Dr Who's on first?

Notepad needed

I really have to start jotting down Blog ideas ... they hit me at various times during the day. Or I see something really outlandishly absurd ... ponder it, and think I'll remember to get at it as soon as I get home.

And then I get to the couch at the end of the day, and a beer(s) or wine(s) appear in my hand. And the funny ideas are relegated to the back of the slush pile that is my brain.

This one just reappeared, however. And what do you know ... here I sit as the PPEBKAC - the Pesky Problem Evident Between Keyboard and Chair. (An IT term that helpdesk guys use for people who ring up with a problem that can only best be described thusly, as the user of said machine's innate issue with sanity or basic concepts).

Memes that are hipper and cooler than the actual thing

Dr Who is the big one for me. Yep, I'll say it – I have never watched an episode.

I've tried watching a few, but it's just so low-budget and corny. It doesn't appeal.

There's great SciFi out there that is cool, dramatic, has excellent writing/execution and FX. (Note: I refuse to use the newer, bastardised version "SyFy"). I give you Star Trek TNG and DSN, and most specifically, Firefly, and the most recent Battlestar Galactica as prime examples of great SciFi.

A hipster dude flying around in a phone booth with some magical skills/gizmos at hand to save himself – at the last second – from any scenario (see: the Sonic Screwdriver, or, the Flying Phone Booth) does not a great show make. Nor are non-frightening villains comprised of what appears to be tin foil, Xmas lights, and wheels off a shopping cart – who roll around slowly, and which are incapable of climbing a flight of stairs – capable of creating high drama.

I don't seem to be the only one who feels this way, either, if the denizens on sites like Fark and Imgur can be trusted.

How this seems to work: when a photo of a Doctor (any one of the 10 or so, but most specifically, David Tennant) appears online, people coo and gush and say how cool he is/looks, he's the Best Doctor, wow what a great guy, yadda yadda. The 'meme' phrasing (text on the photo) involved is also commented on greatly, as a cool and hip thing. I enjoy that to a minor degree. But that's as far as it goes ... I won't watch the show, due to the aforementioned cheeziness of it all.

So it does seem possible for a concept to be far cooler in 'meme' form than the actual (low-rent, silly, un-cool) thing itself. Another case in point: quoting a famous line from a show (for some reason, Scooby's "ruh-roh" from the Scooby Doo cartoon comes to mind. Amusing unto itself, but the cartoon episode experience itself is dreary and repetitive ... it's not even in the same league as Warner Bros. classics like Bugs Bunny and his pals).

I'm the same way with cars. I don't drive, never have, don't have a license. I don't want either, for two reasons: (1) Cars are unnecessary money pits for a city dweller. For the amount of use an average urban person gets out of a car, renting one for the truly necessary trips makes far more sense. You get a brand new car every time. And for most of the rest of your life, you are commuting to work 5 out of every 7 days. Your purchased car sits gathering rust and depreciates steadily, and is of no use at all, for nearly 72% of the time.

Transit is reliable and cheap for the going-to-work thing. Sure, it can be slow ... but if you're in a BIG hurry, cabs are fast, reliable, and cheap (compared to owning a car – factor in the big initial cost of the beast and/or payments ... then consider depreciation, petrol, insurance and parking ... suddenly that cab ride is really cheap), and; (2) Not having a license means I've avoided the unavoidable trouble, grief, woe and peril of me being behind the wheel of ANY piece of Detroit Rolling Iron. People who know me can vouch for this sensible decision. The world is far better off WITHOUT me being legally capable of driving.

But purely from the sense of design, the top-end cars of the world are pretty damn cool – to LOOK at. For instance, the Astin Martin Vanquish that appeared in the movie The Italian Job (the most current one, with the über sexy Charlize Theron). THAT is a cool car to look at. A cool guy drives it (Handsome Rob). It is stylish and goes fast and people in the movie who know of Handsome Rob and his Vanquish think that whole scenario is very hip and cool.

Or, just think of any car from any Bond movie. Cool guy, fancy flashy car (quirky gizmos and weapons are an added bonus).

Cool guy, stylin' car and hot babe = great movie. And, the car's a true meme.

Assemble all these elements, present them to me on a big screen with a good plot, and I'm entertained. The car is an ingredient in the mix that I love. But I don't want one. I want to enjoy the hijinks Handsome Rob gets up to in it. Then I think maybe one day Handsome Rob and I are friends, and he'll occasionally drive me around in it for a while. We'll listen to good music and talk, then meet up with Charlize for a drink. Or to plan the next caper.

Beerly speaking, part II

In a previous blog I babbled on about the latest trend here in Wellington/NZ – the craft beer explosion. (Not exploding beer ... that would be messy and senseless, and a waste of perfectly good beer). Rather, how popular the concept of many new small breweries is, and how they provide a veritable cornucopia of astoundingly fantastic beer for those of us who like such things. Said beer is easily discovered and consumed in many bars around town now.

Specifically, before, I talked about how lovers of this good beer would gather in the few (but growing number of!) specialised pubs here, and talk about the beer. A lot. In fact, most of the conversations centred around the beer, how cool we were for liking and having it, and how silly anyone else was who didn't imbibe.

I have shorter, but fun, beer-related conversations with my usual (and lovely) coffee barista, Laura.  She is one of us 'craft beer' lovers, with a refined taste for good hoppy IPAs and APAs. We often chat about new bars that have opened (and there have been a lot in the last couple of years). Just recently, we realised that we now have more choices of places for going out specifically for great beer than ever before – to the point where we don't even consider going to "lesser bars" that only serve the mass-produced Big Brands. Wellington has become a truly robust pub-culture town with a big percentage of bars catering to just this very thing – tasty, interesting craft beer made by talented local brewers.

There are many such pubs now. And due to Wellington's compact size, they're all notoriously easy to get to for a night of pub crawling.

Perhaps soon we'll pepper our 'within-pub' conversations with more topics, other than just the amazingness of this or that beer, the poor saps who don't know any better ... and are elsewhere swizzling down substandard swill like Tui or Heineken ... and wow, what's that unique NEW beer taste like? 

Not that those are bad topics. But there are other things to rabbit on about ... like what superheroes are going to be in the next Avengers movie? And holy shit, did you see that Game of Thrones ep last night? Wow, Tyrion really got shitfaced!

Little dude can put away a LOT of wine!

The Periodic Table of Elemental Junk Food

I've noted from time to time, when in a foggy, hungover state and standing in line at the local McDonald's (purveyors of truly atrocious substances they call food ... but wow, what a great hangover cure that crap is!) certain folks who seem stymied and perplexed with the menu.

And they are always standing in front of me. This is one of life's fundamental absurdities: what adult in the last, oh, 70+ years McDonald's has been operating and rabidly advertising, doesn't know what McDonald's sells? It's the same menu, all ... over ... the ... WORLD.

Barring perhaps one local/regional menu item, it's been the same. For 70+ years. 

There are four substances available: pseudo beef, faux fish, chicken-maybe, and something that shares some of the DNA of a potato.

And yet here's another adult, in front of my hungover ass, seemingly from a 1st world country, staring at the menu like it's the Periodic Table of Elements. They've been at it for some time, too ... to the point where even the cashier is beginning to look uncomfortable. The really stymied ones will even ask questions about the four choices. "Can I get a small sized one?", or "What's the fish like?"

How about NO, and, vaguely fish-like in its compressed squareness?

I suppose if McDonald's gets wind of the fact that there are people who don't know what might be on offer at their 'restaurants' (loose term), they'll redouble their advertising efforts, and we'll get even MORE of their insipid video-gruel advertising forced on us while watching TV.

I'm NOT lovin' it.

That's enough absurdities for now. I do have more in the RAM of my brain, but I'll give it a rest and get some coffee. Then start another one. Some time.

Yours, in absurdity.