I recently read a blog entry that talked about the influence that the show, Sex in the City has had on the young hipsters who want to live the fabulous glorious life of Carrie Bradshaw. In fact, the blogger even admitted to getting a job in the city and trying to model her lifestyle of the ladies on the series. And who wouldn't?
The women appear generally empowered to do as they will in terms of their sexuality. They lead successful careers. And they are great friends and talk about their relationship highs and lows while sipping cosmos and laughing and having a great time. They always seem strong and generally in control even though their lives are in utter totally emotional chaos.
The reality of the situation on so many levels were far from the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle. For one, you really need to earn lots of money to live it. Rent is expensive. The clothes, the shoes and yes, the cosmos. The other thing is the emotional aspect. Though the characters weren't invincible and had huge character flaws, the show seemed to glamorize the foibles. But let's face it.
Reality is that with each relationship failure, women generally don't discuss it with their girlfriends which such aplomb. Instead, we are more like Bridget Jones. We are the emotional basket cases that wonder what is wrong with us. We obsess about it. Through the mild depressions which we in an unglamorous fashion go out with the girls to forget and make fools of ourselves. And even your most hardened commitment-o-phobe friend, the femme fatale of the group goes through this though behind her self-imposed emotional barricade that very few get a glimpse of.
Now, I don't necessarily think Carrie Bradshaw is a terrible role model. Quite the contrary. She almost embodies the feminist ideals that I think most of us initially dream about when we begin our independent adult life. But, it just seems that the reality has us falling more in the realm of the emotional basket case of Bridget Jones than the cool aplomb of Carrie Bradshaw.
Anyway, just an observation.
Sci Fi Channel has a really fun video that sums up the past 3 seasons in a nutshell. Reminds me of shrink lit -- humorous extremely short summaries of classic works. I have to say this is much better than the Letterman bit.
What the Frak is Going On?
We were all home recovering from a quick hitting stomach virus. In fact, every member of the household is in a different stage of recover or in my case, just starting. We were pleasantly surprised that The Ark of Truth came from Netflix yesterday. While the kids were napping, we watched the movie.
This movie ties up the Ori storyline. Many of your favorite characters appear and of course the IOA is there to screw things up. There is great cinematic shots and the music is just outstanding. I love the score from the show but they don't have much of a venue to do slow pieces. Luckily, the movie was the perfect opportunity for more symphonic work and they took it! There are a few plot minor plot holes and don't want to mention them.
Basically the movie does end up being an episode of SG1 but on a larger scale and I was not disappointed. It was great seeing the band back together LOL.
Okay, I can't wait to watch this four and final season of this show. I remember as a kid watching the original one with Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch and was skeptical of the new version. But once I watched it, I was hooked. It is a very well written show and very tightly written. Plus the show was written with the end in mind so there is none of this mucking around you see with Lost.
Anyway, found this clip of the cast doing a Letterman Top 10 Reasons to Watch Battlestar Gallactica. Some of it is really funny and other points. not so much but still entertaining none the less.
Also I have heard some rumblings that due to the writers' strike, they only finished half the season and might have to finish the other half after the summer. These rumblings come as Sci-Fi channel who airs this series has not revealed when they would be airing the new season of Stargate Atlantis that was not affected by the writers' strike for some reason. So there might be a brief break in the season as they catch up to put all 20 episodes in the can.
Yes, I'm an Stargate geek and wanted to know when Atlantis will be back -- after all, I want to find out what happened after this season's cliffhanger though it was kind of a what-if episode.
Okay, I can't wait to watch this four and final season of this show. I remember as a kid watching the original one with Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch and was skeptical of the new version. But once I watched it, I was hooked. It is a very well written show and very tightly written. Plus the show was written with the end in mind so there is none of this mucking around you see with Lost.
Anyway, found this clip of the cast doing a Letterman Top 10 Reasons to Watch Battlestar Gallactica. Some of it is really funny and other points. not so much but still entertaining none the less.
Also I have heard some rumblings that due to the writers' strike, they only finished half the season and might have to finish the other half after the summer. These rumblings come as Sci-Fi channel who airs this series has not revealed when they would be airing the new season of Stargate Atlantis that was not affected by the writers' strike for some reason. So there might be a brief break in the season as they catch up to put all 20 episodes in the can.
Yes, I'm an Stargate geek and wanted to know when Atlantis will be back -- after all, I want to find out what happened after this season's cliffhanger though it was kind of a what-if episode.
I don't know. Although a lot of his assertions feel like a he said, she said scenario, the only part that was concrete was the chapter where he actually did the study on acupuncture. The other chapters did refute the possible bias that affects how a study is engineered and how it is slanted to give the desired outcome though the author is very gentle in his handling of this topic. I guess I would really rate this book a two out of five. I don't disagree with his points but find they are weakly supported and read more like a psychology self-help book rather than an investigative science book.
This was an interesting read though very dense! Has the best collection of quote. Anyway, wasn't an easy read and didn't help that the only time I had to read this was while I was almost falling asleep. So the book investigates how society places limits and influences how we investigate the world around us as well as the factors which we are just inherently bound by limitations of human thought whether biological, psychological or linguistically. The other factors that are classified societal includes religious influences and also social economic climate and driving factors that may or may not be present.
Here's a collection of quotes from the book that I found amusing. Enjoy.
- "I'm not young enough to know everything" -- J.M. Barrie
- "You arrive at the truth by telling a pack of lies if you are writing fiction, as opposed to trying to arrive at a pack of lies by telling the truth if you are a journalist." -- Melvin Burgess
- "There is a theory which states that if anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." -- Douglas Adams
- "I dreamt I died and went to heaven, and Saint Peter led me into the presence of God. And God said 'You won't remember me, but I took your Quantum Mechanics Course in Berkeley in 1947." -- Robert Serber
- "The irony of life is that it is lived forward but understood backward." -- Soren Kierkegaard
- "In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock." -- Orson Welles
I've been so tired lately. In fact, I should be in bed but my sleep schedule has been disrupted so badly that I'm listless. Anyway, Child #2 has been teething for the longest time so we thought since there was a lot of drooling and gnawing but no teeth. Finally, they are coming out all at once, rapid fire. It's very painful for Child #2 and also disrupted feedings so Child #2 has been waking up hungry. Since breastfeeding is the main mode, here's where I enter the picture. We've been weaning Child #2 but with the teething issues, we've take a few steps back in the process. The increased breastfeedings and lack of sleep is taking a major toll on me. I'm so tired but I can't sleep.
So, forgive me if I ramble or don't make any sense. I was delirious when I wrote the post though not from partying like it was 1999! LOL!
Anyway, hope I can go to the book discussion group. I really haven't spent any time with adults other than other moms or on other online communities but it isn't the same. I was hoping to gather some thoughts and post them up with regards to the novel for discussion but that may have to wait or not happen! Ugh. Hope I can finally get some rest.
Sleepless in the Northeast.
I decided to read this novel first before tackling anymore of the Improbability book. In a few weeks, I get to go out for an evening with adults and go to a discussion group on this novel.
This is positively one of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut novels of all time! I had forgotten how much I loved this book. He definitely was a keen observer of people and human nature. He pokes fun at our need for purpose and how our conceit thwarts us and how we look outside of ourselves rather than within ourselves for fulfillment.
There are so many truths in this novel that is just presented in an irreverent light. If you are looking for a philosophical yet entertaining read, I highly recommend this novel. I'll post my analysis on this book separately as it'll have spoilers and I'm too tired to write it up right now but I just had to recommend this novel.
I recently borrowed this book from the public library this week and got to read it. It's a short read. Translated from French and written by the former director of Radio France and government official under Francoise Mitterrand.
Rather than focusing on Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge, it was more anti-Capitalist and America bashing. It is not that I don't think capitalism and American is not without its faults. There are glaring ones. However, there are incredible benefits that occur from the inherent nature of capitalism.
Jeanneney makes a lot of stretches with Google and their need to satisfy share holders and the eventuality corruption of the information Google does gather. His main target is on the digitalization of libraries and the possible dangers. But the possible dangers is where he meanders.
Now, he does bring up good points of where the pitfall lie for an organization within a Capitalist system but negates it with how Europe is so much better because money is not the primarily motivator. Okay, now I have to laugh because, the book while it has many valid points, degrades into stretched comparisons between realistic weaknesses of Capitalism and America and idealized strengths of Europe but specifically France.
To be quite honest with you, weaknesses are inherent in all systems but manifests differently. The greatness of this earth is that different systems work for different people and we have a variety to choose from. Difference is not a bad thing. In the end, it just seems like we all use different methods to do and achieve the same things, good or bad.
Now, my concern with Google is that they are collecting information from every aspect of our lives whether it is creating a digital library or our medical records. It is not the collection I fear but having one entity in charge of it and being at the mercy of the good intentions of a company that is incredibly secretive about itself. Kind of hypocritical considering they want to access and divulge all of our information, don't you think?
Despite my concern, I still use their products and am entrenched. They've got me. I guess, I was hoping this book would allay my fears and tell me I was being silly. Instead, I got a good laugh on another vein.
Now, I'm off to my next book I borrowed. (Okay, I grabbed a few interesting books that happen to be a cluster of Science books. If I finish in time, I'll be reading one about Alternative Medicine.
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