Author Archives: Wyrd Smythe

About Wyrd Smythe

The canonical fool on the hill watching the sunset and the rotation of the planet and thinking what he imagines are large thoughts.

August 29, 2012

Unreality Shows

By Wyrd Smythe

Before TV Tuesday can proceed to the television I love, I need to clear the airwaves regarding an entire genre of television I cannot stand.

I suspect I’m about to offend some people while causing others to cheer. To those who cheer, you are clearly members of a discerning, intelligent television audience. To those who are offended, your presence in the gene pool is no longer required, please hit the showers.

As you may have gathered, yep, it’s another opinionated rant. This one is about what I consider the worst thing to hit television since Manimal or The Ropers. In fact, it’s worse, far worse, than those two combined, plus Cop Rock and Mr. T. and Tina.

It’s about the form of video excrescence known as “Reality TV.” And that really does need to be in quotes, because there isn’t one thing “real” about it. Quite to the contrary, a more accurate term is “Unreality TV.”

6 Comments | tags: reality shows, television, trash, voyeurism | posted in Rant, TV, TV Tuesday

August 28, 2012

TV Tuesday

By Wyrd Smythe

Welcome to TV Tuesday here at Logos CC. Today begins a series of posts concerning that daily invader to most of our lives: television. For good or ill, television has become a fact in the fabric of our families. And there certainly is both much good and ill to be found on the video airwaves. That is an ongoing topic on this blog, but this series is about the shows I love (and some that I don’t).

I suppose TV Thursday might have been a more logical choice, though it doesn’t have quite the same ring. I say that because Thursday nights was the NBC Must See TV night that brought us such classics as The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Friends, Night Court, Mad About You, Seinfeld and Wings.

(How many old friends did you find in that list?)

34 Comments | tags: Cheers, House M.D., JAG, Mad About You, MASH, Must See TV, NCIS, Night Court, Star Trek, television, The West Wing | posted in TV, TV Tuesday

August 27, 2012

BB #8: RSVP

By Wyrd Smythe

I was wondering what, if anything, to post today. I woke up with a headache (okay, a hangover), and I find it hard to focus on writing when my head hurts. And today begins what is seeming more and more likely to be my last three weeks in a 33-year career. So I’m feeling a bit down, which also makes writing difficult.

I have been writing a lot lately. Some of that is catching up after nearly a year of writing very little here. I started strong a year ago July, kept it up for two months and then fell off the metaphorical horse. There was a personal and a work-related aspect to that. The latter involved beginning new tasks at work, so there were new systems to learn, and that took a lot of energy. The former is private; suffice to say it involved one of those life disappointments that takes some time to absorb and integrate.

The longer I didn’t write, the easier it was to not write. (Exercise is the same way for me.) I tried several times to get back into it, but never really got up a head of steam.

13 Comments | tags: Cowboys & Aliens, Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, RSVP | posted in Brain Bubble

August 26, 2012

Simple Tastes

By Wyrd Smythe

I wrote recently that I have fairly poor eating habits despite much effort on the part of my parents who do have better sense with regard to food.

Part of the problem may have been a counter-lesson involving food-as-reward. We were fairly poor growing up, so getting a pizza (which was a fairly new thing back then) or ice cream was our reward for good grades in school.

I always got pretty good grades in school (although not really for the food reward; I just really liked learning). But food did become associated with good times, not that there’s nothing wrong with that. I seem to have dodged the bullet of using food as comfort, but I have discovered I eat more when bored or frustrated.

20 Comments | tags: bagels, brown sugar, cheese, Demolition Man, food, hot dogs, pasta, pizza, rat burgers, Tex-Mex | posted in Life

August 26, 2012

Sunday Drivers

By Wyrd Smythe

I was on a supply run to the grocery store this morning and was stuck behind a Toyota Camry for most of the way. My trip takes place on two-lane roads that are hilly and curved enough to prohibit passing, so I was trapped. It was a mellow Sunday morning, and there’s no use (ever) letting other drivers get to you. I’m not one to play the tailgating game, but the four vehicles stuck behind me were stacked up tightly.

In fact, once I realized it was a Camry, I started laughing. For a long time now, I’ve had a perception that when you’re stuck behind a particularly bad driver — one that stands out from the usual bad drivers — there is a good chance the car is a Camry. I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one with that perception; I’ve heard others make the same rant.

But it is a fact that there are a huge number of them on the road, and they age well, so odds are high on any car in front of you being a Camry.

4 Comments | tags: bad drivers, drivers, horrible drivers, LA Story, slow pokes, speed limit, Steve Martin, Toyota Camry | posted in Life, Rant

August 25, 2012

The CASA Boogie

By Wyrd Smythe

The other entry for Skydiving Saturday is another USENET post I made to rec.skydiving in August 1999.

And there’s a nice connection to posting these in August as I did with the three last year describing the first and second Tandem jumps and the first AFF jump. The girl friend and I made those two Tandem jumps in August of 1997, so August is the month it all began.

While we started AFF school that September, and finished the following March, the day of jumping described below (one of our most fun times as the drop zone) took place on a very hot day in August of 1999. A lot of things started to go downhill after that, so in a number of ways this represents one of the high points in our lives. It was definitely one of those days to press in your memory book.

4 Comments | tags: boogie, CASA, rec.skydiving, skydiving, USENET | posted in Life

August 25, 2012

AFF Graduation!

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s Skydiving Saturday at Logos con carne! I’m working on the upcoming TV Tuesday, so this weekend I’m going to coast a bit with some easy posts and archive excavations.

It’s also a good time to enjoy the end of lazy summer before we go back to school. After all, Logos CC is also about philosophy and computers and science (oh, my).

There are many meaty topics on the grill for later, but for now it’s free fall time!

2 Comments | tags: AFF, AFF jump, rec.skydiving, skydiving, USENET | posted in Life

August 25, 2012

Dung Beetles

By Wyrd Smythe

Let us speak now of a form of life so low and loathsome that, in comparison, the worst person you ever spent time with is a saint, a paragon of human virtue and charm. I mean the biggest waste of human flesh this world has ever seen.

I’m speaking of a form of life so useless, so revolting, that a universe in which just one of these disgusting creatures lives, albeit even on a distant planet beyond the reach of any spaceship, is worse than living in a house filled with giant, raving, rabid human-hating scorpions.

I’m speaking of a kind of human so offensive in the face of all that is good and right they should be forced to live their miserable lives wearing cactus-lined underwear while Prometheus’s Eagle takes a break from his usual duties to come to eat their livers and hearts. (Except they have no hearts.)

16 Comments | tags: die die die spammers, die horribly spammers, die painfully spammers, die spammers, vanish from the earth spammers | posted in Rant

August 24, 2012

BB #7: Peaches & Red Shirts

By Wyrd Smythe

I was brought up pretty well, I think, in terms of having (and keeping) principles and honor and honesty. But my parents failed terribly in one regard: I have horrible eating habits. The stuff I love is, generally speaking, the wrong sort of stuff to be eating, and those wholesome and wonderful foods leave me cold. Some of them, cooked squash or most egg preparations for example, actually induce a gag reflex.

Given a choice between eating a fried (or boiled) egg or being water boarded, I would have to give the matter some serious thought.

It’s like the old Jack Benny joke about the time he was mugged. “Your money or your life!” cries the mugger. [long pause] “Well?” demands the mugger. “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” replies Benny.

6 Comments | tags: Danny Glover, Jack Benny, Lethal Weapon, peaches, pie, Star Trek, tropes, TV Tropes, veggies, Wiki Walk | posted in Brain Bubble