Interesting blog meme spotted over at Glorfindel of Gondolin's blog: the Caesar's Bath question: 'list five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can't really understand the fuss over. To use the words of Caesar (from History of the World Part I), "Nice. Nice. Not thrilling . . . but nice."'. So let's see....
Celebrity TV poker: The latest TV fashion seems to be to stick actors, or sports personalities, or whatever around a card table and viodeotape them playing poker. Tedious.... I'd rather watch the actors act, or the sportspeople do sporty things.
SUVs: They're ugly, inefficient, and seem to encourage thoughtless, selfish behaviour on the part of their drivers. When I pull into the Sun parking lot next to an SUV, and an otherwise blameless colleague climbs out of it, I never know what to say. ("Are you compensating for something, perhaps?" No, that's tacky.)
TiVo: OK, I know that a couple of times I've been rescued by people with TiVos (when I forgot to record a program), but some people seem to live for their TiVos. They spend ages discussing TiVo hacks, complicated configurations of TiVo boxes and satellite receivers, and so forth....
The Matrix: It's not just friends and colleagues. Even philosphy professors seize on the film as an explanatory device. (Think "brains in vats".) But it wasn't even a good film.... (The Animatrix, a DVD of Matrix backstory details by various anime film-makers, was vastly superior to the film itself.)
Blog hit counts (or page ranks, or whatever): Some of the bloggers I know seem to be obsessed with knowing how many people are reading their stuff. C'mon guys: with all the aggregators around, and spiders (which are getting increasingly clever at disguising themselves), and spambot probes, you can't believe any of the numbers. Just relax and have fun - OK?
Re: TiVo. Back when I first got it and it completely changed the way I watched television, I reckoned it would do the same for anyone who used it. I thought all TiVo had to do was give people a box free for a month, let them become addicted, and make a fortune.
Then when we upgraded a series 1 to a series 2 and gave the old series 1 to friends of ours, I expereinced a reality check. All they do is use it to record shows for their kids! They don't use it to time-shift shows they already watched, they don't use it to find new shows via the suggestion feature. They don't pause live TV if they're interrupted. They don't search for thier favourite actors or directors. They just use it as a permanent repository for Blue's Clues, or Dora the Explorer, or any other number of shows that 5-year-olds watch. I was astonished, but I learned something from that.
Posted by: Mark J Musante at May 7, 2005 06:51 PMHey!!! SUV's???? I am SO shocked!!!
"They're ugly, inefficient, and seem to encourage thoughtless, selfish behaviour on the part of their drivers." ????
I just bought an a small SUV, it is incredibly more efficeint than my previous vehicle. It is not ugly! It is also much smaller than my previous one. I don't feel encouraged to practice thoughtless, selfish behavior by my SUV.
When I was considering buying it, none of my friends with whom I discussed it ever mentioned their SUV prejudges with me.
Compensation for what? A bigger package? LOL!
Posted by: Susan in St. Paul at May 8, 2005 12:05 AMoh I agree with your other 4, but to be fair to TIVO, I have never used it, or even considered it.
Posted by: Susan in St. Paul at May 8, 2005 12:27 AM