One man's musing on the coming of the apocalypse, two days late

Today's entry is brought to you by the letter I.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines irony as "A condition of affairs or events of a character opposite to what was, or might naturally be, expected; a contradictory outcome of events as if in mockery of the promise and fitness of things." 

I bring this up because yesterday, both Katie Holmes and Brooke Sheilds gave birth to a girl and boy, respectively.  Today, a newscaster on (I think) MSNBC refered to this as irony.  Tom Cruise, as you might recall, talked about how depression isn't a chemical imbalance, and that the drugs used to treat it don't fix anything, but actually mask the problem, which was quickly followed by Brooke Shields writing an op-ed piece for the NY Times, in which she pretty much called Tom an idiot.  I'm not here to talk about that, as that has been beaten to death by the major networks.  I'm here to talk about networks misuse of the word irony. 

Now, I'm no linguist, but based upon the fact that two people often do give birth do children on the same day, I cannot see this as an ironic happening.  I understand that they both believe two different things about something, but this is not what irony is.  Irony would be if Katie Holmes had to go on anti-depressants to help her get over post partum depression if she got it.  That's ironic, because her soon to be husband doesn't think they fix anything, even though they might actually help her.  It's not ironic that two people give birth on the same day who have conflicting view points on an issue.  That's a coincidence, and that is all there is to say about that. 

~I was laughing so hard, and dude, I literally shit my pants. 
~So what'd you do with the pants?
~What?
~What'd you do with your shit filled underpants?
~Dude, I didn't actually shit my pants, I literally shit my pants.
David Cross, on misusing words

*Cough*Cough*Cough*Cough*

So if you've read my away messages at all in the last few days (the ones that weren't from movies, the ones that involved my death), you have a relatively good idea of the god awfulness that I've been tolerating (and just barely at that).  Also, my dislike with doctors (sorry Linda), while not documented here, will also be brought forth in just a few lines.  So, for those of you who have been in a cave (or Cleveland), I've got some sort of illness that I can't quite shake.  That being said, I went to Hurtado (which has yet to deem me pregnant) to see what was wrong.  Their answer? It's viral, and there's nothing they can do about it, but they took a strep culture and are going to call me tomorrow if it's positive.  So here's our in for me ranting against the US Medical Industry (again, sorry Linda).

Why is it that whenever a doctor doesn't know what's wrong with someone, and it has simliar signs and symptoms to several illnesses that they claim it's a viral infection and as such there is nothing they can do for you (unless (like me) you hope that the strep culture is positive so you can finally have something to get rid of the nasty illness that has been plaguing you since Friday).  Can't they do a little more work to figure out what could be wrong besides giving me some line about it just being a virus and sorry you're up the creek without a paddle on this one buddy.  I call shenanigans on you the medical industry until you realize that every illness you can't diagnose properly as a virus.  I'm fine with some things being viruses, but everything isn't a goddamn virus, so stop acting like it is. 

Also, Sony, learn how to make an MP3 player that doesn't need it's own file transfer system that freezes up every time I try to delete music so I can add new music to said device without wanting to return the damn thing.  The one I got for free from work gave me less problems then this new one has (okay, that's a lie, the actual player is fine, the system is possibly the worst program I've ever had to use, if only I knew enough about computers to hack into it to make it compatible with Windows Media Player).  Oh yea, I went there.

Also, I have a big boy crush on Steven Colbert.  (I swear it's non-sexual)

Egon: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Peter: What?
Egon: Don't cross the streams.
Peter: Why?
Egon: It would be bad.
Peter: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Egon: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Ray: Total protonic reversal.
Peter: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
Ghostbusters
I've probably used this quote before in a post, but I'm tired, sick, an don't care right now.

And now a word from the side of my brain that likes to rant...

Dear the Academy,

How dare you leave James Doohan (Captain Montgomery "Scotty" Scott) and Don Knotts (Barney Fife and Mr Furely) out of your retrospective on actors who have died over the last year.  Can you honestly say that Chris Penn had created a more beloved character in any of his roles?  That's what I thought.  Please recognize what actors such as these have done for the film industry, or so help me God, I'll round up some geeks and we'll be rioting (no we won't, I'm a lot of talk and a blog, if nothing else). 

And another thing, shouldn't the best film of the year involve things that people actually enjoy? Or is this just one of those insane ramblings of someone who thinks that the public might actually know what they like, and not need to be told what they like.

And while we're here, shouldn't you not be allowed to win an Oscar if, say you directed The Hulk? If the director (Ang Lee) has trouble getting work after making it, don't you think that maybe, just maybe, he might not be very good at what he does? Why don't you people look into these things. 

I don't think I'm asking for much with this stuff, but what do I know? I'm just a punk with a keyboard and an opinion. 

Love,
Nick

Scotty: The best diplomat I've ever known was a fully charged phaser bank.
Star Trek

Life, or something that bares a resemblance to it.

So, here's my general view on life.  Life's like a TV series, we watch it week after week, get invested in the characters, get pissed when the stories suck, or when they kill of characters that we love.  But we don't actively search for spoliers (or series finale, especially if it's a show that's already been cancelled), because that would take away from how we feel about characters, and doing that would take us out of each episode because we know how thing's will end, so we'll know that a character will be fine if he's in a tight spot, and thus jade how we view the rest of the series.  Seriously, no one wants to go through life jaded because they know when, how and where everything's gonna end. 

Crichton: I don't... wanna be like other people. I don't wanna be like you. I don't wanna stoop that low. Kirk wouldn't stoop that low.
Scorpius: That was a television show, John. And he made Priceline commercials. But if you insist, then look to Kirk the way he really was - savage when he had to be.
Farscape