Va-a-a-alerie (Or was it "Ma-a-a-allory"?)

Recently Jon Stewart made a subtle but smiling mid-sentence reference to the wonderful 1980s Canadian-exported kids show "You Can't Do That on Television" as a lead-in to a byte about Nickelodeon and the Spongebob-is-gay thing. A few people in the audience caught it, and made a surprised noise. I would have done so too. That was all, but it was a tiny nice thing to hear.

YCDTOT was Nickelodeon's flagship show, back when I was in the channel's main demographic. (And back when cable TV came to Hingham, MA for the first time. Exciting times for all!) Sometime more recently I watched a little bit of a Nick show that seemed to aim at being an updated version of YCDT. It missed the point entirely, relying on the old, bad kid-show formula that makes all the young characters invincible smartasses and the adult characters all bumbling clowns whom the kids keep under heel. YCDT's adults, while also clownish, were more of a caricature of the roles that grown-ups play in kids' lives. Most often, they were authoritarian ogres who made bizarre decisions for arbitrary reasons, with the kids usually getting the short end of it. Which sounds bleak and horrible, except that they managed to actually make it really funny. The whole mix was actually quite brilliant.

I liked watching it with my dad because he thought the sloppy-dad character was a hoot.

(no subject)

I acknowledge some burnout starting to get to me. I'm not really stressed -- the work isn't nearly as fun as (say) Volity, but also not nearly as torturous as (say) Book-writing -- but just the same, I'm pretty damn tired of working, and am goofing off more.

Here, have an update on what I'm reading.

Amber I'm on book seven, of ten. Just chewing through the text. It's good fun. As promised (and I forgive everyone who spoiled the surprise for me) there's a significant shift in tone between the first five and the last five books (with good reason). I think I like the new perspective more. For one thing, there's a suggestion that it sees Earth (and the rest of Shadow) as something more than an infinitely huge (toolshed|vacation home). I always felt a little bad about that, y'know?

Transmetropolitan OK, I think I've finally isolated the one thing that truly bugs me about this comic: I'd find it so much more readable if Spider were exactly as he is, except a total loser. That is, he strives as much as ever but is nonetheless almost completely unsuccessful in making a name for himself: the Kilgore Trout of sci-fi gonzo journalists. He can keep his contacts and friends; I just want to deny him his fame. Because his writing sucks, that's why. Nobody who rants like a mediocre blogger would have that much popular support, not even in the kraaaaa-zee future. (And before you bring up Ann Coulter, I counter that she is famous, but not popular, at least not in the way Spider is portrayed.) That would neatly solve the whole eau de Mary Sue that pervades the whole book, as well.

I still slog through it because the good bits are actually really good.

The likelihood occurs to me that a lot of mediocre bloggers write the way they do because they liked Transmet and thought they'd get a head start on writing futuristically. har

The System of the World Theoretically. It's been so long that I'm going to have to go back and start with page 1 the next time I pick it up. These books are rewarding, but so so very hard to get into, and I'm afraid that so long as fluffier fare like the Amber books lay close at hand, I'm not going to take the plunge.