My Week of Internet Thanks - Day 2

I am sitting at Bluegrass Airport, waiting on the very first flight of my life to take off.  To take a bit of the edge off, I thought I should be thankful for something.  So, here it goes.

Day 2 - Podcasts

I have included the embedded players for two of my favorite podcasts.  Hope you enjoy!

Stop Podcasting Yourself - The Sound of Young America

Jordan, Jesse GO! - The Sound of Young America

My Week of Internet Thanks - Day 1

Somwhere amongst the tryptophan overdoses and the ritual worship of extremely padded pigskin-slinging gladiators, it is customary to give thanks for ones blessings during this aptly named holiday of Thanksgiving*.

Because the real world is scary and the day star burns, the only real thing I'm thankful for is the Internet**.  This week, you'll see why.

Day 1 - Jessica's Daily Affirmations

*You Canadians are free to go back to being selfish and self-absorbed.

**No, not really.  It's called suspension of disbelief, you should try it some time.

Follies and Foibles*

I find myself sitting at the computer, lo this Saturday evening, downloading a CD by which I can restore my PC.

"Why is this?" you undoubtedly find yourself asking.  "You're the king of all computers, the emperor of electronics, the sultan on silicon."

Thank you.  Really, you're too kind.  Unfortunately, even at my exalted station can one fall victim to the simplest of mistakes.  Haste, it is said, makes waste.  It also makes for accidentally deleting restore partitions before you've had a chance to create backup DVDs.  If that rhymed it would be an equally popular saying.

So here's a Public Service Announcement (not from your favorite DJ Three Dog**, but from me, Nathan): make sure you have backups created before you do stupid things.  Or before you do smart things.  In fact, quit reading this, make a backup, and come back.

...

...

Good.  Don't you feel better.  I know I do.

Now my burn is completed and the real work begins.  Off to the races, boys and girls.

*I'm not 100% sure what that word means.
**You're welcome, Fallout 3 nerds.

Sandwiches, Faces, and Blinking

Dear Imaginary Readers,

It is time once again for the bi-annual update of Coincidental Fishsticks.  This update is sponsored by Boredom™.  When there's nothing else to do, choose Boredom™!

Tonight's insane, rambling diatribe is inspired by National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.  For those poor few uninformed, this is a month in which the nation, as a whole, sits down to write a novel.  The best of these get self-published.  The worst are burned while their authors fight to be the one survivor of the Thunderdome (Fun Fact: on the weekends, the Thunderdome is home to high school football tournaments).

It is also a time in which amateur authors are encouraged to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard to create a piece of fiction out of nothing.  The act of conjuring up a world is the closest man can come to magic*.  Fifty thousand words which existed before are being reorganized in a way never before seen to create something completely new.  Nobody has ever seen this thing you've created before, because you just created it.  "This is my story," you will say in unison with your writing brothers**, "There are many like it but this one is mine."

This is both liberating and debilitating.  I find it completely numbing, and not in the fun way you get before dental work.  The options are, if it is possible, too unlimited.  I need boundaries, and this blows them away.  I salute those who can look the open prairie in the metaphorical face and wait to see who blinks first***.  I look forward to completely ignoring your novel the way I do most things.  For now, my steam has run out and I never did figure out if I had a point or not, so I'm going to end here.  Now, where's that sandwich?

*Unless you're Criss Angel.

**And sisters.  Geez, we get it.  Ladies can do anything fellas can do.  Now be a doll and make me a sandwich, yeah?

***You will.  Metaphors don't need to blink, because of their state of being not a physical object.  Use a dog or small child instead.

Kentucky's State Religion

I am far and away the worst blogger in the universe.

Well, that's not true. High-School-Nathan-with-a-Xanga-account is the worst blogger in the world. But at least he had the excuse of youth on his side, and also not knowing what the word "blog" meant.

I digress. I haven't written here since before the wedding, and that's not because there's been nothing to write about. Mostly I forget that I have this thing, and that I can use it to update people about things. Or to express how eloquent I can be, as that last sentence illustrated. Also, how I don't care about starting a sentence with an article.

I just watched the tail-end of a losing Kentucky basketball game. They played well in the bit that I saw, but it was just too much to overcome.

In Central/Eastern Kentucky, basketball is like a religion. I don't know how it is elsewhere, but that's how it is here. Not everyone here roots for the Wildcats, but those that don't fall into one of two camps: those who don't mention it and maybe fake it a little when they have to, and those that actively show how much they dislike the Cats and how much they LOVE any other team or no team at all. It's a very strange phenomenon. Also, just like religion, there are certain days that people will come out and show their support. For Christians it is Christmas and Easter; for Wildcat fans it's March Madness.

I don't know. Nothing of real worth here. Just blathering on.

Good night, and good luck.

My Life as a Television Fan

I have an interesting relationship with television.

My viewing habits are not the same as most people, primarily because I don't actually own a television. I haven't purposefully seen a broadcast since the early episodes of this season, and that was because I happened to be in a place where it was on.

I love television. It is, by far, my favorite visual medium. Movies are great, but there's only so much you can convey in a two-hour movie. A typical season of an hour-long television show allows nearly 16 hours (not including commercials) to convey the heart and message behind an idea, the characters have time to stretch their legs and breathe, and stories have time to have nuance and finally come to a logical conclusion.

I don't watch television as an intellectual escape, nor do I turn it off to drown out the silence. As a result, I am not attracted to shows like "Two and a Half Men" or "According to Jim," but I am drawn to shows that make me laugh because they earn the joke and shows that make me think because they earn the thoughtfulness. They don't go for the easy laugh or the obvious one, nor do they use false sentimentality or underhandedness to trick me into caring. When they do, I check out; I stop caring. I don't have room in my life for anything other than sincerity.

There is a line in Aaron Sorkin's ill-fated series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" in which the head writer (Matt Albie, played by Matthew Perry) says to the female lead of the show-within-a-show (Harriet Hayes, played by Sarah Paulson) about why a joke didn't work in dress rehearsal when it did during the table reading.

Harriet: What did I do wrong?
Matt: You asked for the laugh.
Harriet: What did I do at the table read?
Matt: You asked for the butter.

I want my shows to ask for the butter, not ask for the laugh. And like Harriet, they're far more likely to get the laugh if they don't beg for it, but let it come.

When I find a show that works, I tend to devour it. I don’t always keep track of series when they’re on the air, but I will find a show years after it has started or even after it has completely ended. I discovered “Arrested Development” after it was finished and burned through the seasons on Hulu as fast as time would allow. There are similar stories for “Lost” and “House.” Even “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly,” crown jewels of geeky cult classics, were lost on me until after they were off the air.

I wish I could be the person who instinctively knows what is going to be worth watching. I can sometimes get lucky, like I did with “Life” and appear to be with “Community,” but those times are rare. I am unable to support a show while it is on the air because I don’t know it’s worth watching until it’s already been well established. “The Office” or “30 Rock” are perfect examples of this.

I can’t afford to spend all of my time looking for the cream of the crop, I just have to hope it rises in time for me to enjoy it. If you’ve found the cream, let people know about it. Talk about television; what you saw last night, what you’re looking forward to, what you hate. Nearly everyone can relate to television, and you can discuss it with anyone from snobs like me to people watching the most base of reality shows. If they can’t, you probably don’t want to be talking to them anyway.

Glee - Musical Comedy or Comedic Musical

I love musicals. There's something about a rousing musical number that I just can't get enough of. In recent years, there have been far too few examples of quality musical for me to partake of. The remake of Hairspray, the movie version of Rent, and a few musical episodes of TV shows are pretty much all we've had for a while.

We've also had quite the drought of good television in recent years, especially when it comes to new shows. The Office and 30 Rock continue to please in the 30-minute category, Lost and Chuck are both good but on hiatus until after the Winter Olympics, and Jay Leno has destroyed NBC's entire 10pm block. That's why Glee is such a breath of fresh air.

Glee is the tale of a high school teacher (Matthew Morrison) taking over the glee club after the last sponsor (Stephen Tobolowsky) is forced to leave. He recruits a ragtag band of vocally-talented misfits including an exceptionally talented and annoyingly driven star-to-be (Lea Michele), the quarterback of the football team (Cory Monteith), and a wheelchair-bound musician (Kevin McHale).

Glee is one of those rare shows that are genuinely funny while integrating music. Jane Lynch is hilarious as the champion cheerleading coach out to destroy the glee club, and each of the other characters have their own funny idiosyncrasies scatter in among their character development. My only real complaint on that point is that the fake pregnancy of Mr. Shu's wife Teri (Jessalyn Gilsig) has lost its charm, but that is the only part of the show that lacks charm. This show has definitely made it to my regular rotation.

Watch it on Hulu.