A return to rambling

I feel like I haven't been rambling enough lately. I mean, rambling has certainly been incorporated into my blog entries. I don't feel any guilt about my entries being untrue to the spirit of the blog, but I worry a little that my entries have been too directed. I've been rambling lately to settle my feelings on particular issues, be it Chris Mullens or living in Stebbins or whatever. Now that's fine to do every so often, but there seem to be a few too many of that type lately. I need to branch out a little more to an appropriate ramble, the type that doesn't really have any point but crosses a few interesting ideas on its merry way. Now that's the kind of ramble I've been missing lately. It's not that hard to start out such a ramble either. I just have to start going on a topic I think is interesting and hope other stuff will come to my mind as I go. The only restriction I want to make is that I don't want to have to decide something. A lot of the time I write to settle my feelings on a subject or to clarify how I feel. I think it helped worlds in deciding how I felt about Mullens. It was perhaps not quite as helpful with deciding where to live next semester, but it probably improved my situation somewhat on that issue as well. In any event, to get the type of blog entry I'm looking for now, I think the topic (or at least the starting topic) has to be about something I know. I think I have a few ideas about that, both of which are tv related. I guess I'll start with the Sopranos.

That show is amazing. I always enjoyed it to a certain extent, but I realize now as I've watched the finale (or more precisely, the second half of the finale- I should really watch the whole thing instead of just listening to someone else tell me what happened) just how much genius went into that show. It's brilliant. The directions it's gone in are so interesting and they all tend to lend themselves to the point of the show. Well, the point of the show is up for some interpretation, but I think it's pretty clearly trying to show how abysmal organized crime is as a life. Sure, Tony Soprano has power. He can do pretty much whatever he wants, assuming he's careful about it. He has enough money to lead a life of real luxury. He's got easy access to all sorts of pussy. Anything he wants, he can have. But the price to pay for that is too high. The show makes that clear in a variety of ways. You really see how twisted it makes him by the end of the series. And the best part about it is that it isn't said explicitly. Tony doesn't really have a big change in his personality. He doesn't come to regret his life. He doesn't show any major change in his actions at all. But you can see it wearing on him. You can see the paranoia he lives with, the responsibility, and the pressure of dealing with the occasional circumstance that is out of his control. It's very artfully done. You also start to see his son following in his footsteps, even though he makes no obvious move towards organized crime. You just sorta predict it. It's like an inevitable whirlpool drawing him and his family in. You can also see the sort of sleazeballs who get attracted to it. Tony has two sisters. One of them lives far away and shows up in the series only a few times. The other features pretty prominently intermittently in the series. Three guesses as to which one's sleazier.

It's such a good series. And there was a lot of uproar about the ending. When I first saw it, I was in shock. I was like, "I can't believe it! That's the ending???" But then someone else explained it to me. It was his second time watching it. The first time was before he read some people's analyses online. This second time was to corroborate what he read. His interpretation (or rather, that random person online's interpretation) made a lot of sense. In fact, it was pretty amazing. I was so impressed that such a long running series actually ended well. I remember thinking that it would be hard to end, but they did a pretty impeccable job of it. The creator/writer must have been thinking of a decent way to end it for seasons. Something that came together that well couldn't have been thought up easily. Perhaps I hype this ending too much, but I don't want to give anything away to anyone who wants to be surprised, and the mystery can't help but add hype. It is inevitable.

There are a lot of good shows on those premium channels on demand. I recently started watching the Tudors. The title slightly makes me think of the Sopranos and I can't help but feel that it may have been inspired by the title a little. That's about where the similarities end. Well, I suppose there are a few parallels, but nothing much. It's about the Tudor dynasty starting with Henry VIII. I imagine we'll get to Elizabeth before too many seasons. I can't wait until we see her playing all her suitors off on each other. It's interesting because I know the plot relatively well (it was one of the juicier parts of history class), but the detail and intrigue behind it all comes to life a lot better than a history class could ever do. The first season is 10 1 hour episodes and we still haven't gotten to his original divorce yet. However, the trailer for season two proclaims that "heads will roll." I have to say I'm looking forward to it a lot. I may have a long wait, but I'm still looking forward to it. Bah. It probably won't be out until sometime in 2008. Bummer. Big bummer. I watched every episode like a maniac. I couldn't stop. It was so engrossing and... well... juicy. I doubt an episode goes by where you don't see some rather juicy sex scenes. Tits are somewhat commonplace. Asses will show up from time to time as well. The violence hasn't been too bad so far. There was a scene I wasn't thrilled with when they let blood from a patient with sweating sickness, but it was pretty mild. More violent was the burning of a protestant at the stake. And then there was that one prick who ordered it just watching and watching after other people had left. *shudder* But violence plays a pretty minor role in the series as a whole. Quite a few people died from the plague in the plague episode, but violent deaths haven't really happened so much. That's fine with me as far as I am concerned. I appreciate violence to a degree, but I certainly don't revel in it. I generally turn away from the screen at times like that. Even the UFC is sometimes too violent for me.

Heh... that's funny... I say "even the UFC," but that's the only violent thing I watch that's actually real. No one really gets hurt in the Sopranos or whatever other tv show I watch, but some people really do get hurt in those fighting shows. In general, the refs are pretty careful about stopping any permanent damage, but fighters are often beaten bloody and sometimes even an arm breaks or something. Steven told me that recently a ref really fucked up and there was a fighter that got somewhat more seriously hurt. I wonder if there's an official report on that yet... It's been maybe four or five days since it happened... ok now I'm too curious. I have to go look to see if it's up. It'll be a lot harder for me to do than for Steven since I don't know any of the fighters' names, but I'll give it the old google try.

...

Ok that was a failure. I don't think I was even looking at the right fight night. I thought it was Fight Night 10, but I watched every bout that ended in a knockout without seeing anything that matched Steven's description. Meh. I'll just have to wait until he gets back from LA. But on the bright side, I did find lots of fights just online to be watched. Maybe that's because it was televised on free tv, but I didn't have to download anything to watch them (well, at least not in the traceable/permanent sense- I guess I downloaded things in the youtube sense). So that was nice.

Meh. All that failing took the wind right out of my sails. I don't really feel any drive to continue writing. Besides, looking back on this entry, it's starting to get pretty long. I suppose now is as good a time as any to give it a rest. I'll ramble more later. For now, toodle-oo!