24 Hour Party People
Finally, the rain has let up. Still no sign of the sun as yet, though. Our final transformation into large-eyed, webbed-handed mole-people is days away, I just know it. I can already feel my skull expanding to accomodate my imminent ocular girth. I've begun eating grubs and weevils. It's important to be prepared.

The less said about that the better, I think. But keep an eye on your national news tickers. Or failing that, the Weekly World News.

...

I've always been susceptible to peer pressure. I've never actually made it to the inner circle of "cool kids", but it hasn't been for lack of trying. Smoking, drinking, Vanilla Ice, decoupage, I've done it all in an effort to ingratiate myself to the self-appointed age-group aristocracy. There was even that time when the brothers at Sigma Chi Epsilon required me to have sex with a homeless person (gender optional). I did it without question. And I wasn't even a pledge.

Grown as I am, there are fewer and fewer instances of peer pressure I have to contend with. Sure, every once in a while my kids will dare me to eat something really gross (a tip: refrigerated leftover pork-chops usually go bad at around 4 weeks), but it's just not the same.

A few weeks ago, though, my wife came home with a box set of the first season of 24. She suggested that we watch it. I was kind of indifferent. I simply don't have the time in my schedule to fit in every single show on television in a futile attempt to fill the empty void of my life.

Then she told me she had borrowed it from a friend at work who had insisted we watch it. I was in. I asked if there was anything else anyone at her work thought we should do. She said no, but I swallowed a live goldfish just in case.

Just as I feared, once I got past the tingle and glow of participating in activities suggested and sanctioned by complete and total strangers, I was drawn in by the show itself. For those who have never seen it, the format of the show (24 one-hour episodes occur in real time so a season lasts the course of a single day in the character's lives) in and of itself is completely hypnotic. Throw in some explosions and gunplay (and just a leeetle sex) and that was it for me. Because of the density of the story, it's the closest a TV show or movie has ever come to recreating the experience of reading a book. Except, you know, without all the words and junk.

We finished the first season and we're more than half way through the second now. It's a sickness in our house.

Kiefer Sutherland plays Jack, government agent and Angel of Death. Jack is always just about to die or killing someone. A bubble of destruction and exploding viscera surrounds our hero, expanding and contracting on a minute by minute basis. It's all terribly engrossing. Probably too much so.

I tend to get a little... animated. This is a little embarrassing, but I can't help but shout outloud as the story moves along, as Kiefer bounces from one harrowing crisis to the next. Also, I've taken (inexplicably) to referring to his bad-ass character as "Jacky-Jack". So a viewing session is punctuated with little gems like:

"Ooh, look out, Jacky-Jack!"

"He shoulda known better than to cross Jacky-Jack!"

"Damn, it's another bad day for Jacky-Jack!"

"Holy fuck! Oh holy fucking shit, Jacky-Jack! Oh my... holy fucking shit! Did he just... holy fuck!"

Mrs. Pops makes fun of me. I deserve it.

Before we get to the end of the post and the Narcissus Scale, I think I should take time out to mention a certain pop-culture hero for which no scale exists to measure adequately her own awesome narcissism. Of course I'm talking about Paris Hilton.

Paris is something of a running joke here in the Bucket. To be fair, part of the stories about her this week aren't really her fault. Someone hacked into her wireless T-Mobile Sidekick and stole her pictures, her schedule, her electric rolodex, everything, and posted them on the web. This is as much about technology outpacing security and the vulnerability of wireless technology in general.

But that's boring. Check out the pictures (WARNING: Boobies included).

Paris is in every single shot. If I owned a camera-phone (which I don't), I can't think how I'd end up in any of the pictures, let alone topless or striking super-fab glam poses. You have to applaud that level of self-obsession. As preoccupied with myself as I am, I can see I have a long way to go.

I know, she never meant these for public consumption and we'd all be embarrassed if things we thought were private ever got published on the internet. I know I wouldn't want people to see the pictures of me shirtless and making out with that dude I met at the gym sauna.

I guess it could have been worse for Paris, though. At least in still pictures, no one can hear you speak.



This post on the Paris Hilton Memorial Narcissus Scale: 0.01 (I am nothing in comparison)

Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:57 AM