Everyone knows what a Saved by the Bell geek I am. If you didn’t know that then did you really know me? I mean, come on. As much as I love the show there are a few things that bug me. The biggest thing is when the tough biker chick Tori came on the show and Kelly and Jessie disappeared. Now, the story behind the switch is that NBC wanted more episodes after the final season was filmed. Tiffany Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley, who played Kelly and Jessie, already committed to other things and didn’t want to film any more episodes. So what did the network do? They filmed additional episodes with a new girl, Tori, didn’t explain what happened to Jessie or Kelly, and stuck them in the middle of the last season. So in the last season we see Jessie and Kelly, then Tori, then Jessie and Kelly are back in time for graduation. This bugs me because there was no explanation and these episodes were clearly inferior. Then I started thinking, is an explanation really necessary?
I think back at my life. There are definitely times in my life when the friends I hung out with every day suddenly disappeared and I was no longer with them. Then all of the sudden, they’d be back in my life. This happened a lot in college, with both college friends and high school friends. The people I met while I was in college never knew my high school friends and I rarely, if ever, talked about my high school friends, just as the gang never talked about Jessie and Kelly when Tori came around. Then after college I started hanging out with some of my high school friends and some of my college friends disappeared. True, they were still in the same school on Saved by the Bell, but think about high school for a minute. It wasn’t that long ago. Weren’t there times when you stopped hanging with particular people, for no particular reason, then started hanging with them again? Maybe it was a busy semester for them, or you. Think about the people you’ve lost contact with and then later became best friends again. They are your Tori. Or you are theirs. Either way, while completely inferior to previous and later episodes, the Tori episodes actually do make sense. Even though Saved by the Bell is nowhere near real, that’s one part that is. Everyone has been a Tori or had Tori friends. You can sit there and watch episodes with Tori and not wonder where Kelly and Jessie are, just as you don’t always wonder where your lost friends went. So, no longer will I judge these episodes for the wool that NBC tried to pull over my eyes. I will judge them based on how good they actually were, which, except for the school song episode, they pretty much sucked.
Obama in My Cube
The Obama Action Figure brightens up any work cubicle
The Costanza Experiment
I’m going to begin a little experiment I’d like to call The Costanza Experiment, named after one of the wisest philosophers of our time, George Costanza. If you remember, there was an episode of Seinfeld where George decides to do the opposite of what he’d usually do. I’ve decided I’m going to start doing this. I’m not taking it to the extreme that George did, meaning I’m not going to change the food I order just to do the opposite. I will start doing the opposite for major things in my life though. A good friend and I had an argument the other night and things didn’t turn out all that well and might have permanently damaged our friendship and it was over something that was really stupid and it just got out of hand in a hurry. In the future I’d like to avoid such things and maybe doing the opposite is exactly what I need to help me out. I’ll keep you posted on my little experiment.
Primeval
A few days ago I downloaded the first episode of the BBC TV show Primeval for free on iTunes. It’s a sci-fi show about a rip in time and space where dinosaurs, giant insects, and whatever else comes through from their time to present day. There is also a bigger underlying story about one of the main characters’ missing wife, who we find out went through this rip when she disappeared years earlier. It’s very cheesy, but in a good way. The special effects aren’t the best, but they aren’t terrible. I can imagine they will have some pretty good stories of different things from the past coming through. All in all it’s a good show and a quick hour waster. If you like sci-fi shows at all, check it out on BBC America.
Changing Musical Tastes
I’ve always been a fan of all music. In fact, if you look at my last.fm profile, you’ll notice the diversity in music listed there. I have Miles Davis, Tupac Shakur, Frank Sinatra, Incubus, and CunninLynguists listed. My primary musical love has always been hip hop though, especially underground hip hop. When I got XM Satellite Radio, I listened to mostly the hip hop stations. The Rhyme was the channel I listened to the most, as they were an old school hip hop channel. Then I started listening to Ethel. Ethel is the Alternative Hits station. That’s all I’ve listened to in the past month or so. Now I rarely listen to rap. I find myself listening to bands such as Black Kids, The Ting Tings, The Kooks, The Shins, Peter Bjorn and John, M.I.A, Death Cab for Cutie, The Killers, Ludo, MGMT, Phantom Planet and The Raconteurs more than my favorite hip hop artists. One reason this could be is that my favorite hip hop artists haven’t come out with anything in a while. Or maybe it could be that there is some really good and catchy alternative music coming out lately. It could also be that because I’m listening to music a lot more now due to the nature of my job I’m constantly looking for something new. I wonder what other music I’ve missed out on in the past.
The Tori Paradox
Everyone knows what a Saved by the Bell geek I am. If you didn’t know that then did you really know me? I mean, come on. As much as I love the show there are a few things that bug me. The biggest thing is when the tough biker chick Tori came on the show and Kelly and Jessie disappeared. Now, the story behind the switch is that NBC wanted more episodes after the final season was filmed. Tiffany Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley, who played Kelly and Jessie, already committed to other things and didn’t want to film any more episodes. So what did the network do? They filmed additional episodes with a new girl, Tori, didn’t explain what happened to Jessie or Kelly, and stuck them in the middle of the last season. So in the last season we see Jessie and Kelly, then Tori, then Jessie and Kelly are back in time for graduation. This bugs me because there was no explanation and these episodes were clearly inferior. Then I started thinking, is an explanation really necessary?
I think back at my life. There are definitely times in my life when the friends I hung out with every day suddenly disappeared and I was no longer with them. Then all of the sudden, they’d be back in my life. This happened a lot in college, with both college friends and high school friends. The people I met while I was in college never knew my high school friends and I rarely, if ever, talked about my high school friends, just as the gang never talked about Jessie and Kelly when Tori came around. Then after college I started hanging out with some of my high school friends and some of my college friends disappeared. True, they were still in the same school on Saved by the Bell, but think about high school for a minute. It wasn’t that long ago. Weren’t there times when you stopped hanging with particular people, for no particular reason, then started hanging with them again? Maybe it was a busy semester for them, or you. Think about the people you’ve lost contact with and then later became best friends again. They are your Tori. Or you are theirs. Either way, while completely inferior to previous and later episodes, the Tori episodes actually do make sense. Even though Saved by the Bell is nowhere near real, that’s one part that is. Everyone has been a Tori or had Tori friends. You can sit there and watch episodes with Tori and not wonder where Kelly and Jessie are, just as you don’t always wonder where your lost friends went. So, no longer will I judge these episodes for the wool that NBC tried to pull over my eyes. I will judge them based on how good they actually were, which, except for the school song episode, they pretty much sucked.