absolutely adore) has disliked Sarah Jessica Parker and Teri Hatcher to the point of loathing, but truly enjoys both shows. Now, THAT is good writing. I love you, sweetie. :)

2. Politics Time to offend the career choice of some of my closest friends! Really, though, it's not so much the politics as it is the political commentary. While the Internet gives us great things such as blogging and free instant access to any NES game ever made (thanks, Jay -- no more free time for me!), it also brought about the 24-hour news explosion and message boards, where any schmo with a connection and a spare few minutes (that's me!) can read, in miniscule web-bites, what's been going on in Congress and everywhere else in government and then can go COMPLETELY overboard by complaining about it to friends on the board (Yay for anonymity!). This leads to rabble-rousing of the highest order (TREASON! she yelled from the eastern mountain, echoed by LIES! from the peaks of the West), which then enflames those in the public who don't know any better (or have any shit to do) to draw Purple Hearts on Band-Aids at National Conventions or write LIFE on tape over their mouths in protest (while college frat boys in the background wave their beers at the camera). All of it broadcast on National TV 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Please. This is why of all the news stations out there, the only news program I can take seriously is hosted by Jon Stewart.

3. Star Wars. WHAT?!?!? Did I really just say that? Though I may have to hand in my Official Geek Patrol Leader badge in for saying so, I never bought into the Star Wars phenomenon. I do enjoy the movies as they're entertaining, but not enough as a good geek should. I actually started nodding off in the theatres when watching the second film -- not the Clone Wars, but the Empire Strikes Back. I did enjoy, though, people making complete fools of themselves at the Convention held here in Indy. Of course, if it'd been a Final Fantasy Convention, you'd've seen me there dressed as Sabin for sure.

4. Vegetarianism NOTE: Not Vegetarians -- I heart vegetarians and Vegans alike and feel that they are welcome to their lifestyle -- it's just not something that I would like to do myself. I don't strongly feel that everyone should eat meat or anything that radical, but I don't feel that eating it is wrong. I also don't think that animals should be mass-produced for the sole purpose of being food, but at the same time, not eating a steak or piece of chicken won't resurrect the poor beast from whence it came. I'll also note that I'd never, ever eat an ovary of an animal, but would eat a piece of fruit (which is the ovary of the tree it came from) any day of the week, and plants are living things, too. Again, I love vegetarians, and I love you, Laura. Please don't kill me.

5. Huntin' a.k.a. Getting Back on Laura's Good Side. Really, I don't have a problem with guns or hunters themselves. I just don't like the fact that people feel they can "hunt for sport." Hunting for food I can understand (man has been doing this since he walked), it's just not sporting to put a deer's instincts against high-caliber weapons with laser sights and whathaveyou. While I'm sure it's very difficult to wait for hours after setting up a camouflaged tent in the middle of the woods to spot a deer, then shoot it in such a manner that it doesn't run away far enough to collect its dead body, I don't find it sporting. Honestly, if you want to call it a sport, put the gun and the orange vest away, strap some antler to your head, and then go chase after Bambi's mom. NOW it's a sport. I guess the underlying annoyance with me about this is they waste valuable programming time on ESPN (though they also show poker, which is very much not a sport either, so we'll call it a wash).

So there you go, the five things that, while nice, don't really thrill me all that much. Time to hit some people up that need to join me in offending their closest friends!! Nando, this one has your name written all over it; Katie Frazier, just another meme to add to the pile; and Justin Sevier, Vandy's own Sir Mix-a-Lot. More from the land of corn and cute (but extraordinarily rotten) puppies later.

1 Comments:

At 11:02 AM, Blogger IRMcK said...

Re: Politics - It doesn't even sound like you dislike political commentary, you just dislike the Goat Rodeo. Welcome to the 24 hour news cycle!

 

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