6/22: What I Accomplished Today

1. Doesn't look like I blogged yesterday. I think I did, but there's none with the correct date, so I must have gotten discombobulated somewhere.

2. Watched another Studio 60, the one from this evening. Two episodes ago, Danny made a throwaway comment about the most compelling plot line to get people, especially women, to watch a television show is to show a pregnancy in peril; including that line in an episode of a show that seems to be pulling out all the stops (on about 25 organs) in a desperate attempt to get people to watch before it's killed once and for all was a stunt worthy of The Sopranos.

In last week's episode, which we watched last night, Simon makes a comment to the effect that the show shouldn't be taking potshots at the Press Secretary for trying to put a positive spin on things because that's the Press Secretary's job; the proper target for humor is people who don't question that. I'm still sort of thinking about this one.

I realized tonight that Sorkin's shows (The American President, Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60) all share at least one underlying theme: Everybody else is stupid. The American public is stupid. (The old Quaker wording I always used to hear as a child half-facetiously is, "All are queer but me and thee, and sometimes I wonder about thee.") They shouldn't be; they've had every opportunity not to be; nonetheless, they are. And this is true; I simply can't argue with that. In his job, with the sorts of shows he writes, that's probably the most frustrating reality of his life. He writes shows that are smart, and there aren't necessarily enough smart people around to enjoy them.

And while I love his writing (no one writes either repartee or political exhortation better than he does), that seems a sad, self-fulfilling overall statement, with the potential to become either bitterness or smug self-satisfaction (and some would argue he's already gone there, although I'd disagree).

We watched other stuff on TV, but it didn't really matter.

3. Got Pogo badges to at least 60%.

4. Got three characters (rogue, warlock, warrior) through the Midsummer Fire Festival.

5. Read a lot in Arthur, finishing the reading assignment and sketching the quiz for what's probably going to be Week Three.

6. BigFishGame is a Professor Fizzwizzle; I played a previous game with this character, and it swung from levels so easy they wouldn't even be in a children's game to levels so hard they didn't belong in a game for anyone who didn't have a PhD in string theory, so I'm excused.

Pogo Games has a simulation gardening game. We'll see; I might download the demo. Simulation casual games usually have about 75 minutes of compelling gameplay and then no replay value at all, and since they usually have 60 minute demos, I end up feeling like I got taken to the cleaners.