Potpourri

Instead of writing lately, I’ve been doing a lot of reading—and watching, and listening, et cetera et cetera et cetera. It’s a big internet out there, kids, and there’s lots to do. Here are some things that have piqued my interest of late.

The Life In A Day Trailer

Is your heart warmed? Mine is (a little). I’m unsure how this kind of footage could sustain more than an aww-inducing trailer, but we’ll see.

This Brian Williams Article

My long-standing crush on Brian Williams is well known and never-ending. In January, on a tour of the NBC studios in New York, I even got to sit in his chair (he was not, unfortunately, also in said chair). This article makes me love him even more. If you aren’t familiar with B Dub’s comedy, I’m not sure where you’ve been for the past few years—the smirky anchor has hosted SNL and made numerous appearances on the likes of 30 Rock and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Slow Jammin’ the News? That’s my jam.

Paul F. Tompkins American Idol Recaps
Do you watch American Idol? Of course you don’t, because it hasn’t been topical or culturally relevant in years. If you do watch it, surely you do so in a haze of boozy intoxication as you play the Official TT.TKO American Idol Drinking Game. In any case, Paul F. Tompkins has been saddled with the sad obligation of watching this season’s American Idol, so you don’t have to. His recaps on New York Magazine’s entertainment site, Vulture, are much more thrilling than actually sitting through the show, and you can drink while you read them just as easily.

The New Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part II Trailer

Go ahead and watch it. I’ll wait. Did you just get chills? I kind of can’t remember much about the latter half of the seventh book—it’s long, and I’ve only read it twice. But I will definitely be in line for the midnight show on July 15th—possibly wearing my Hufflepuff tie (don’t hate)—for this last installment.

Tom Haverfoods and Ron Swanson's Turkey Burger

Eventually the internet and TV will merge into one sentient being, but for now they just link up every so often to make me happy. Last week’s Parks and Recreation featured the inimitable Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) describing his idea of a turkey burger—a fried turkey leg inside a grilled hamburger patty, which sounds impossible but was no match for the internet, who made it a reality. Well, Eater.com did, specifically. The episode also featured a segment of Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) detailing his numerous and varied nicknames for foods, which now exists in convenient website form. You can even submit your own! My favorite may be “butter boats.”

Lastly, I’d like to add that the pinnacle of my existence (aside from an epic kickball win last weekend) came recently in the form of a trivia question that allowed me to utilize my knowledge of the names of both actors who played Darren Stevens on TV’s Bewitched (Dicks York and Sargeant, if you were, like the other unsuspecting trivia teams, unsure). Now you see, hard work does pay off.

Disconnected

I didn’t have to be Amish for long. The power came back on, and thus far no elderly zombies have risen from their earthy graves, stumbling forth in search of brains or grains.

So I guess I dodged that bullet. But of late I’ve been faced with another nearly insurmountable challenge in this 21st century world—for the past few weeks—nay, months—our internet has worked sporadically, at best.

Sure, you could argue that it’s in fact our neighbor’s internet that has worked so sporadically, but potato, potato, I say to you. The truth of the matter is, there have been nights and days I’ve been left with nary a connection to the outside world.

(Except, you know, my cell phone with its internet, and the ability to go outside, and stuff.)

What do you do when that connection is cut, however briefly? I do occasionally get internet fatigue—I spend all day at my job in front of a pair of computer screens, flitting between the internet and a bevy of Microsoft Word documents, after all. There are nights I come home and the last thing I want to do is stare at a screen any longer. But truthfully, I spend much of my home life with my Macbook on my lap or at least within typing distance. Our stubborn connectedness is the curse of my generation, constant information the albatross around our collective necks.

So what happens when the cord is cut? How do you handle it?

For the sake of argument, let’s say leaving the house isn’t possible. I’m not talking about those evenings when you’ve got errands to run and friends to see; I’m talking about those times when you’re flat broke or feel gross or just plain don’t feel like going anywhere.

I know what I usually do. After cycling through a few stages of grief, and repeatedly checking the wireless connection like an insane junkie in need of a fix, I may relent for a bit. I’ve been reading more lately, which would be better if I were reading Crime & Punishment rather than my recent diet of YA Lit and Anthony Bourdain, but it still feels productive to me. Bourdain is pretty badass, after all.

Then what? Well, without real internet, I’ll admit I spend a fair bit of time checking Twitter and Facebook on my phone. What can I say? I get antsy without constant updates by the likes of @drunkhulk and @docpemberton.

Oh, and there’s always TV, isn’t there? Well, there’s not Netflix, not without internet. But without the novelty of streaming, there are still DVDs to be watched, entire seasons of TV shows to be viewed and reviewed. A Buffy marathon is never out of the question.

The paradox, of course, is that whenever you can’t have something, you want it even more. So whenever that sweet stolen internet connection is cut, however briefly, I’m sure to want to stream a specific TV show or pen an epic blog. I can crave the company of a book all day long, but as soon as I’m home and I can’t get online, it’s all I want to do.

Maybe one of these days I’ll really learn to rough it. Turn off all my glowing screens and fill my time with activities that people did just a few short years ago, when all these connections weren’t yet available.

Maybe one day. For now I’m going to go check Twitter and see if anything good’s been posted to reddit. Maybe do an online crossword or download a new podcast to listen to. Roughing it can't be all it's cracked up to be. Can it?

They Know My Name 'Cause I Told It To Them

I know this is a couple days old, which in Internet time means it’s so 2000 and late, but it’s still making me laugh: Who Is Arcade Fire?

For anyone who missed it, Arcade Fire won the Grammy for Album of the Year Sunday night with their 2010 album, The Suburbs. And apparently a few people were a little bit miffed.

The thing is, this band is everywhere. They are headlining (that’s right—headlining) Bonnaroo this summer, as was announced today. Their song Wake Up was prominently featured in every Where The Wild Things Are trailer leading up to its release in October of 2009. It was even the theme song for the 2010 Superbowl! The band themselves turned up in my favorite SNL sketch of all time, which aired in 2007. In every city in every state, somewhere there’s a hipster sipping Schlitz (PBR is so over) and not talking about Arcade Fire, because even talking about how Arcade Fire used to be cool is passé.

I mean, clearly Bieber was robbed, but where I’m the most alarmed is that there are this many people left who still put stock in the Grammys. The Grammys rank just below the People’s Choice Awards in terms of award shows I give credit to, and the People’s Choice Awards are a few rungs below even the Kids’ Choice Awards. There’s very little correlation, I think, between who wins Grammys and who is putting out good music these days, and even that small amount of correlation is incidental. The fact that this year, a good album by a good band won Album of the Year was probably the result of an errant dart throw.

But I mean, Arcade Fire? Who or what is that? How many top 10 singles do they have? I think that band The Suburbs shoulda won.