At the end of the day…

I went to Mela’s house today, and we watched the HIMYM season premier and Treasure Planet. I very much enjoyed the shows/movie…and having someone to cuddle up with when watching it. Especially the loving aww-moments.

Whew, I am now a disgusting human being.

On the bus home, I was the only passenger, and the driver was talking to me, asking me what I did at uni. He asked me if it was my own motivation or my parents’. I said mine. We both agreed that all the prestige and title means nothing if you’re unhappy – at the end of the day, you want to be happy for yourself, not because you were trying to do it for someone else.

Alex.

Er, yeah, H2A maybe?

Haha I can dream on. At the rate I’m (not) going, I might get a H2B if I’m REALLY lucky.

I just wrote another uni blog about TV. I should write more about my favorite topic but…I dunno.

Anyway:

What? Using Britney Spears lyrics? Atrocity!

I am writing this on the day that the new Glee episode Brittany/Britney is to air. I already have the songs on my iTunes, and have been listening to Toxic on replay since yesterday.

I have seen some screencaps on Tumblr of some highlights, and on Twitter I can see that trending topics include Heather Morris (the actress for Brittany, the blond cheerleader on Glee), and yet I won’t get to see the episode until 7:30 pm.

Watching TV isn’t just the act of watching TV anymore. I think watching TV has become something like living the moment of watching the show. Social networking sites like Twitter and Tumblr have made it possible for us to voice what we feel about a particular scene IMMEDIATELY. (Well, the immediacy is more a feature of Twitter, but Tumblr comes with pictures so in a visual media, that helps too.)

I’m not innocent of the need to broadcast my thoughts at the same time as watching a broadcast. Last week, when Glee’s Season 2 premier was on TV (I had refrained from watching it online three hours prior to 7:30, because a) I’d wanted to conserve bandwidth and b) I wanted to share the experience of watching it with people “around” me – online with me, in my timezone. Also I got yelled at quite a few times for revealing spoilers), I had been watching and tweeting all the moments that I found glorious. Someone replied to me, “I had missed these Glee tweets”, referring to the dry-spell when the show was on Summer hiatus.

Even when I’m watching a show not airing, such as last week when I was watching True Blood, or a while back when I was watching Chuck (neither of these shows are airing in Australia anymore), I still tweet about it. There is always going to be someone else like me in my larger social group who is a fan of a show not airing on Australian TV, and sure enough, my tweets gained a few “likes” on Facebook (because I am so connected, my tweets appear on Facebook too), and I immediately knew who else is a True Blood fan.

Ironically, when I am watching a show that DOES air in Australia, but ahead of everyone else (because we all know Australia sucks at keeping up with America, though they are giving it a shot with a few shows), I have to PROMISE people that I don’t tweet spoilers. I am currently ahead of Australia in NCIS, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory, and as much as I want to tweet about it, I shouldn’t, because revealing something about it would ruin the experience for other people.

Which brings me back to my title. I don’t have qualms about listening to a Glee song before the episode airs, but one of my friend does. She is a huge Gleek as well, and I asked if she wouldn’t want me to send her the new songs when I get them. She told me she’d rather listen to them at the same time as seeing it on TV, so when she later listens to them, she can imagine the scenes on TV. The two of us both love Glee equally, but we like to experience it differently. I like to have all the social networks at my fingertips as I’m watching, because I like to see what others think about it, as well as have others see what I think about it. My friend would rather be shut off completely and be only concentrating on the show, and that’s how she rolls.

Currently, TV shows don’t really interact with other forms of media when they are airing. I guess that’s the traditional way. I do remember that the Glee pilot had once aired a re-run where as the show is airing, the cast of the show is live tweeting, and their tweets and commentary runs across the bottom of the screen (this, again, wasn’t available in Australia).

I guess where I’m headed with this is that, maybe, TV shows in the future would become sort of INTERACTIVE with Twitter, or whatever replaces Twitter next. Those who are like me can use Twitter to enhance their viewing experience, but those with a more traditional viewing habit like my friend can still watch the show as it is, and then talk about it.

TV is no longer an experience as it was when it first appeared, with the family gathering around a set to watch it together – I actually don’t like having my parents next to me when I watch a show I want to concentrate on, despite being online while watching the show. As weird as that is, I like it better when I’m alone with the internet… – but it’s not exactly a complete polar opposite either. Personally, the generation and cultural gap between what my parents like and understand and my own tendencies renders my family a divided unit when we watch TV, but I’m more than certain that in some other families, there is still at times a show or movie that has the whole family sitting together in the living room (or maybe in different rooms but with the TVs on the same channel, cos that happens too) watching together. The experience of watching a show is just as interesting as the show’s contents itself.

Okay I think I’m excused for another week before I post again? 🙂

Alex.

I’m such a TV whore.

Alex.

P.S. What is a TV whore? I just felt like saying ‘Whore’.

Hooked…And Still Fishing

I am currently watching the new ep of How I Met Your Mother, and they’re discussing how a person can be the hooked, or the hooker (yes, the joke is still funny after Robin told it).

Basically, being played the hook is when someone who you like (who knows you like them) tells you, “I like you…but I just can’t be with you…RIGHT NOW.” This way, they can maintain whatever it is that they’re currently living, and yet still have that safety line to you, if they ever need it.

So my 2 questions are:

Have you ever been played the hook, or been the hooker (haha, it’s still funny the 3rd time round!)?

And

What are your thoughts on such actions? Is it justifiable to want to keep a safety line, or is just plain cruel?

Alex.

This City Is On Fire Tonight

[Good Life – OneRepublic]

Thanks to Katherine who showed me that song! I finally got around to making that video montage for Sorrento today.

It was quite amusing going through the photos that I took, as well as the other girls, and having memories be revived. It also astounds me that around this time last year I went to Sale. ONE YEAR ALREADY! Yet Jen and I still make the same jokes.

I was contemplating whether or not to post the video on here but I thought perhaps that wouldn’t be wise. So search it up on youtube, or even better it’s on Facebook, not that just anyone can see it.

Jenny (from now on whenever I mention a Jenny it’s Jenny Z, unless specified otherwise. Jen is still Jen, a different person. Note to self: make friends with different names) introduced me to/pushed me to actually go on Lamebook and I’m pretty much hooked reading the stupidity of other people. I’d reblogged on Tumblr quite a lot of the good ones I’ve found (my Tumblr link is on the side of the page “SmellsLikeAwesome”) but go check it out for yourselves. My personal favorite category are the TypOHs.

I think I’m going to be spending a lot of time at home from now because of my mom (personal family issues, nothing to be too concerned about), but I look forward to maybe going to the mass IKEA hide and seek on Saturday.

On another note: TV shows are back! Just today, I’ve caught up on the latest episodes of HIMYM, House and NCIS, with TBBT, FlashForward and Lie To Me soon to follow, I think. And update: no jobs yet. I’ll keep trying but I’m getting kind of annoyed and depressed.

Take care,

Alex.