Musings, Part H

- I’m not sure how I feel about this idea; Thin and Inexpensive Netbooks Affect PC Industry if only because I want a computer to do more than just access the Internet. I can understand if you just need the internet and need more than a phone but if you’re going to have a computer, have a computer. I myself want an iMac. One with a huge hard drive so I don’t have to worry about space for a few years (at least that’s the hope, depends on how much video I find and no, I don’t really have space on the desk for an external hard drive) and so I can get some stuff off my iPod (namely BSG podcasts) that I put on there to free up space on my laptop. Irony is, now my iPod is full. Which hasn’t happened before…but I’ve gotten a lot more music while having this iPod compared to the last one, which was a 15 GB.

- Thank you writer Raina Kelley: Five Truths About Reality Dating Shows you just summed up why I hate reality shows, the dating ones in particular. I don’t understand why they are so popular. With the most recent Bachelor as evidence (solely gained through reading blurbs on it and never once letting the channel surfing get anywhere close to it with any length of a pole, 10, 11 or otherwise) all reality dating shows do is show the worst sides of people, unfortunately mostly women. I don’t understand why they let themselves be paraded around and given little more consideration than a shirt or tie selection for the guy in question. We watch TV and movies to see people that aren’t us, why would we want to watch our lives, we’re living them and besides, normal people? Boring. All reality shows do is reinforce stereotypes of people in a faux parallel world where the situations are carefully written and tailored so the outcomes are what they are: predictable, embarrassing, usually disgusting, degrading, and a pox on our society. I hope I never become a woman who is so desperate for some kind of comfort, whether it be through an “attractive” or “powerful” guy, each measured by the size of his bank account, that I’ll dump all of my self-respect and hope for real (not reality) love that I attach myself to someone relatively well off in such a painfully atrocious fashion. I may be square, but as Huey once said, it’s hip.

- So, who wants to show this to the US government? Facebook, YouTube At Work Make Better Employees

- Not to keep (rather, again) complaining about this but this article brought to mind some interesting comparisons, Inside the Duggar Family’s Conservative Ideology to what I remember about traditional Hindu culture, and if I remember correctly, often to current Indian culture as well. These families are teaching their daughters to have no concerns, no skills beyond that of a domestic, motherhood centered life (and in this age, unless you are well off, you can’t raise a family on one income alone, particularly a large family). From what I remember, women in India were to be obedient to their father and brothers, then to their husbands, and finally to their sons, keeping the obedience to the husband to his death, if she wasn’t required to do the whole funeral pyre with him thing. One would think that these Christians (I won’t say so-called though I’m sure they’d call me a so-called Christian) wouldn’t like following the practices of a “heathen” culture. The same kind of obedience is found in Islamic cultures as well. I was really hoping that my daughters (when and if I have them, plural or singular it matters not, though I’m not doing more than 3 kids I’d actually like to enjoy them and I’m sure not having to contend with more than two siblings is a good thing for most kids’ quality of life as well [I only have 1 sibling]) wouldn’t have to put up with the cult of domesticity, as my AP US History book called the whole keep women barefoot in the kitchen (whether literally or figuratively) movement. I really hoped we’d gotten past that. But no, history cycles and we’re doomed to repeat it so I guess they will. I only hope that the work of the women in the early parts of the 20th century were enough to override the more pernicious aspects of the Co’D. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. And teach them that yes, babies are cute, but only one or two at a time. And if you’re going to go against your upbringing…get a tattoo or something, don’t go towards a whacko religious movement/cult.

- I came across this on the NPR website, it’s a list of the 100 top musical works of the 20th century, originally broadcast in the year 2000 . I like lists like this. I like going through them and seeing which I’ve heard (hopefully a lot) and which I haven’t but really should, and which I just don’t understand how they got on the list. It’s like the AFI movie lists. Looks like I’ll have to set up an Excel list for music now…