The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
30 Day TV Meme – Day 04
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B00005JLF3&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrDay 04 – Your favorite show ever
One? Seriously? I don’t think so.
Let’s say I don’t count sports. My favorite show to have randomly in the background anytime of anyday, whatever my mood, is M*A*S*H. Don’t tell my dad, or he will gloat. The show I have watched most consistently in real time for the last 15 years is WGN Morning News. Except for my short love affair with Zoboomafoo.
I had a childhood obsession with Dallas, which I am sure we will get to later. I might have had to call it The One, except that I really bailed out the last few years. And I didn’t even know about it the last time there was a supplemental TV movie.
So for the All-Time favorite, I have to go with The West Wing. It had heroes being heroic. It had heroes being dumb. It had heroes being smart and funny and sometimes even mean. It had Martin Sheen as President of the United States. It redeemed Rob Lowe.
And OMG the dialogue. This was the first show I ever recorded while I watched because the dialogue was so snappy that it often required a second run to catch all the goodness. It was also the first television show that ever made me cry from the happy. (Except when Duke Lavery came back from the dead on General Hospital. But I was in junior high!)
It’s not that they never had an off show. But The West Wing was for the Believers. Those of us that could envision the way that Washington might be. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but bright and honest and hopeful and sincere.
In Consideration of Facebook
I have so much to say about Facebook that I have to break it up into multiple posts. I am trying to figure out whether it is the Best Thing Ever Invented or a sign that we are descending into the Next Dark Age. To start:
I was so over everything and everyone associated with my high school until Facebook. I didn’t attend my 10-year reunion, thinking “I am in touch with those I want to be in touch with”. Yes, I am that arrogant. My friend Rich attended and when I asked him whether I should have gone, he came up with a couple of names that made me think, “Yeah. It would have been nice to see her.” But I wasn’t heartbroken.
I signed up with Facebook because Joy told me to – I was looking for contact information on someone. Don’t even remember who it was. I did not add much to my profile and I Friended no one. I certainly didn’t have a picture posted. I probably had the name of my town and American University listed, but that was enough for Matt to find me. And then someone else and someone else.
Like many people, my Friends list is made up of some people that I see regularly and some I haven’t seen in years. Some I am (or was once) close to and some where that came from different corners of one peer group or another. It is funny to note the differences in our Facebook habits. Who posts every day and who only checks once a week. How “Friends” are defined and how much they reveal. I don’t even have a handle on the rules for Friending co-workers, because I just don’t do it. (HR professional’s paranoia about crossing a line.) Someone could (and probably has) done a doctoral dissertation on the sociological implications.
The thing is, Facebook is way better than one night at a Reunion. A Class Reunion is a few hours and so many people to see and how the hell do you catch up? Facebook allows us to catch up with the people that want to talk, in the few minutes we can spare each time we log in. Sure, we are only getting tidbits of daily life. But those things add up. I don’t know what the sum total is, but I know that it is much easier to reach out to people when something is up if you have been building on the everyday. Even if it is only online.
30 Day TV Meme – Day 03
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Hm. I already suck at this meme. I didn’t pick up any new shows this year. I saw a few episodes of The Good Wife, which looked really good. I have several friends that won’t shut up about Glee, but I haven’t seen it yet. I caught a couple nights of NCIS: Los Angeles, that was nice. But really, there isn’t anything that rocked my world the way Lost, or 24, or ER or The West Wing did.
I guess the closest thing for me is True Blood. It isn’t in the first season in real time, but I picked up the first season on DVD and it grabbed me.
True Blood is all raunchy and violent in an HBO TV show way. Joy tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. It was, however, nasty. In spite of that fact, I thought that the writer created a half decent vampire world with several characters worth watching. And some things were rather scary. Vampire Justice, for example, I find terrifying.
I don’t know how long HBO can keep this up, particularly as its script diverges from the Charlaine Harris novels. But I am all up for Season Two.
30 Day TV Meme – Day 02
Day 02 – A show that you wish more people were watching
Honestly, since Lost is ending, there isn’t any show I think is worth pitching. In fact, I rather wish people watched less TV. But if I have to come up with an answer, I’d have to see I wish people watched more football. NFL. On Sunday. Because then, perhaps, this country would have a bit more respect for my Sunday afternoon.
Interjection: Once, several years ago, I asked my brother what he was doing on Sunday. He said, “What do most people do on Sunday?” I was totally perplexed. “Watch football?” Apparently, the correct answer was “going to church”.
Anyway. Stores would open earlier so I am home by noon. No volunteering gigs. No theatre tickets. Super Bowl Monday would be a National Freakin’ Holiday!
Yeah. That’s my TV wish.
30 Day TV Meme
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000UX6THK&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrMy LJ friend darth_kittius found this meme, and I think I can talk about TV every day for about a year.
Day 01 – A show that should have never been canceled
It is practically cheating to have this one first, as I just finished my marathon of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. That show had everything: fab-u-lous ensemble cast, Aaron of the Snappy Dialogue Sorkin and Not about Cops or Doctors. Launched at the apex of American Idol and Survivor, it never had a chance.
I also wish Twin Peaks had lasted longer. I wasn’t watching while it was on the air, but I devoured it when the DVDs were first released. Agent Cooper or Sheriff Harry S. Truman? Hmm. And as if I weren’t already afraid of Piper Laurie, she was a totally different kind of scary.
Oh! And Daria. The animated MTV series. I just ordered that on DVD, so there will be more discussion on that one.
(sigh). How is it that people can watch reality TV?
Traveling Alone
Rick Steves just wrote a nice piece about traveling alone. He said:
“Solo travel gives you complete freedom and independence. You never have to wait for your partner to pack. You decide where to go, how far to travel, how much to spend and when to call it a day. If ad-libbing, it’s easier for one to slip between the cracks than two.”
So, so true. Now, Steves was talking about vacationing in Europe and doing that alone might be a bit much for me. I was feeling all cool about going to Toronto when my mother informed me that Canada “doesn’t count” as going to a foreign country. But I have considered doing a European tour by myself. I stumbled onto a company online that coordinates trips for ladies traveling solo. It looks a bit pricey, but I can see the value.
I continually struggle with having X number of vacation days and Y dollars in budget with a whole world to see and so many places that deserve a return trip. Or ten. I don’t know how I would do it if I had to negotiate with someone else.
This is why I am never getting married.
Organic Gummy Bears
Yeah, you read that right.
You know I love nutsonline.com. So I was at the website reordering my awesome custom trail mix and then started clicking around for fun. They have this new feature where they will send you a sample of something for $2.50. It isn’t all of their products, but they have a list. On the list: “Organic Gummy Bears”.
So, you ask – WTH is in an Organic Gummy Bear? Nuts Online wrote:
“Ingredients
Organic Rice Syrup, organic cane sugar, gelatin, organic carrot juice, organic aronia juice, organic black currant, organic curcuma, natural flavor, citric acid, ascorbic acid, organic sunflower oil”
Um. That doesn’t really sound good. But for $2.50, I can try it and have something to blog about. (How much would you pay for something to write about? Discuss amongst yourselves.) But get this:
They were sold out.
Are they organic and calorie free? I don’t understand.
A Streetcar Named Desire
Dear Writers’ Theatre:
I am so sorry. So, so sorry. I just can’t stand the play. I came anyway, because I love you. And I hoped that most of my problem with A Streetcar Named Desire is the movie version
Someone was having a bit too much fun with the “intimacy” factor. I have twice complained in this blog about the goofy seating changes you sometimes make to accommodate a vision for the set. In theory, I am in favor of it. I subscribe because I am interested in seeing something different. I imagine you were trying to give the audience a feel for how the tiny apartment in hot, humid New Orleans was just charged with the electricity of the brewing conflict or whatever. But I was a dozen feet from your actor’s wet and quite naked butt. There is the discomfort of feeling the emotional charge and then there is the discomfort of feeling like the place is…unsanitary.
Fine. I am a prude. A Yankee prude. An illiterate Yankee prude.
But I had to leave.
This clip is a decent scene that Writers’ Theatre posted on YouTube. It is the one in which I find Blanche to be almost likeable.
The Library, by Sarah Stewart
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The Library is about a girl that loves to read and doesn’t do anything else. She grows up and buys a house and fills it with books. Then one day she can’t fit any more books in the house. So she donates the house and all the books to make a library and moves into a little place with a friend. They drink tea and read books.
I want to be her when I grow up. Except with Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.
Kindle Downloads
Publisher’s Weekly had an article about the bestseller list for Amazon.com:
“For some in publishing it may be a curiosity, for others a point of contention—Amazon’s practice of including free downloads in its list of most popular Kindle titles. It will soon no longer be an issue. A representative at the e-tailer has confirmed that the company will be splitting its Kindle bestseller list, creating one list for paid books and another for free titles. The date for the switch is vague—the rep would only say it will happen in “a few weeks”—but the switch will certainly be noticed.”
I have a Kindle 
The article suggests to me the decision is less about trying to get us to spend more money and more about giving and receiving better (or perhaps more “fair”) data on the sales.
Since Amazon plans to have a list of the freebies, I don’t much have a problem with this “separation”. I scroll those lists mostly in my idle Internet surfing time, so clicking one more list doesn’t bother me. In fact, it might even be more efficient. And I understand that comparing a “bestseller” that doesn’t cost anything with a bestseller that costs $10 hardly seems fair.
Perhaps I am just a geek, but I find the evolution of this business model absolutely fascinating.
The Next Dark Age 