TV Shows vs. College apps...

Soooo... as most people who know me know, I cannot watch TV at home. So what I do is: I go to the library/video rental, I rent all the seasons of the TV show that are available, and I watch them. Actually, I watch about half of them, and then I have to return them. My mom, on the other hand, watches them all in one sitting. That's right--about 16 hours of Monk and Psych in a row. Which is not only incredibly unhealthy and unproductive, but it makes me really jealous that she's sitting there surrounded by the bliss-inducing bliss that is Monk and Psych. The two best shows ever created. Ever. And, since it's a bit pricy to rent Monk enough to see all the episodes, and since there's only one season of Psych out, I'm being deprived of some of life's greatest pleasures.

And then there came the miracle that was yesterday.

I was working on my college apps. Really, I was. And then this pop up window came and it was this thing saying I could watch free episodes of Psych and Monk.

OK, I tell a lie, I was actually googling pictures from an episode of Monk WHILE AT THE SAME TIME doing my college apps. And one of the pictures came from this site that allowed you to see clips of episodes--as well as full episodes. Of Monk. And Psych. (and a bunch of other shows I really don't care about). So now I'm sitting here (on my blog) watching an episode of Psych that is really funny, really cool, and really time wasting. I'm SUPPOSED to be doing my college apps, but I consider Psych to be a lot more important. Really. Sort of. I mean, isn't it more important to have lasting childhood experiences?
I mean, at least it's lasting. Not really a childhood experience.

The pathetic part is the quality. The show takes about twice as long as it's supposed to because it pauses literally (actual literally, not just exaggerating literally) every five seconds FOR five seconds. So it's really hard to watch, and I'm wasting even more time. And it's hard to understand what they're saying when it keeps on breaking like that. AND I'm ont getting any work done. Which sucks just a little. The good news is that I'm supposed to be writing about a character from fiction that's influenced me. I can always do Lassiter if my big literary Don Quixote essay falls through.
(Actually I'm not doing a Don Quixote essay, I'm doing a Terry Pratchett character. But it's a big ole intellectual character, so that's all right).
(Not al that intellectual after all, but sort of).
(Um, I have to go. The episode's unfrozen--I mean, I have to finish my apps.)
(Um, bye.)
*runs*

'Tis the Season (to wish you weren't home)

Terry Pratchett, an extremely wise man, wrote a book called Hogfather. Not only is it a brilliant book in many, many ways, it is absolutely true. For instance: It takes place during the holidays, and in one scene there is a discussion among wizards concerning the holidays of their past.
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"Just shut up, will you?" [Ridcully] said. "It's Hogswatch! That's not the time for silly arguments, all right?"
"Oh, yes it is," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. "It's exactly the time for silly arguments. In our family we were lucky to get through dinner without a reprise of What A Shame Henry Didn't Go Into Business With Our Ron. Or Why Hasn't Anyone Taught Those Kids To Use A Knife? That was another favorite."
"And the sulks," said Ponder Stibbons.
"Oh, the sulks," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. "Not a proper Hogswatch without everyone sitting staring at different walls."
"The games were worse," said Ponder.
"Worse than the kids hitting one another with their toys, d'you think? Not a proper Hogswatch afternoon without wheels and bits of broken dolly everywhere and everyone whining. Assault and battery included."
"We had a game called Hunt the Slipper," said Ponder. "Someone hid a slipper. And then we had to find it. And then we had a row."
"It's not really bad," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, "I mean, not proper Hogswatch bad, unless everyone's wearing a paper hat. There's always that bit, isn't there, when someone's horrible great-aunt puts on a paper hat and smirks at everyone because she's being so bohemian."
"I'd forgotten about the paper hats," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. "Oh dear."
"And then later on someone'll suggest a board game," said Ponder.
"That's right. Where no one exactly remembers all the rules."
"Which doesn't stop someone suggesting that you play for pennies."
"And five minutes later there's two people not speaking to one another for the rest of their lives bcause of tuppence."
"And some horrible little kid--"
"I know, I know! Some little kid who's been allowed to stay up wins everyone's money by being a nasty little cut-throat swot!"
"Right!"
"Er..." said Ponder, who rather suspected that he'd been that child.
"And don't forget the presents," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as if reading off some internal list of gloom. "How...how full of possiblity they seem in all that paper, how pregnant with possibilities...and then you open them and basically the wrapping paper was more interesting and you have to say 'How thoughtful, that will come in handy.' It's not better to give than recieve, in my opinion, it's just less embarassing."
"I've worked out," said the Senior Wrangler, "That over the years I have been a net exporter of Hogswatch presents--"
"Oh, everyone is," said the Chair. "You spend a fortune on other people and what you get when all the paper is cleared away is one slipper that's the wrong color and a book about ear wax."
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather, pages 230-231.
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...which basically sums up everything about the holiday season that doesn't get put on seasonal wrapping paper.

So why do people get together with family over the holidays? Is it to make us appreciate our jobs? Is it some sort of biological evolutionary reaction to make sure we remember not to breed with members of our own families to ensure strong combinations of DNA? Is it a secret plot by aliens to take over the world (world domination plot number 1,537?)
Whatever the reason, we often end up cursing it. I mean, I enjoy the holidays very much. In fact, I love this time of year. I really do. I love giving people things. I love the feeling of the world during the holiday season. But when we spent the holidays with the extended family--a bunch of strange, tan people that I've never seen before but that all know me, which is pretty frightening, especially when they'd pinch my cheeks (YES, people actually do that)--then I just wanted out. But we kept going back, and I still didn't know anyone, and we still got on each other's nerves. But there's something that drew us together, again and again. Personally, at this point I would not be prepared to accept any explaination involving 'family ties' or anything similar. I think it would be more like a sense of having an obligation. As we purchased the tickets we would be thinking "I mean, it's the holidays. And they're family." Regardless of the fact that said family makes you crazy even by telephone.

Now don't get me wrong--I know tons and tons of people get along really, really well with the rest of their families during the holidays. I know I might be the odd one out with this rant (although it sounds like Terry Pratchett is with me on this one). But I just thought I'd put that out there. Because I just got a flyer that says "Twelve days until the holiday!*" which reminded me of various "the holiday"s of my past. While (hopefully) surrounded by "the holiday" snow, listening to nonstop "the holiday" songs on the radio (until I smash it, which will be soon) I will be spending "the holiday" (and all the other holidays--I'm something agnostic-ish, personally, but my family celebrates "the holiday" known as Christmas because we like decorating trees with shiny things :D) with my immediate family only (that was one hell of a sentence). Happy holidays to the rest of you, whomever you spend them with.

In other news, Terry Pratchett, the writer of the fabulous book from which I have quoted extensively above, and many other fabulous books of similar kind, has recently been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's. It is frightening news, although he has clearly kept his sense of humor all the while (you can find his message explaining his condition here.) I now take the opportunity to reccommend his books to anyone who might read this (*crickets chirp*), as they are most fantastic and contain some truly wise messages (if you can find them under the layers and layers of brilliant British humor). Hopefully his condition will not prove to be as serious as it seems, and I join fans all over Roundworld in wishing him the very best of luck for the future.

Food!

Gods, I'm starving. I'm so hungry I could eat a tofu horse. *cue laugh track* Yeah, being a vegitarian has its downsides (for instance, you can't say you're so hungry you could eat a horse) but overall I really don't regret it. I bring this up because lately many people have asked me "since when have you not eaten meat?" (If you're one of the wonderers, I've been off red meat for a while and full vegitarian since...a while ago, I don't know.) I do wonder about people for whom meat is a necessity for every meal. For instance, people who won't eat their eggs without sausage, and who don't believe that a meal isn't a meal if it doesn't have meat in it. They don't view the meat on their plate as the no longer living carcass of some creature--they see it as food. Which I totally respect. I mean, I became a vegitarian after having eaten meat for over a decade, I see meat as food too. I even crave it sometimes. My reasons for giving it up had to do with morals (you put the cow in one end and you get tins of meat coming out the other! smiling man in black top hat demonstrates!), but now that I've gone a while without eating any meat my perception has changed. When I think about eating meat now I usually don't feel any inclination to do so--on the contrary, the thought has become almost repulsive to me, though I can't claim that I don't miss some of my mom's cooking. I don't usually think about it, though--it's just the way things are.
Aargh, this isn't helping the initial problem--I'm bloody starving. We're leaving the library in fifteen minutes--maybe I can convince mom to swing by Antonios or something. Or I could just eat the desk. The world is full of opportunities.

Rambling

Lately, I've begun to wonder about words, and how they came about. If humans evolved from apes which evolved from lizards which evolved from some sad ugly thing that crawled out of the ocean one day and decided to live here, at what point did language form? And at what point did we decide other things had meaning at all? And eventually we've created these concepts in our mind, such as beauty, and color, which only gives us really useless information. Because, as the biology textbook tells us, the definition of life is, and I quote, "a temporary storage of useful energy." That's all we are. But we, as units of temporary storage for useful energy, experience beauty and color and everything, and some of our experiences leave us feeling enriched, and enlightened, and empowered, and other words beginning with e. And that part of life is extra--in order to fufil our duties as temporary storage, all we would have to do is exist, brain dead. We wouldn't need to think or feel or experience the things that we experience daily.
We've started to take these things for granted, too. I mean, there's so much experience in just...biting into an apple. The crunch it makes as your teeth penetrate the skin, the juices running into your mouth...and the taste alone is so powerful it's enough to make you cry. But we bite into apples every day, while thinking of other things, and it just seems so mundane that we don't even notice it. Our attention isn't arrested by such an action. Somehow, apples have lost their meaning to us, and we've thrown them into the bin marked "boring" in the back of our minds, when in truth not just the eating of the apple but the fact that there is an apple at all is extraordinary.
And the less we get out of life, the more it seems like we really are mere temporary storages of useful energy. Which is probably why humans have spent most of their existance looking desperately to achieve more, to keep pushing the envelope and make everything bigger and better and more there, so that we can continue to feel.
I'm not sure why I just wrote that. Maybe it's something I'm trying to tell the world, or maybe it's something my subconscious mind is trying to tell me, or maybe (most likely) it's just me procrastinating even more on that paper due next week. But for whatever reason, there it is.
...And even if the bio textbook is right, bubbles are still brilliant, and I can enjoy my existance as a temporary storage unit while I have it..