Keeping Up with the Kardashians reviewed: Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy

I'm truly happy to have access to pay TV, and some of the American based cable network. I feel like it helps me keep in (cultural) touch with my peeps across the great pond. The Sky package includes great things, such as Cinema in addition to documentary channels, which I love. I feel like a kid in the candy store being able to watch Game of Thrones Season 3 the same time it's on HBO, and Sky Atlantic was one of the best things that ever happened - eeeever!

Not to speak of NatGeo, and TNT and, ooh, I could rave about this all day long. What a sensible mix of infotainment or edutainment, or whatever flattering label they thought of to market themselves..

As of April 30 this year, the infamous entertainment network E! has joined the game.
Yay ... right?!! I quickly discovered that having access to E! is like having a batch of heroin lying around the coffee table. I hate myself a little bit, for being powerless to resist getting sucked into their vortex of fashion ins and outs, gossip and Kardashianisms.

Correction: E! is like being hit with a tranquilizer gun AND a highly addictive substance at the same time. OK. Time to speak of the Kardashians, and what a wonderful family they are...

Keeping up with the Kardashians sets a perfect example for the newly rich, the self-proclaimed elite of society, and why we should all hate them. Before E!, I have only known of this family from tabloids, and I was unaware why Kim Kardashian had become a sudden style icon and "it" personality, even here in our parts. Now I know. Now, since I have been to their houses, their bedrooms, their cars and their bathrooms, I feel like I really know them.

The family itself is not that bad, they are not animals or something. They have speech. They look after one another, well, on the condition that they're related. In-laws are considered parasites, leeches, unless they themselves have acquired a certain social standing before they join the clan.

But the thing I find truly appalling is that everyone in the family claims to be the number one plowhorse as for the reason why they have become famous, when in fact, their actual work consists of self-marketing with the sole purpose of keeping the spotlight. After all, they have been a household name ever since their father, Robert Kardashian defended O.J. Simpson.

But thanks to reality TV they have become a media phenomenon, and consider it their family responsibility to compulsively give back to society. You see the deviancy behind that. "Give back" to the society which they sell themselves to. Their fashion label and stores are run by their minions, their charity events get organized for them by other people.

I mean, having your life televised in every gory detail is definitely strenuous. Having cameras at their side each and every day, having to act out half-scripted conflicts deprives this family of a real life. Privacy. Time. That is what they actually put in the balance. How sad this is. How can anyone even enjoy this lifestyle when they don't have a life. Yes, sad. So from now on, I promise to only watch them reluctantly...but watch them I will!!!



A MADtv parody. The part about helping the blind is spot on.


Keeping Up With The Kardashians season 8 promo
A day in the life of..the new season

Weekend Writing Warriors: Easy Confidence

Hey and welcome, warriors, this week I'm finally back with a snippet from Anoethau. Wheew! For plot reasons, I have to skip ahead a little. Last time, the mysterious woman Artie met in Southampton asked him to take her dog with him on his journey to Wales. For understandable reasons Artie declined, but out of compassion he now agrees upon watching her dog Cabby for a little while, in order for Eloise to run some errands...



“Let me give you some money for the day, so Cabby doesn’t eat you out of house and home.” She digged deep inside her handbag for coin, but Artie waved his hand at her, “you can pay me later if you want to, after I have done my job.” 
“I live over there in the house by the corner,” Eloise said, pointing past the busy street café. 
Artie immediately knew it when he saw it; the quaint, lilac house with the white balustrades and overgrown iron gate strangely met his expectations of this woman. 
“Well then, at least, let me give you this,” she said, holding a door key out to him.  
“You can take a bath or a shower, and wash your clothes instead of having to go back to your seedy motel. The fridge is well-stocked, and there are cans of Cabby's favorite food in the pantry; he likes to eat from his bowl, you know.” 
The dog regarded each of them with easy confidence, a sentiment that Artie himself did not share.

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Quick Story Update

While revising I have started to outline the plot for a new story, which will be a prequel to Anoethau. The story focuses on Eloise, one of the supporting characters. As I was writing Anoethau, an idea for Eloise's back story took shape, and with each day it got more extensive and detailed. Those of you who read my Weekend Writing Warriors snippets have briefly met Eloise - she's the woman who tries to convince Artie to take her dog along on his journey. In the new story, working title Aned and Aethelia, I'll focus on young Eloise and her adventure. Just as in Anoethau, there will be a lot of references to Arthurian legend and Welsh mythology. I'm very excited about this story! And of course, as the story progresses, there will be more of my sketches of characters and locations.

Aned

WiF(e)i - Wife of Nerd

Me being married to a ginormous computer enthusiast - you'd sure take me for someone who speaks "nerd" fluently. Well, now I do, but I didn't when me and hubby first met.

Good old Toshiba - my first laptop

I was a late bloomer, I didn't have a computer until the year 2000. That was when I bought my first laptop, a Toshiba Satellite. A sad little brick, that ran hot and noisy against my desk. I regarded old clunky as a high-class typewriter for writing term papers, and at first I didn't use it for anything else. Oh, but then of course the internet found its way into my daily life, and that changed everything.



I remember using the Word processing power by day, and the dark side of LAN by night, in chat rooms. I met people who called themselves -°;*~Neo~*;°- or TylerD666 in obscure chat rooms. I didn't think much about the digitized world back then, although basically, it was already there and I was a part of it.

Hubby came into my life a little while after I had purchased my Tosh. There was no doubt he was a technophiliac. His apartment appeared to be hardly a notch above an office with a bed. Large, yellowed bed sheets covered windows, the cabinets were crammed with piece parts, and countless empty board boxes piled their way up to the ceiling.

David's former work desk

There was no sofa, but a designated cable cabinet. Back then, I thought that the on/off blinking was what the inside of a computer was supposed to look like. At night the PC and Mac consoles flashed in yellow, red and blue lights. The life signs of the machines. If it hadn't all been behind firm walls, we could have easily been mistaken for the landing strip of an airport. It was kind of romantic though, the good old days of humming CPU fans and blinking lights.



I remember it being a strange sight the first few times, but it all became normal pretty quickly. It was obvious that the computer was both his passion and his livelihood, so there was no dividing line between job and hobby. A jobby. And consequently I realized that what he does is how he lives. Like a writer, surrounded by piles of books. When I think about it, it had an artsy flair to it, that sort of living in the - mostly virtual - moment, which I liked. And it made me rethink other living arrangements.

Like nowadays, living spaces that don't look like people really live in them can freak me out. For me, there needs to be some kind of proof that people really exist, not only the ideal they want to see portrayed to the outside world. Pointy black figurines on end tables tell me nothing. Battered tables, steamrolled rugs on the other hand, that kind of thing I find inviting. Things that are in use. Vintage, but authentically so. I guess it must attribute to the whole idea behind caveman drawings. I lived here, I left my marks. Human habitation, and what a cool concept that is.

You see, I think that over time I got bitten by that same radioactive spider: nerdmaker. It must have built its lair in our apartment...And now it's official. A home, a hubby, a PC - I'm having my cotillion and I'm coming out nerd!

Me, Whining Part IV

What to do in a crisis - who to turn to for guidance. The self-help isle offers a lot of things, books with promising titles, such as "Twitter your way to a better life." If only...

There is lots of stuff out there, on how to deal with your loved ones' illness. You know, the basic world asunder kind of manuals.
I don't think any of them can help me. For these last few weeks, David has been quite unwell. Ever since this year the medical issues have changed for the worse, a vertiginous downwards spiral of life-threatening instigators and residue from it. We can't seem to clean up the debris fast enough.


Having one problem area opened the floodgates for other stuff, problems on top of problems.
I have lost some things in the fire. Body weight, first of all. That's not too bad actually. The second thing is worse. My spark. Although things are looking up now, I'm still missing it. For whatever reason, I've always gone through life assuming I was born under a lucky star. Yes, I always kept my eye on that rainbow. Well, not anymore. Now I'm thinking I may just be the anode of tragedy. Someone or something is punishing me, and I don't understand why.


I used to be convinced of another thing, that is to say that "everything happens for no reason." Not to eliminate physical cause and effect from the equation, but in the sense that there is no moral incitement in what we do here on earth, other than the one society provides (like jail-time for bad behavior). All my life, I've felt neither punished nor rewarded for the things I do, least of all by some cosmic force. Lately, however, I can't shake off the thought that there just may be someone out there to get me..

Who and what is it this entity wants? Me to live in fear? Done. Me to realize that all is mortal? Done. Me to expect the worst rather than the best? Also done. Yes, it could always be worse. But it could also be better. That's how chickens talk.

If it's all a scheme to make me a worshiper, forget it. I won't be bullied into making curtsies. If you can hear me, great spirit of cosmic sanctioning, then state your claim. Post a comment. Let's negotiate.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Dog In Tow

Hey there, warriors, and welcome to this week's wewriwa. Let's just jump right back in where we left off last Sunday. Artie has just met a woman, who asks him to take her dog Cabby with him on his journey to Wales. He has good reasons to say no....

He didn't want or need any of that. With a dog in tow, every part of his journey would become more difficult. "What's wrong with your dog? Why would you want to get rid of it?" The dog gave a whimper, as if taking offense at the implication. The woman's eyes were hidden behind dark shades, but Artie could feel her glare. "I don’t want to part with him" she said, breathing heavily, "but this is what I am supposed to do."

Cabby the dog, as sketched by me

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50 Shades of Like

On Facebook, the like button has quickly become one of the most powerful tools for interaction. It's the holy grail, the ultimate symbol for success to get many likes on something. People are generously donating them when it comes to statuses, they're giving them away in abundance for their friends' vacation pictures, and the likes of it.

On the other end of the spectrum, people rarely give their like lightly (tongue twister!!) to big companies or products - even if they really like them. Maybe they fear it would make those companies too powerful, or them, a target for advertisement. But that's not all there is.


Likes are just as well used inflationary, or diametrically opposite, like a dangerous weapon; and sometimes even handled with kid gloves. And that's where the oddity of the whole like-issue comes into play. There are countless reasons and motivations. A like can say so much...

1. The sincere like


I saw a movie a zillion years ago, which I have fond memories of. That movie isn't well-known amongst film afficionados, and it never was a sales hit. I guess most of my friends don't know it, and if they did, I think the large majority of them wouldn't like it. It got a lot of bad reviews. They'd probably be a little embarrassed for me, that I like it. Still, I openly commit to it. But that's just one example. I hardly ever don't care! This is one of those rare and sincere likes, from the earlier days of Facebook.




2. The political like


There are some causes I openly affiliate with on Facebook - although the approach itself is not always something I fully stand behind. Still, I can like it, as a way of nailing my colors to the mast. As a matter of principle, The Newsroom got my like on Facebook - not because I love the series for its entertainment value (actually it could be better in that department), but because it makes some valid, and profoundly American points in regards to the current state of journalism, which I agree with. So it gets my like despite not reaching its full potential. The political like is the most ardent like of all. It says I like, I passionately like. And I generously overlook flaws, because the whole cause is important.





3. The awareness like


Cancer has a Facebook fanpage with more than 20.000 likes. Now, to be clear, these aren't exactly people who run around with Yay for Cancer sweatshirts. They like that page because they are aware of the disease's importance. On the spectrum of negatives, cancer is too important to ignore. Now, the freaky thing is, we needed Facebook to teach us a valuable lesson about denial: in fact, some things are important despite us not liking them, and that's why there is such a thing as a cancer fanpage. It's self-evident that people who like the page aren't sick sarcastic bastards who want others to die. They hate cancer, and that's why they create awareness by liking it.




4. The pity like


One of the worst likes there is, really. Unfortunately sometimes I get the feeling it's the most common and abused of them all. The pity like involves giving a thumbs-up to something you really don't like, but feel sorry for. Sometimes we mean well by pretending to like something. And then there is pity, which is a devious motivation, many a times. Paying tribute to someone for an achievement, although not viewing it as an achievement ourselves, is a flat out lie. The key word is ugly babies. Of course. I'm talking about liking an ugly baby, solely because we care for the people who created THAT. And since we know, they are happy with the outcome, it's no harm done in us liking the creature, right? Right?!!




5. The ambiguous like


There is a seamless transition from pity to schizo. The ironic, and malicious like, such as that pic of a haircut, which we really don't like, but pretend to like because it's so horrible, we're enchanted by its exoticism. Or the badly lit, blurred photo of still lifes, taken by the aspiring photographer, which we don't like but we say we do, because we think it's the best they can do. That like says something even meaner. It wants to express: you peaked, my friend. Better give it up. And the worst thing is, we intend to shut them up with our like!

However, if someone wants an honest or professional opinion about something, the best way is still to ask for it directly. Better than being crushed by a wave of insincere likes that could mean anything.

No? Yes?
       

Like if you agree ;)


To like or not to like - there is so much involved in this seemingly simple act. It's just one click, but it can tell us a myriad of things about the person doing it.

Modern-times critics believe that with further advancements in digital media, our humanly setup will change to the same extent as progress goes, in the sense that they expect us turning into socially stunted Kaspar Hausers at some point.


So far, I haven't noticed that being the case. Regardless of why we like or not like, not wanting to openly offend people's feelings still plays an important part in the world of social media, as in real life, and building consensus amongst our group is what we strive for.


Although sitting behind a screen, far far away from other people, we're aware that we are never detached from interactions we take part in. And yet, we fancy ourselves autonomous creatures! But like with any other choice in life, it really isn't an isolated event what we do, or when we do it. There is cause and effect in liking. We're, after all, primates, social animals, playing on the claviature of social complexities all the time.


And since empathy works across long distances - it's a good thing we have those likes being there, saying what they say, the most rudimentary form of communication. Even when they're insincere; Yes or No, that's what we're saying. Everything else is up to idle speculation. It's fun to think about, nevertheless!