Not the ABC of Keith

Lots of people are doing the ABC thing. But I'm a contrarian and love being out of step with the world, so I'm not going to do it. But I feel like writing. Who knows where this will go?

How out of step, you ask? Well, some women in the elevator the other day were talking about some kid named Beaver that cut his hair and sold some locks for big bucks. They were devastated. I thought they were talking about the TV show Leave it to Beaver, but no, this is some entertainer kid that's popular these days. I have no idea. Please don't tell me. I don't want to kill some brain cells on that.

When Ocean's 11 came out I knew it would be a bad movie because it was a remake of an old 60's flick. I confused hell out of the kid at Rogers by asking for the real version, not the 2001 remake. He didn't believe me till he checked it out on line.

My world is full of moments like that. Some bit of popular culture will come up and I'll look blank. There was a discussion one spin class of great workout music. I didn't recognize anything that was mentioned, with one exception. Nine Inch Nails were the only group that I'd ever heard of, but I'd never heard any of their music. For all I know I still haven't. Or maybe I have. All sorts of stuff has gone by during spin class that I ignore. (The "music", not the spin class." I actually find it a bit odd listening to music during spin. With my ears if there's music playing I probably can't hear the instructor. Speaking of popular culture, since I've heard of Lady Gaga, I'm assuming she's over and gone back to wherever she came from?

I don't follow sports, so when people talk about the Flames game, or more likely, I overhear conversation about football, REAL football not that overdressed pap they play in America,  I have no idea. I've only seen the Flames live twice in the 30+ years I've lived here, and we won the tix both times. That's twice more than I've seen Flames games on TV.

You see, there's another great crime of mine, I don't watch TV. We don't have cable. No sat dish. No nothing except for DVD's we get from the library, buy, or rent. I firmly believe that TV turns your brains into tapioca pudding, and one day aliens that love tapioca pudding are going to show up and all of you will be getting your brains sucked out of your head. The world will be a much more sensible place afterwards, I trust.

The Oscars are over for another year. People in the elevator again, talking about the strangest things. I figured out long ago the Oscars are nothing but an incestuous event for insiders, and has nothing to do with deciding who the best actors are, or what the best movie was. I assume that all movies put out by Hollywood are shit. I figure I'll find out about the .01% that are an exception to this rule sooner or later, and meanwhile, I've saved a ton of time avoiding having shit piped into my brain at excessive volume. To say nothing about saving a pile of money. Movies in the theatre are expensive for what you get.

Even books are going down the drain. So many of them read like the author is doing a paint by numbers thing. It's very depressing. I read one book by a famous author who's name you'd all recognize. It was terrible and long. If they'd cut out one whole meaningless sub-plot out it would have been a much better book. A third shorter, but better. I figure the editor was afraid to argue with him since he was so famous, or worse, there was no editor.

And then there's Dan Brown. (Shudder) I was in a book club where one girl LOVED Dan Brown and every time it was her turn to pick, another of his books came up. The Da Vinci Code was one of the worst books I've ever read in my life. My digestion was upset for weeks after, just thinking of it. By the time the third book came up I couldn't take it and dropped out. It's right down there with Meyer's Twilight mess, and Harry Potter. Unreadable, all of it. Popular, but unreadable.

I was dubious about Facebook for a long time, but finally joined. After a bit of training to make it ignore anything app produced, and always come up with the home page in recent posts order, and getting the privacy setting right, I've enjoyed it. I banter with buddies, have caught up with some family, and occasionally get links that really interest me that I never would have found another way. However, I'm really clear that facebook isn't life. I've got work, a social life, and training that needs to happen. Sometimes I get behind on blogging or facebook because of that, and that's ok. Speaking of being behind, this is cutting into my time to get ready for tomorrow's swim, a DVD show I want to watch (Leverage with Gina Bellman, if you're interested) and most importantly, sleep. Gotta go.