Media Update

• Work has been, um, well, work. I find myself coming home and changing into my pajamas right away, eating dinner, and settling in for the night. I've been watching a lot of television.
• In all fairness, I always watch a lot of television. I never believed that old saying, "television will rot your brain!" ("you'll put your eye out, kid!") Mostly because I find myself learning a heck of a lot more about the world we live in through the television shows I watch. I try to watch television shows with plot and character development and a decent story arc (this is where Glee goes down the shitter...)
• Also, a lot of this has to do with the fact that one of my big big big dreams in life is to write for a television show. We'll see.
• I can't be completely snobbish and say I don't watch any reality television shows. I watch Xfactor and The Voice, So You Think You Can Dance, and American Idol. Sometimes, towards the middle of each of these shows, I lose interest though. At one point this fall I think I had 11 "The Voice" tapings to watch at once on my DVR. And, I skip through about 50% (mostly when the hosts are talking - Carson Daley is annoying and A.C. Slater is a hater).
•  On the Xfactor, the only two judges I ever attempt to listen to are Demi and Simon. Britney (God love her - I still do) always has a stank face on, and her speaking voice sounds like she's still 12, so I have to skip through her most of the time. Plus, all she ever says is, "you're amazing, I'm so proud of you, you're a star" to her own contestants, and then sometimes she's not so nice to the others. L.A. on the other hand, he sounds much too diva-ish for my taste, even compared to Britney. I know Randy is a goofball and writes down way too many catch phrases for his dawg dictionizzle, he at least seems like he'd be cool eating a cheeseburger and hanging out. L.A. seems like he'd rather get a pedicure and eat seaweed than do anything like that. Plus, throwing a temper tantrum that he had to mentor the 25+ really turned me off of him. Let's be real, L.A., I didn't know who you were before this show. 
• (If you watch Xfactor and have not seen the results of the semi-finals, I'm giving you fair warning that this is a spoiler.) - Carly Rose, Tate Stevens, and Fifth Harmony remain in the competition. Um, okay, I guess that works. I think Emblem 3 could have replaced either Fifth Harmony or Carly Rose. I think Carly Rose has an incredible voice, especially for a thirteen-year-old. But Britney needs to give her a little more range, and stop with the over-belting. She sang "Imagine" and completely botched it in my opinion, and that kind of made me queasy on her. Not everything needs to be a huge belty note. Imagine is more about the feeling and meaning behind those words, and (I sound really judgmental when I say this) I don't believe a thirteen-year-old grasps that emotion yet. Heck, I don't even know if I do. Instead of conveying emotion, she seemed sassy and ready to hit the high wail, when that's not what that song is intended for. People booed Simon for his critique, but I agreed with him 100%. She probably could've gone home and I would've been sad, but okay with it. Fifth Harmony is good, each girl has a great voice on their own. I am a girl band geek, love me some Spice Girls and Dream. (Don't put me down for Pussycat Dolls, though.) But they really don't do enough harmony for my liking. And a lot of it, I'm not even sure if it is them or the background vocals. I think they did good with the Ellie Goulding song, I think the added production really helped make it interesting so they aren't just standing around, taking turns singing. I'm kinda like "eh" with them. But Tate Stevens...now, I think he needs to win. He's consistent, he has a very pure tone, he puts on a good show....etc, etc. He seems like the one who will actually be a star on his own, without the help of the Xfactor stage.
• I won't even get started on The Voice because I'm behind on it. Except I really like Terry McDermott and oh crap. Blake's girl. It's probably not good that I forgot her name. But I'm behind on it because I'm having a hard time caring. I usually love to tune in to listen to Adam and Blake go back and forth, but there hasn't been a lot of that lately.
• I've also finished Charmed and caught up to the current season of Merlin (I guess I'll have to wait for season 5 to come on Netflix). Fantasy/Sci-Fi has been my go-to television show for awhile now. I switched over to Dawson's Creek because that's my childhood (along with Boy Meets World, which I now have all the seasons on DVD, jelly?)
• As a writer, I hear the wit and cleverness that spew out of Joey's mouth. I appreciate it. I find Dawson to be incredibly naive/hard to relate to (I guess that's not completely fair, as I am not a fifteen/sixteen-year-old male) But his demeanor annoys me. He doesn't seem to have much depth. I can see where Joey's character has the potential to go, as well as Pacey, and if I care to be lenient, Jen. But Dawson seems so two-sided. His mother cheated on his father, and they start having issues at home, which apparently is not a normal thing in his life, and he takes a whopping 5 minutes out of his time to give two shits. He is too worried about his fantasy love life with Jen, who obviously is only interested in the idea of him, rather than the real life him (which I understand. Needy.) So I can see where this living-in-a-fantasy-world is a critical character flaw for Dawson, and mostly I see this because every other character reminds him of it every episode I have seen thus far. The creators feel the need to talk down to the audience, as if we couldn't understand that Dawson's schizophrenia is a real issue, and eventually he's going to have to be pulled out into the real world. We don't need every other argument to be about his inability to process real human emotions, and his constant desire to fall deeper into his movies and imagination to cover his lack of experience in dealing with anything other than Spielberg flicks. We get it. We've heard Joey explain it in a two-minute long speech without taking a break several times.
• In addition to that, I'm really not sure how I feel about the fact that these freshmen in high school are as smart and clever as they are in this show. I don't know about you, but when I was a freshman, I didn't speak the way these "kids" speak. It's not like I had a specific lingo, but I didn't paraphrase (or quote in any exact way) classic literature or old movies to prove a point. Sure, I love(d) old movies, and watched them sometimes. I read classic literature (as I got older. I couldn't barely grasp Pride and Prejudice when I was a junior in high school, let alone a freshman). Maybe it's because they're from the east coast, and the salty air seeps into their brains at night and makes them a hell of a lot smarter than corn brains here in the Midwest. Or (or!) maybe it's because they didn't know what Jersey Shore was, or a Snooki.
• Basically, I'm just unsure of whether or not I would use my love of poetry and words in a way that sounds collegiate or overwhelmingly prose(y) if I were to write for a television show about sex-crazed teenagers. I wouldn't say things like "dope" or "rad" either, but shouldn't there be a comfortable middle? I don't envy Dawson Creek characters for the lives they lead, or the kisses they kiss, or anything like that. I just envy their obvious intelligence as freshmen in high school. Let me pull Wuthering Heights out of my ass and see if I can sound half as clever now, as a college graduate.
• Why is this post so ridiculously long.
• This shows my priorities.
• I can't write about anything in particular/I can't write in my own book, but I can write an extremely long blog post about television shows.
• I have to go to bed soon, to wake up, to go back to work.
• I was just at work. Seriously. When does life begin?
• (insert clever prose(y) answer from Joey about life in one big breath).