Perhaps memes aren’t quite as dead as I said they were the other day. Case in point: I’ve been “tagged” by my friend and occasional commenter, Jen Broschinsky. The meme she passes along to me is a toughie; I’ve read a heckuva lot of books in my life, but I have a hard time when people ask me to start ranking, rating, or quantifying them. Still, what can you do when you’ve been tagged by a fellow blogger? I give it the old college try below the fold:
When the series 24 premiered way back in 2001 (has it really been that long ago? Wow…), I thought it was brilliant, inventive, exciting, and, above all, grown-up television. Yeah, the plot was full of holes when you viewed it from the mile-high, all-season-long perspective, and the show suffered a bit from the “one-damn-thing-after-another” quality of the cliffhanger serials from which it descended. But when taken episode by episode, 24 was (and still is, despite its flaws) compellingly watchable, suspenseful storytelling that makes a strong argument for serialized TV drama being the modern-day equivalent of Dickens’ episodic novels.
I’ve loyally stuck with 24 for the past five seasons, but I must admit that I’ve done so with an increasing sense of discomfort. My growing ambivalence for the show is partly a result of the inevitable decline that comes as any TV series ages out — in other words, the concept is just getting tired — but a much bigger issue for me is the question of torture.
Jaquandor turned me onto this geography quiz thingie, which asks you to name as many states as you can in 10 minutes. I went into it rather cockily, figuring I spent all those years reading National Geographic, so I ought to clean up, right? Eh, not so much… I named 40 states in about four minutes, then managed to pick up only three more as the clock ticked off the final six minutes. I couldn’t for the life of me think of Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, or Wisconsin.
I think I’ll skip the one that asks you to name 192 U.N. member states in 10 minutes. I’ve already been humbled enough for one morning…
When I received my very first debit card (completely unsolicited, I should note) ten or twelve years or however long ago, I was unimpressed. The way I saw it, I had no need for this new-fangled card thingie. I used cash for most of my transactions, and, in the immortal words of grumpy old men everywhere, that was how I liked it. Once a week, I happily went to my neighborhood bank branch in person — no doubt with an onion tied to my belt, as was the style of the time — to obtain that week’s allotment of greenbacks. There, I enjoyed talking to a pretty teller who actually recognized my face and acted happy to see me, a definite fringe benefit to my cash-only way of doing things. (Must’ve been the onion.)
Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein
I imagine editors just live for the chance to write a headline like that…