Too Bored To Compose A Title; Too Bored To Go Much Beyond 400 Words; Bored Enough That I Just Rewatched The Most Disgusting "Sex Scene" In The Entire Teenage Genre

Maybe I'm the wrong age but I always found Daria to be really boring. I haven't thought about the show for some time but I just flipped by a rerun on the Logo Network while waiting for ALDS coverage to begin.

I don't know why it's so boring — it just sort of seems like a show about disaffected teenagers written by people who are long past their teenage years. I got the same feeling after seeing Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist — that was a movie that felt really dated; it was written by people who were nowhere near teenage. You sort of knew that for two reasons. One, no one has made a mixtape in like 20 years. And two, "fingerblasting" is, like, so 1992:

Seriously, that's one of the most disgusting "love scenes" in the history of film. I have half a mind to start a Blogspot blog, call it "TopFiveWorstArthouseFilmSexScenes.blogspot.com" and listing this one at number 3 or 4. There would be only one entry on this blog. And I would write "Thoughts?" at the bottom of the post and forget to enable the comments.

But back to Daria.

Yeah, so sorry — I just don't think the show is that funny. I don't think it's particularly interesting. I don't think it's useful satire. Whatever . . . all this is boring as well. I'm bored that I just tried to internalize why I didn't like Daria.

Here's what I would watch though: Daria 2012, where Daria is 31. I would like to see what the show's creators could do with this. Is she still in Lawndale? Is she pursuing some fascinating career in some interesting urban environment? Is she underemployed and still living in a college town? Is she married with children? Did she join the military after 9/11? Did she join the military after 9/11 and die serving her country? Is she a ghost? Can we find her on Facebook? Did she become religious? Does she work in the front office of the Tampa Rays? Did she vote for Bush in 2004? Did she get in trouble with the law after a second DUI? Does she regret a tattoo? Did she ever get Lasik done? Did her father ever leave home? It goes on and on.

Maybe Daria didn't do anything unexpected. Maybe that could be part of the charm of Daria 2012 — it could be as boring as the original version. Like Mary Tyler Moore meets Waiting for Godot. Now there's something I'd watch.

Times Digital Workaround?

The Times announced plans to start charging for its digital content:

All subscribers who take home delivery of the paper will have free and unlimited access across all Times digital platforms except, for now, e-readers like the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook. Subscribers to The International Herald Tribune, which is The Times's global edition, will also have free digital access.

So what if you became a subscriber and then just always suspended home delivery (crediting your account and not donating the credit for the duration of your vacation to provide The Times to schools)? Isn't that a win-win? You get the digital version for free and the Times gets to count you as a subscriber (and thus amp up their subscription numbers to advertisers). Am I missing something here?

The Wikipedia Roto-Rooter

I love my iPod Touch, and not just for the mind-numbingly addictive, time-annihilating Free Cell app I installed on it. I got it as a gift a couple of Christmases ago, and it's pretty fun and useful. Etc., etc.

One thing I don't like to do on it is type. It takes forever when you Google stuff, or at least it's not as fast as I want it to be. I don't mind clicking links, but the typing — yeesh.

So last night when we were Googling stuff and Wikipediaing things something suddenly occurred to me: Wouldn't it be great if we could just follow Wikipedia links to any and all things in the world? Isn't it possible to Wikipedia your way from subject to subject?

Jen said that already exists — Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Yes, but not quite — I'm talking about inanimate things. Like between Kevin Bacon and, say, a toilet.

In short, the answer is yes. You can Wikipedia from toilet to Kevin Bacon — in just seven steps, actually: Toilet to Sega to The Golden Compass to Nicole Kidman to Tom Cruise — you see where we're going with this — to Tom Cruise filmography to A Few Good Men to Kevin Bacon.

I will call this the Wikipedia Roto-Rooter.

So this morning I tried starting from Roto-Rooter and hoped to hit George Washington. It was easier than I thought: Roto-Rooter to United States to George Washington — two steps.

And back to Kevin Bacon — Roto-Rooter to Kevin Bacon in just five steps goes Roto-Rooter, Undercover Boss, CBS, Guiding Light, List of Guiding Light cast members and finally Kevin Bacon. Or this:

Can you Roto-Rooter anywhere? Can you get from Roto-Rooter to, say, the Vancouver, B.C. indie band Said The Whale? Yes you can: Roto-Rooter, Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC Radio 3, The R3-30, List of The R3-30 number-one hits of 2010 and finally Said The Whale — six steps.

Now truth be told, this last one was much more difficult than I make it sound. A first stab took detours through different pages of lists of Canadian music awards, the "Colony of Vancouver Island" page, Vancouver, and even the "Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby" page (the last one a waste of time based on a hunch about their R3-30 number one hit song "Black Day in December").

Could this become a pedagogical activity? Kids already overuse Wikipedia, so why not work with it?