Taking a little break from work to catch up with my Friends™.
It’s nice to be busy, makes relaxation time feel more worth it! Not that I’ve been lacking for that. There’s been a lot more time for TV and movies since I came out here. Ticked off the first season of the Expanse™ (five stars), and have even gotten into WWE™ now it’s on Netflix™.
It’s nice to immerse myself in a different culture for a bit.
Even one as dumb as America’s.
“The One With Too Much Film & TV”
And yet, it’s hard not to get a little stir crazy. Sitting around watching a screen is all well and good. But sometimes it makes me feel a bit like I’m still in the pandemic. That feeling of killing time rather than really living… Hrrm, maybe I should go check out the Met™? Get some art down me. A portal to a different realm.
But then, isn’t TV art? A portal that reflects our life back at us?
Right now it’s telling me about how funny everyone dressed in 1987, or is it 2008… Man I really am losing track of time out here.
We’re remembering a classic college party. Or, the Friends™ are. I can never remember anything in this level of technicolour.
Yet, the more we look back (or forward…) the less present we are in the… well present. And now social media keeps that window always open. Our college days preserved forever in a haze of amber.
It’s nice to be busy, makes relaxation time feel more worth it! Not that I’ve been lacking for that. There’s been a lot more time for TV and movies since I came out here. Ticked off the first season of the Expanse™ (five stars), and have even gotten into WWE™ now it’s on Netflix™.
It’s nice to immerse myself in a different culture for a bit.
Even one as dumb as America’s.
“The One With Too Much Film & TV”
And yet, it’s hard not to get a little stir crazy. Sitting around watching a screen is all well and good. But sometimes it makes me feel a bit like I’m still in the pandemic. That feeling of killing time rather than really living… Hrrm, maybe I should go check out the Met™? Get some art down me. A portal to a different realm.
But then, isn’t TV art? A portal that reflects our life back at us?
Right now it’s telling me about how funny everyone dressed in 1987, or is it 2008… Man I really am losing track of time out here.
We’re remembering a classic college party. Or, the Friends™ are. I can never remember anything in this level of technicolour.
Yet, the more we look back (or forward…) the less present we are in the… well present. And now social media keeps that window always open. Our college days preserved forever in a haze of amber.
Why does it sometimes feel like I remember them better than yesterday? Is it the pictures saved and stored in our online scrap-book forever? (Or for as long as the data centres hold out). Or is it that those memories were forged before a decade of drinking and brain-rot from constant smart-phone use?
My wife and I were reminiscing on the phone the other day about our first date. We didn’t even know it was a date. We just met to catch up after Uni. See what we were both up to now. And that day changed our lives forever. We got swept up in the heady mix of excitement from meeting someone attractive and new and sure of themself, yet with just enough nostalgia from school for things to be relaxed and feel easy.
We had such a nice time I crashed their friends birthday dinner (who I also knew from school) and we carried on into the evening. And into the next week, and into the next decade.
And now I stand on the streets of New York, untethered, with only any new friends I make myself ahead of me. It’s a little terrifying if I’m honest.
I guess we’re all feeling nostalgic, as we come to the end of this decade together.
It’s hard to imagine where we’ll be next year, or even five, seven years from now… If only we had some sort of seer, like the ancient Pharaoh in the story of Joseph and his magical dreamcoat and OH MY GOD, IT’S DONNY OSMOND.
No, I don’t mean Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat.
My wife and I were reminiscing on the phone the other day about our first date. We didn’t even know it was a date. We just met to catch up after Uni. See what we were both up to now. And that day changed our lives forever. We got swept up in the heady mix of excitement from meeting someone attractive and new and sure of themself, yet with just enough nostalgia from school for things to be relaxed and feel easy.
We had such a nice time I crashed their friends birthday dinner (who I also knew from school) and we carried on into the evening. And into the next week, and into the next decade.
And now I stand on the streets of New York, untethered, with only any new friends I make myself ahead of me. It’s a little terrifying if I’m honest.
I guess we’re all feeling nostalgic, as we come to the end of this decade together.
It’s hard to imagine where we’ll be next year, or even five, seven years from now… If only we had some sort of seer, like the ancient Pharaoh in the story of Joseph and his magical dreamcoat and OH MY GOD, IT’S DONNY OSMOND.
No, I don’t mean Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat.
(What are the odds I'd get in the word “technicolour” twice??)
I swear I just walked past the actual Donny Osmond!
Perhaps I should explain a bit. As much as I am allowed. We’re taking a tour of a TV studio as part of my new job. They’re shooting some sort of TV quiz with Donny Osmond hosting, and Matt Le Blanc is a guest. The show’s pretty crap to be honest. It’s basically just articulate.
I used to love playing that with my wife…
I wonder how she’s doing?
Sorry, back to our Friends™. Phoebe is disappointed with the distinct lack of dick at her bachelorette party. (Aren’t we all?)
Monica calls in a last minute stripper and OH MY GOD! IT’S FRANK FROM ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA™.
No, not in the studio. He’s the stripper. And why the hell not? Philadelphia isn’t that far from New York… Though he’s a little old to be a stripper.
I swear I just walked past the actual Donny Osmond!
Perhaps I should explain a bit. As much as I am allowed. We’re taking a tour of a TV studio as part of my new job. They’re shooting some sort of TV quiz with Donny Osmond hosting, and Matt Le Blanc is a guest. The show’s pretty crap to be honest. It’s basically just articulate.
I used to love playing that with my wife…
I wonder how she’s doing?
Sorry, back to our Friends™. Phoebe is disappointed with the distinct lack of dick at her bachelorette party. (Aren’t we all?)
Monica calls in a last minute stripper and OH MY GOD! IT’S FRANK FROM ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA™.
No, not in the studio. He’s the stripper. And why the hell not? Philadelphia isn’t that far from New York… Though he’s a little old to be a stripper.
(Aren’t you a little short to be a stormtro... stripper?)
Strangely he looks younger than when I last saw him… But either way, the girls aren’t happy.
After making him cry, they convince him to quit stripping forever. Then feel sorry for him. And, it’s quite sweet actually, seeing them pretend to be into it to give him one last dance. And here’s me thinking, now I’m away from the kids, I wouldn’t be spending any time pretending to be impressed by a crap dance!
Chandler and Ross have got to their reunion. They’ve remembered when they made a pact not to sleep with certain people. Hey, just like being married!
Only it turns out (shock horror) that Chandler broke the pact! Naughty boy. Doesn’t he know those pacts are sacred?!
But it gets worse.
He then admits to Ross that he kissed Rachel too! Come on now… how has something THAT big never come up?!
But again, it gets worse.
Ross thought HE kissed Rachel that night. Let’s just gloss over for a second that this was after he found her passed out in a pile of coats…
It turns out it’s totally fine. The kiss was “100%” “consensual”. And anyway it wasn’t even Rachel.
It was actually Monica.
Ew. EW. EW. EW.
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
After the tour we went to take in a movie to all get to know each other a bit better. Because nothing says “getting to know you” like sitting in the dark in silence.
Though perhaps I gave away a little too much of myself… I took my popcorn with me to the toilet. My new colleagues were a little weirded out and offered to hold it for me. But I suddenly felt all protective and paranoid about leaving it with two hungry mouths.
Hrrm. Maybe Joey’s rubbing off on me…
Strangely he looks younger than when I last saw him… But either way, the girls aren’t happy.
After making him cry, they convince him to quit stripping forever. Then feel sorry for him. And, it’s quite sweet actually, seeing them pretend to be into it to give him one last dance. And here’s me thinking, now I’m away from the kids, I wouldn’t be spending any time pretending to be impressed by a crap dance!
Chandler and Ross have got to their reunion. They’ve remembered when they made a pact not to sleep with certain people. Hey, just like being married!
Only it turns out (shock horror) that Chandler broke the pact! Naughty boy. Doesn’t he know those pacts are sacred?!
But it gets worse.
He then admits to Ross that he kissed Rachel too! Come on now… how has something THAT big never come up?!
But again, it gets worse.
Ross thought HE kissed Rachel that night. Let’s just gloss over for a second that this was after he found her passed out in a pile of coats…
It turns out it’s totally fine. The kiss was “100%” “consensual”. And anyway it wasn’t even Rachel.
It was actually Monica.
Ew. EW. EW. EW.
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
After the tour we went to take in a movie to all get to know each other a bit better. Because nothing says “getting to know you” like sitting in the dark in silence.
Though perhaps I gave away a little too much of myself… I took my popcorn with me to the toilet. My new colleagues were a little weirded out and offered to hold it for me. But I suddenly felt all protective and paranoid about leaving it with two hungry mouths.
Hrrm. Maybe Joey’s rubbing off on me…
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