Television Love Letter

Last Night I Went To A Potluck and i was so spent from the weekend that i had like, NEGATIVE personality and was a COMPLETE DIALTONE for the most part, AND i broke a cardinal rule of white person etiquette. I was kind of intimidated by the crowd a little bit. People kept on making jokes about the travails of being a grad student and talking about (what i think were) different types of major academic papers or rubrick systems or something and pretty much EVERYBODY WAS LAUGHING except for me, my friend travis and the slightly creepy bohemian guy from next door who was actually kind of funny because he congratulated travis and i on NOT going to UofA, which i thought was kind of aware and clever. everybody was super nice, i don't mean to say they were snobby or unapproachable, because they weren't, it was just some ADVANCED COLLEGIATE-ESE being spoken and i'm a pretty smart well read guy, i think, but they may as well have been speaking ewok or something


The big reveal that i didn't know about going in was that the pretext for the party was defrauding a Pro-Zionist "charity" that i guess pays jews who have made their pilgimmage to have dinner and talk Zionist values or something and the more people you take to dinner, the more of a budget you are given... with our very cool hosts redirecting the money they get from the group (18 bucks a head) to a "Real" charity. So they got everybody together for a group photo, which they send in, and then they get paid. Tucker, the host, made the very funny comment that he couldn't think of a worse idea for a charity than paying people who could afford to go out to dinner to go out to dinner or something to that effect, which i thought was just ROFLMFAO exactly right. I myself have some very strong anti-Zionist feelings (not to be confused with anti-jewish sentiment AT ALL) and against the Israeli government's US backed military (500+ billion a year), so i was glad to help.

The Lulz turned to HORROR when i broached the subject of television. i asked Tucker's boyfriend Forrest if he'd seen some show or something, and he said that HE DIDN'T LIKE TV. i kind of lost it a little bit and i just kept saying "WHO DOESN'T LIKE TV?!" like he'd said that he douses hobos with kerosene while they sleep and then sets them ablaze or something. Even TRAVIS turned on me, and was like "i don't really like tv, either. I watch a couple of shows that i like," and yeah. I started to argue with him that the fact that he WILL NOT DO ANYTHING on the night LOST is on because he is so deeply devoted to the show kind of undermines his claims of general ambivalence, but i stopped because i wanted to berate him in a playful manner, but i could see forrest and this pretty black girl who was fixated on miniatures were looking at me like "oh no! he's getting mad at his friend!" and i didn't want to be misread any further as i'd already given myself away as a cretin what with my love of the idiot box. seriously, though- i don't know what to say to that, other than just a mask of horrified disbelief. Finally, after more confrontational questions directed at Forrest, who thought i was joking or something, i turned to travis and was just like "Come on Travis. Let's go outside." I was still stuck on the subject, though, and once i sat down around the firepit (with actual fire!) i was like "WHO DOESN'T LIKE TV?!" and pretty much EVERYBODY THERE was like "I DON'T HAVE A TV!" it was BAD. i can't remember the last time i was this oblivious to who my audience was (audience meaning 'the people around you,' i don't actually think that when i am invited to a party that the people there are MY AUDIENCE, because that's GROSS unless you're a drag queen or something an it happens to be automatically true no matter where you go or something, but i am NOT THAT CAPTIVATING, this i know, lol). that's one of my life rules- "KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE." so that's a big red mark in the PERSONAL FAIL column, i guess. frowny face :(

Later, Tucker would say that he didn't own a tv, but he immeidiately said "but we talked about loving 30 rock," and so i grant him immunity, and he does not need to be voted off of the island.

seriously, though, i do not understand how anybody can say that they don't like tv? there are SO MANY amazing shows, i personally believe that TV is in it's TRUE golden age, and has been for over 10 years now. Also, i find that TV allows for a much more satisfying experience for me, a viewer. there is a much more comprehensive exploration of themes and characters and so forth, and thus the investment on my part is greater. This is to say nothing of the opportunites for MASSIVE, multi-season plot arcs, that when done properly, is nothing short of rapturous.* I love movies, too, don't get me wrong, but i don't understand why movies are a medium that is accepted as art, but TV isn't? that's some bullshit.

i'm going to go out on a limb here, and just go on the record: if for some reason i was forced to choose between never being allowed to see a movie again or never being allowed to watch TV again, i would WITHOUT HESITATION choose TV, despite my VERY strong love of film. it's so easy to say "oh, there's so much trash on tv! all those reality shows are so bad!" and I AGREE WITH YOU- nobody wants to see the Kardashian's pushed into a vat of acid more than me, i ASSURE YOU, but you know what? go to your local multi-plex and take a look at what's playing there. i think that the ratio for complete shit is about the same.


**OFFICIAL EFFORT AT CLARITY**
Tucker and Forrest are just super nice guys and i really like them.

*examples that quickly spring to mind: season 5 finale of buffy (originally prepared and conceived as the series finale), season 6 finale of buffy (just what they did with willow, and how it referred to all this stuff that you barely noticed for the entire series and had it culminate in a brutal deconstruction of one of TV's alltime most beloved characters is EPIC), the end of (i think?) season 5 of The Shield when they killed Lem, The Wire in general, but ESPECIALLY season 4, the season that focuses on school, the series finale of Six Feet Under (which actually isn't my favorite show in the world, though good, i find it to be VERY OVERRATED, but the series finale pulls it the fuck together in one of the finest sequences i have ever seen on film, be it movies or TV... and the list goes ON, but you catch my drift. TV IS AWESOME, LOVING TV DOES NOT MAKE YOU STUPID (necessarily, lol), TV HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER THAN IT IS NOW, TV CAN BE ART IN A WAY THAT FILM NEVER CAN.

*UPDATE: Damages, Breaking Bad, Skins (british series), Sons of Anarchy, seasons 3 and 4 of Supernatural (which isn't even consistently good), John from Cincinnati, Deadwood, 30 Rock (seriously, i know it's mainstream, but netflix it from the begninning, it's hilarious), etc etc etc...

Pray For Me

First Anatomy and Physiology exams are tomorrow (wednesday). There is a lecture exam and a lab exam, and the two together are about 20% of the semester grade. I've got the anatomy stuff pretty down pat, but i'll admit i haven't got the grasp of the physiology material that i should... the good news is that i am pretty confident that i can get a mid to high range A on the Lab exam, and that's the part that's non-negotiable. if i eat shit on the LECTURE exam, my cumulative final grade can replace it (assuming that it is my lowest lecture grade for the semester). Lab grades are forever, but you can fuck up ONE lecture exam. Still, i am SCARED! this class is so hardcore, seriously- plus it's maybe the single most important grade (if you consider a and p I and II one subject, which i do) that nursing programs are going to look at.

ANYWAY! back to work.

Anatomy and Physiology BLACKOUT

um, i'm thinking maybe i shouldn't have enrolled in A&P I and II in concurrent 8 week abbreviated form, because HOLY SHIT I AM DROWNING in course content. i am seriously afraid that i have bitten off more than i can chew here, but unfortunately i have designed my entire semester around the premise that i can pull it off, so i'm sort of stuck. i am NOT joking (at least not very much) when i say that you probably shouldn't expect to see (much of) anything on this blog before spring break in march, and that's at the earliest. friends, family, etc will be as strangers to me, and the world will know me not.

we DO get to look at a cadaver today, though. that's kind of neat.

Do You Guys Think This Will Be Good?

"The steak is cooked with condensed tomato soup mixed with cream of mushroom soup. Dry onion soup mix is sprinkled over the top. Easy by any standard."
INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
2 pounds flank steak
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed tomato soup
1 (1 ounce) package dry onion soup mix

DIRECTIONS
Place meat in the bottom of the slow cooker; if necessary, slice meat to make it fit!
In a medium bowl, mix together mushroom and tomato soup. Pour mixture over beef. Sprinkle dry onion soup mix over top.
Cover, and cook on Low for 8 to 10 hours.

see, this sounds like it's either going to be really good in that ghetto midwestern food kind of way (a methodology pretty much DEFINED by condensed mushroom and/or tomato soup from a can and/or Kraft products and/or smashed potato chips as garnish or topping) or really disgusting in that ghetto midwestern food kind of way, but i was drawn in my the super long cook time which should equal serious tenderness, and also by the very few ingredients required. i already had the soup mix in the cupboard and had defrosted the broil without really knowing what i was going to do with it. i couldn't TOTALLY leave the recipe alone, though- i put a can of button mushrooms on the bottom of the crock pot, put a layer of thinly sliced white onion over that, put about 5 large, minced cloves of garlic over that, and splashed about 1/4 cup of worchestershire sauce over that before laying down the broil, tomato/mushroom soup mix (i stirred in some olive oil, maybe 1/8 of a cup) and the onion soup stuff. i put quite a bit of fresh ground black pepper on top of that... maybe too much, but we'll see. i'm hoping it'll be real wet and tender in a barbeque-ish kind of way... i bought these great little rolls, and would like to have little london broil sandwiches to tide me over until cyd gets back and buys groceries again. i'm really unsure, though- this one could definately go either way. i've never used a crock pot before, either, so anything could happen. what a whirlwind!


PS, my math final was EVIL, and i have no idea how i did. i'm sure i passed the final and everything, so i know i got an A in the course, but if i got a C or a D on the final, i wouldn't be shocked... which is not to say i wouldn't be upset, lol. he gave me a 35 PAGE, 70 QUESTION practice final THE DAY BEFORE THE EXAM, and it had about a 10% bearing on the ACTUAL exam. i kind of admire him for blowing the lazy fuckers in his class out of the water, though. when i told him how rotten the test was, he laughed. he's a badass motherfucker. i'm gonna miss old swifty. he wasn't worried about me, though- he gave everybody the opportunity to seriously insulate themselves against the final (i had a 99.16, and could afford to get as low as a 48% on the final and still get an A in the class, for example) but people took advantage, got super lazy, "wanted a stimulus that they haven't earned" as swifty put it. he's the man, though. seriously- i've never understood math before in my damn life. he's a great teacher.

I'm going to do a seperate post about the awards ceremony in the very near future. 'twas a good, wierd time.