the airing cupboard

This fall I’ve grown more and more angry at the current crop of snowballing turds that are paraded around as THE BEST SHOWS EVER. Why are they THE BEST SHOWS EVER? Because they’ve been on for such a long time, dummy! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the formula, which is why it’s basically the same twenty minutes of shit shoveling week in and week out. People LOVE shit shoveling! Give the people what they want!

My main annoyance is The Office and all of the blind praise it gets. I haven’t watched a full episode since the season five premiere, but from the snippets I’ve seen lately it’s only gotten worse. I tried to watch this past week’s episode, “Niagra”, but could only stomach it in small thirty second doses. It’s cringeworthy to watch, but not in the intended cringeworthy way. The Office has gone from an awkward everyday social situation comedy to a dime store, bargain bin, cheap lazy laughs parody of itself.

As far as I can tell, The Office is THE BEST SHOW EVER because:

• Jim and Pam!
• It references YouTube videos!
• Dwight talks about nerdy things that I like!
• Jim and Pam!
• Dwight wears ironic nerdy shirts!
• There’s always a great new catchphrase!
• Jim and Pam!
• Wacky things happen!
• Creed does something unexpected, but it’s soooooo Creed!
• Jim and Pam!
• It references a popular internet meme that I know about!
• There’s no laugh track, so that automatically equals SMART COMEDY.

Another reason this show irritates me is because it used to be good. Really good, in fact. And consistently funny. But around the end of the forth season it started to wear thin, and now it’s completely overstayed its welcome.

But there is hope! NBC is looking at these potential pilots for next year: “Civic Center”, “School Board”, and another British sitcom that’ll be sodomized into a glorified MadTV. Clear out your DVRs!

Up until about three weeks ago I was still in the dark ages without digital cable. So now that I have it I look forward to stuff like this happening less frequently:

Aw, and right when Samantha was about to dispel some whorish wisdom from her gaping maw.

This is the rare funny version of “Shallow Hal”.

84 minutes of this. 84 MINUTES OF THIS. This is worse than waking up to a Spin Doctor’s song.

About six years ago I was on my second attempt at English 101. The first essay assignment was to write about a life changing experience with specific instructions that it could not be about sex, drugs, or alcohol. At that time I was about to turn twenty and this proved quite a challenge to me. The closest thing to a life changing experience I’d ever had at that point was driving by myself into Chicago for a concert and getting so lost that I almost ended up in Indiana on the way home. I tried to make it into something passable, but it just didn’t work. Because it wasn’t life changing. It didn’t change anything about my life besides having a road trip adventure gone awry under my belt.

I ended up dropping the English class.

If I had Future Goggles or a crystal ball I could’ve told the professor that I’d just e-mail him my essay in five or six years, when something profound and life changing will have been bound to happen to me. It’s been a year since this event has taken place, and to date it was the best week ever in my entire life; no exaggeration. I went to visit my best friend who I had known for about four years, starting out as LiveJournal comments, to emails, to regular phone calls and texts. Inseparable BFFS as far as technology goes. So with the help of my job’s vacation time and my tax return, I booked a trip to visit her in New York.

I can break down the basic life changing aspects of this trip easily:
- It was my first vacation ever.
- It was the first time traveling on a plane, by myself to boot.
- It was the first time meeting the best friend I’ve ever had in my entire life in the flesh.

True friendships are something I feel that a lot of people take for granted. All of my life I’ve been burned by people whom I’ve thought were my real friends. Then I just gave up trying. It’s not worth it to go through the motions with people that make you cringe and feel terrible, just to have someone to hang out with. So finding a genuinely good friend is almost one in a million, at least in my experience. And having only one week to spend with your BFF makes it all the more special.

I felt more at home there than I feel in my own home sometimes. It was a devastating blow to have to come back to Illinois and my ever increasingly shitty job. The Monday after I got back I powered on my work computer, got logged in to everything, and just started sobbing silently, although I’m sure the hens picked up on it. I left my desk and went to the bathroom to calm down. I felt displaced, like that wasn’t where I was supposed to be.

As far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to go to New York. And the city was exactly like it is in the movies. Just a giant carnival of indescribable excitement. There’s also that aspect of, “THIS PLACE REALLY EXISTS.”

When I was in sixth grade I bought a 13″ TV with my birthday money. I faked sick one day so I could stay home and channel surf. It was then that I had the revelation that TV does, indeed, still broadcast during the day. Much like that, I realized that NYC does, indeed, exist. All the time. In real life. Not just in movies and television. And I was there. And I didn’t want to leave, ever.

So that’s my life changing experience. Or many life changing experiences all rolled into one. Eat that retroactively, Professor Dickturd.