The great TV experiment of 09 - Thanksgiving break

Perhaps the thing I was most excited for was the intense TV experiment I had planned for myself. It had been really hectic right before break, so I fell behind on my weekly TV watching. Also, I like to tell myself that I watch most of these because I'v fallen into the habit of them and it wouldn't kill me if I stopped watching one.

So, in an effort to test my "I can quit anytime I want theory", I decided to stave off these shows for a month. Any show that I didn't feel like catching up with after said month, I was going to drop till rerun season. These are the shows I started off with:

Californication

Community

Cougar Town

Desperate Housewives

Family Guy

Flash Forward

Ghost Whisperer

Gossip Girl

House

How I Met Your Mother

Lie To Me

Modern Family

Private Practice

The Big Bang Theory

The Middle

The Simpsons

The end of the month long TV rehab was yesterday.

Which ones lived?

Which ones bit the dust?

We shall see!

The Art of Communal Solitude

I am currently partaking in what has become a ritual in today's age. I am sitting, laptop open, iced caramel machiatto in hand, right by the window in a Starbucks. I had what qualifies for a bad day yesterday, and I decided I just wanted to be alone for a while. Now, I live in an apartment all by myself where I have all the things I need (including coffee, specifically from Starbucks), and yet, I got dressed up, left my very very *very* comfy bed, took two buses, and voila! Here I am sipping a 5 dollar brew overlooking an exceedingly busy street.

So what is it that brought me, and another 20 odd humans, here, in the middle of the day? Free time? Everybody, me including, are busy typing away on their laptops or reading books and such. Coffee? I've been sitting here for about an hour and a half, my drinks reached the point of being mostly water, and this is true for the 8 people in my field of vision. The need to get work done? As far as I can see, three people are on farmville, two are intently staring out the window, two are on the phone, and I am reading John Mayer's twitter page.

Carrie Bradshaw once hypothesized that all the people sitting in Starbucks were not being pretentious, they were all people mid-fight. Wise words, true, but I have a different hypothesis. The reason we gravitate towards places that are inherently crowded even when we are looking to be left alone is because it's no fun to be left alone, alone.

Think about it. I wanted to not have to deal with anybody, and where did I land up? One of the most popular caffeine peddlers right next to campus during lunch. That, in itself, is an oxymoron if there ever was one. However, here I am. Because while I want to be alone, I don't want to avoid humanity. And even if I did, as I successfully am doing now, it's a subconscious desire to almost never want to be completely alone.

This, and I am copyrighting this, is the art of communal solitude. We all wanted to be alone, whether to finish a paper, read a book, harvest stuff on farmville or stalk celebrities on twitter, we all wanted to be alone. So we all came together, overpaid for a cup of coffee, sat down in the leather couches, plugged in our headphones, and commenced being completely alone, together.

Communal Solitude.

(If they ever sell out, Starbucks should definitely factor this in as a part of their intangibles. Yay for paying attention in accounting)

I'm Better!

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Tales of the Flu victim

As of this friday, I have officially become one of the many diagnosed with a "flu-like" illness. Since I am now essentially in forced isolation for a week, I have a lot more time on my hands. This doesn't help the fact that I don't have any will to live left, but well, at least I have TONS of time on my hands. It's times like this, when I'm sick and just want to curl up and die, that I really really wish I hadn't picked a college so far away from home. Needless to say, I would kill for a little bit of my mom's home cooked anything.

But, well, she's 13 time zones away, so I decided to help myself. I decided to whip out my famous lasagna with soup, essentially the same as regular lasagna, but instead of cheese I use condensed soup. I know it sounds like it would be a gooey mess, but hey, you would be surprised what a little cornflour can do. Also, my tonsils are swollen, so a little lumpy lasagna sounded great. So I dragged myself out of bed, defrosted, washed and assembled the requisite ingredients, heated the oven, set the timer to an hour, and flopped back in bed.

Usually, the entire apartment starts smelling like soup within the first ten minutes, but it had been about 40 minutes and I realized that I still couldn’t smell it. It was weird, though I just assumed the fact that I had tissue papers stuffed in both my nostrils was contributing to the whole lack of smell. Every inch of me was hurting, so I really didn't want to have to get up if I didn't need to. I assumed, as the weak often do, that everything was fine.

Another 15 minutes go by and I remember that if overcooked, the thing starts to taste like my famous burnt lasagna, so I decided to go the kitchen to check on the dish that should have been bubbling right about now, my stomach screaming in hunger.

So I walk in. The oven light was on, the timer had another 5 minutes.

The dish was sitting, untouched, on the kitchen counter.

As it had, for the past hour.

Damn you, Nyquil.