Monday, July 22, 2013

I'd make him a sammich

I said that about someone the other day. Can't remember whether it was Richard Armitage or Tom Hiddleston.

Might have been Cumberbatch.

I'm missing UK land pretty bad right now. It's been a year since our adventures and I'm tripping down memory lane line a newborn deer, giraffe, hybrid-creature in hotsuace... my thoughts are getting away from me.

They're not all winners, but they all make me smile because they're part of a whole that was legitimately amazing.

Like the following impromptu lesson in Cognitive Dissonance, specifically the whole ability to minimize the discomfort associated with regret, or whatever the hell it's called, I'm not getting my old textbook out.

See, everyone makes mistakes. Big and small, it's an unavoidable part of being a person. That's not nearly as much in our control as we pretend it is. However, the way that we deal with those mistakes, varies from person to person, and I at least, think a lot of that has to do with our choices rather than our brain chemistry.

So, I'm going to illustrate this with a story from one of our trips to London. It's really not the best story, not gonna lie, but it's made me laugh until I cry the couple of times that someone has brought it up again.

It's probably a 'you had to be there' thing.

Anyway, this is the story of some disappointing sandwiches.

We were running all over the place, being obnoxious touristy Americans and generally just being happy to be alive and we kept forgetting about eating. By the time we remembered everyone was feeling quite faint and so we basically ran into the first little Tesco type place that we could find and grabbed some of those boxed sandwiches, because it's food! We wanted food. That's all.

So, Angela and Guinness both ended up with very disappointing sandwiches. Angela complained about her's through three bites, then tried taking it apart and eating the pieces separately, as if that would help. When this didn't work, she ended up throwing most of the sandwich out, but now she was starving and didn't want to spend any more money (and wouldn't let anyone spot her, too much pride, that Angela). She dealt with this the way that I suspect she deals with everything and she complained about it...

You don't understand though, because I haven't finished. She complained about it FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK.

No joke. She found every opportunity she possibly could to talk about how horrible this sandwich had been.

It got so ridiculous that at one point she started to talk about the damn sammich again and I burst into maniacal laughter and she still doesn't know what that was about. She pretty much drove me mad with her talk of soggy Tesco sandwich.

Meanwhile, Guinness also had a disappointing sandwich. She bit into it, frowned at me and said "Ugh, that is terrible," then proceeded to eat the whole thing, because she was hungry. She made a face, washed her mouth out with Coke and then lived her life like nothing had happened. (Because, let's be honest, nothing had happened).

She didn't think about it or bring it up. In fact, she forgot about it completely, which we realized the next time we went to Tesco for a quick meal and she purchased the same sandwich for a second time, bit into it and then said "Oh yeah... I didn't like this one."

And then she ate it.

So, while Angela is the extreme example of maximizing cognitive dissonance, Guinness is the extreme example of minimizing cognitive dissonance.

There's got to be a happy medium in there. Someone who would eat the sandwich out of necessity but remember not to buy it again...

I'd like to think that's me, but according to Guinness I slid along the scale depending on what has displeased me and whether or not I'm writing.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

I don’t want to talk about the LSAT

I want to talk about TV.

I finally got around to watching everything that I told people I would try, on their advice.

Supernatural

I gave the television show Supernatural, what has to be its fifth chance to impress me. Like a new organ I’m not sure I need (like an extra spleen or something) I kept rejecting it. 

The LSAT has damaged my ability to come up with similes.

Most fan I know watch Supernatural because they are in love with one of the two main guys. So, that left me with the impression of a show that must cater towards that crowd. (Turns out I was at least partially wrong, there is a legitimately interesting story-line). 

Don’t get me wrong, they’re very attractive man-type blokes, but you know what? they don’t do it for me.

Here’s why. Sam (Jared Padalecki) looks like and reminds me far too much of a very platonic friend of mine and Dean (Jensen Ackles) well… he’s called Jensen. As in, he has the same first name as my little sister.

So… No.

Maybe I should be a Castiel (Misha Collins) girl. We’ll see. I do like a deep voice, me.

Tangent—but necessary, probably—so, this time, for whatever reason, I’m thoroughly enjoying the show and I’m not sure what turned me off about it the previous times I was subjected to viewing it’s episodes.

I swear there’s got to be a Mormon writer on staff, secretly trolling about, adding little Mormon tid-bits here and there. Michael in Adam's body. Modern day prophets, “The New New Testament”. Pretty sure I didn’t imagine the phrase “War in Heaven” appearing somewhere.

But honestly, the thing I really love about the show is the relationship between the Wayward Sons, Sam and Dean, Bobby (Jim Beaver--every time Bobby appears on screen everyone in the vicinity cries out "BOBBY!") It's like a drinking game, but more obnoxious. And, now that I've finally gotten this far... Castiel. Who doesn't love a stoic fallen angel guardian thing?

New Girl! 

Okay, I tried it.

I got one episode in and I thought it was really cute and then I watched ten minutes of the next episode and I had to stop.

I’ll give it another go in a few weeks, but I need some time to mourn and then hopefully forget about Coach. I liked Coach!

Guinness thinks it's because the actor and miss New Girl herself had noticeable chemistry and it derailed their planned plot. If that is what happened.... that's stupid.

Robin Hood (BBC)

BBC's Robin Hood was exactly as terrible as the person who told me to watch it initially admitted, but I still watched every episode and freakin' loved it. Robin Hood is really, quite, tres, muy, bien not a good show. The actors are surprisingly great. They're having fun, and I went ahead and had fun with them. There's a fan theory out there that the entire story is actually taking place during a renaissance fair, which would explain all the anachronisms. After I heard this (around episode 3) I went ahead and accepted it as head canon and you know what, it made the show REALLY amazing to watch.

So, every time someone 'dies' I figure that they actually needed to take off and go do something in their normal life, so they arranged beforehand to fake their death during this game of grown-up dress-ups. Obviously everyone came back at the end so they could all go to Denny's or something.

I recommend watching this show with all of that in mind. It makes the ridiculous stuff funnier.

Oh, and I should mention that I thought it had quite a few moments in which I said to myself "That deserved to be in a better show."

Merlin

Another BBC show that I was bullied into watching. So far, I'm not sold on it's greatness yet, but I've been assured that I need to stick with it, as it apparently improves with time. Alright, friends. I trust you. As with most BBC shows I'm willing to watch it, if only because I appreciate fake worlds populated with actors who look like real people and can... you know... act well.

Not that American fake TV world actors don't look like real people... they look like real, extra-pretty, photo-shopped people... that I have a hard time relating to. Which, I guess, is still real people.

And some of them are good actors.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

A collection of snapshot from this last Spring up to now

Not literal pictures, sorry, should have clarified.

"Am I one of the disreputable females to whom this shout-out is intended?"

Won a game of Categories by being able to list WAY too many superheroes.

Best moment-

"Robin!" - Lucas
"Uh--can I say Nightwing?" - Me
And we high-fived and kept going until I won.

Literally three seconds after almost slamming into another while merging from the 215 to I15
"Can we celebrate not dying with ice cream?" -Guinness

"I still think you should just marry your cousin."

"I like how we're the only family at the Temple having a massive argument."

Jensen's knee doesn't need surgery.

Rest In Peace, Simmons (my faithful and awesome car).

"Of course he didn't catch any of that, he only listens to you speak if you have a penis."

Carmina Burana played on repeat at my cousin's wedding reception. It was very epic, and not nearly as inappropriate for the setting as it probably should have been.

Watcha doing? - a text message sent to my cousin around 10:15 pm on her wedding night.

"You should consider modeling." - Mom
"I'm twenty-five and chubby." - Me
"Yeah... well... okay." - Mom

"You need to go out with my cousin, because you need to marry a black man. Marrying a black man is the only way you'll have half-black babies." - Cee
"But what about adopt-" - Me
"No." - Cee
"Okay." - Me

Whenever it’s been a while since I wrote a blog, I always have the urge to do something like this. I think it’s 
because I’m never quite sure what it was that distracted me, so I just throw together a collection of stuff I remember from the last few months.

This time is different though, because I know exactly what distracted me. The LSAT.

An arrogant associate told me he found it to be “Quite easy. Much more fun than the GMAT.”


I didn’t punch him.