In the Future, Our Hair is Fabulous

Last night we watched Logan's Run with Becky's folks. It made me think about the future. If I had been coming of age in the 1970s, I would have thought the following about the future:

1. In the future, our hair is fabulous.
2. In the future, the women wear little tiny dresses (think first-gen Star Trek and Barbarella, too).
3. In the future, men wear functional one-piece jumpsuits with sparkly things attached.
4. In the future, robots look like shiny washing machines and will try to kill you.
5. In the future, all computers are huge.
   
6. In the future, all computers communicate by talking to you.
7. Most importantly, in the future, if a computer is up to no good, all you have to do is tell it something that "does not compute" and it will explode after getting confused.

Instead, here in the future, 75% of all internet traffic is file-sharing data and the most complicated thing they've got robots doing is dancing on a table.

Laundry, Big-Time

We're off to Novato for a day in a little bit here. Pesto will have to content herself with the vast amount of food we always leave her and the vast amount of litter she gets to kick all over her cage when she gets frustrated.

On the agenda: laundry, car-washing, around-sitting, steak-eating.

Because here's the thing: vacations are an odd duck. In this case, we're visiting Becky's mom for mom's day, so it's different, but in general I think vacationing is strange in that you could, really, just stay home and do most of the same things. Stay up late eating good food and drinking, go on hikes, go to a museum, whatever. And it would be a lot cheaper and a lot easier than flying somewhere and dealing with logistics. I think, however, that the real point of vacations is as much the impossibility of doing what you normally do as actually being somewhere new and interesting. I mean, Becky and I spent every night while we were in New Zealand in our motel watching Kiwi TV and drinking beer, but the fact that we couldn't do work made it fun.

In other news: we still haven't dealt with the broken TV. We found out that so many shows are online and that our cable connection makes streaming video like butter that we haven't really felt the need to either fix our old one or get a new one (if it's the latter, it's all about Craigslist.) And there are less commercials! Holy laptop in your butt, batman!

Hacking Off My Head with a Hatchet

Well, I didn't get the (fucking) tech job on campus I interviewed for through the temp agency; the official word is that they need someone to start full-time, which directly contradicts what the manager said in the interview. But hey. Why worry about details.

So I'm back to broke and terrified about summer. I've hated summers for years now, but right now it's kind of hitting a fever-pitch...the glaring sun, the ugly people in the streets, insomnia, poverty, and boredom.

Helping You Proctrastinate

Love,
-KFR

Reality TV: What I've Learned

This promises to be the most important blog post I'll write today!

I never watched crappy TV until I became a grad student. Unlike several of my friends, I can't keep working past a certain point on things that require actual intellectual energy. I can grade papers or read for sections, but I can't do my own work later than about 4 most days. Thus, when Becky and I were both grads at Oregon we'd usually call it quits by dinnertime and, well, we'd end up watching Survivor. Sometimes.

Over the last three years we've narrowed down the shows we watch. I really hate Survivor and won't watch it anymore, but I'm completely into Deadliest Catch. I've lost interest in Amazing Race, but I've officially come out of the closet regarding America's Next Top Model. And here's what I've learned: It's all about the editing. Almost no one is a saint or a monster, but reality TV is almost completely populated by saints and monsters. Think about it: if someone were to record everything you did for a week, they could splice it together such that you'd look like Gandhi or that you'd look like Hitler. Or, at least, a complete jerk. Maybe not Hitler.

The editors of reality TV shows create characters out of real people; it's not just that the drama of the shows is "real" in the sense that it isn't scripted, it's that the surreality of the format leads the viewer to like or dislike the characters more than they would if they were actors. It's hard not to think that they're "really" like that.

I first noticed this with Amazing Race a few seasons back, when Rob + Amber the Survivor winners were brought on the show. They were complete assholes and when they finally lost to the saintly Uchenna and Joyce, it was a triumph of good over evil. Then I started noticing that other reality shows had comparable villains, but sometimes the villains would suddenly appear in a different light, or the other people on the show would reveal that the character chosen by the editors as last week's hero was actually a total ass-hat.

This has reached its zenith, for me, in this season of America's Next Top Model. Every episode has a new villain, often but not always the girl who is eliminated. At the start of the season, it was arrogant Jazlene. Then it was bitchy Renee, then crazy Jael, then last night it was neurotic, whiny Britney. The thing is, Britney was one of the hero characters until they eliminated the others, then the editors spliced in every scene they could find of her being a pain in the ass.

So: for those of you who watch reality TV, watch for this phenomenon. I find it more enjoyable to trace the editorial decisions than the actual content of the show most of the time.

And yes, I just revealed how low the bar really is with my attention span and general intellectual maturity level. I know, I know, I should be reading Proust or something until late into the night....but I'll stick with Tyra for now.

Particle(s) of Faith

The advantage of being religious is, I imagine, the ability to associate routine hoping with an external referent that has the considerable resources of omnipotence. Being a virulently atheistic tinhorn existentialist can be a complete fucking drag when one is confronted with contingency. In English: it would be really nice if my hope that everything will work out in the next month / four months / year / five years could be translated into faith that it'll work out.

The only advantages with disbelief are that, first, you're not surprised when things go horribly awry and, second, that you can revel in smug satisfaction knowing that you're probably right that there is no god.

As usual, Devo has a song about it (Praying Hands):

You got your left hand
You got your right hand
The left hand's diddling
While the right hand goes to work
You got both hands
You got praying hands
They pray for no man
OK, relax
Assume the position
Go into doggie submission

The Conan the Barbarian Drinking Game, Redux

1. Anytime anyone gets killed.
2. Anytime anyone says "Crom!"
3. Anytime Conan whips his sword around for no reason.
4. Anytime Conan flexes.
5. When Conan says "crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women" you have to finish your drink.
6. Boobs.

And believe me, I'm feeling it this morning. Happily, I had the good sense to drink 2 pints of water and have some cereal before I went to bed, so I expect a full recovery in time for the Metalocalypse marathon tonight.

Mo' Betta Master's Thesis Topic

Here's what I've got from my local "ideas.doc" file:

It’s got to be on the Second Sex phase vs. the women’s movement phase. When she published second sex, there was no movement and there was no attempt to create one. There was no way to articulate an effective politics. When she joined the women’s movement post-68, however, efficacious politics had become a possibility.

What must be done:

• A reading of Second Sex, which is already done.
• A reading of the reaction. Need to be careful here – the reaction was polemical, but so were reactions to the women’s movement itself.
• More important to get an idea of what the left was all about c. 1947 w/ the Sartrian school. Thus, may be better to get it from her autobiographies and/or LTM. Usual suspects of books about the French left?
• A reading of the interviews from the 70s and 80s about B in the women’s movement itself.
• Secondary stuff on new social movements in France.

The nice thing is that I can work through some of the ideas here for my term paper in the Cultural Studies seminar I'm in. It would be like a thousand guitar solos to have some serious work done on the thesis by the end of summer.

Also, there is a Moustache-a-thon going down in SF. That's so awesome.

Also, people in SC are reminded that we're watching Metalocalypse at this chick's pad on Saturday night. Lest you forget:



(Watch it. You'll be happy you did.)