Television and hype

If you spend an amount of time browsing the actively populated areas of the internet, you're probably aware that there are several television shows with a large following behind them, and with that following, hype. Lots of it.

These shows being Game of Thrones (HBO), Breaking Bad (AMC, ended), The Walking Dead (AMC), and to a lesser extent, Mad Men (also AMC). It's no secret that I watch a lot of television - over 120 shows - but of those four, I only watch one and a half. "How can there be a half?" I actively watch Mad Men (am in the process of catching up again), and I watched Breaking Bad up to and including Season 4 Episode 7 before I finally threw in the towel. I'm sure I'll finish it eventually, but it never really won me over.

That's my issue - it never won me over. I'd heard people praising it like it was the best thing ever to grace television screens, that it's the equivalent to sliced bread and the second coming rolled into one. The Wikipedia page says it's "widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time". To me, it simply wasn't. It was slow paced and empty, but not in a good way. When things happened, they felt like they were just trying to ramp up the pace for the sake of it, and when nothing happened, it felt more like a bottle episode than a deep focus on the characters (see S3E10, 'Fly'). As bitter a pill as it may be to swallow, Walter White is an asshole. He started off noble (perhaps too much so) and with good intentions, but he broke bad far too soon and then roller coastered around that level. The characters in the show are just... extremes of humans in a way. I'm sure there are people in the world like that, but for them to all be in the same circle? Anyway, I'm getting distracted. The point is, it didn't live up to the hype I heard.

Mad Men is another matter. I find Don Draper's mentality fascinating, the look into the not-so-distant past equally fascinating, and all the characters very deep. Incidentally, the hype there was a few years ago for Mad Men seems to have died down, and now the only hype I see about it is from dedicated fans - not posers jumping on a bandwagon.

Maybe I'm just jaded, maybe it's all just a social construct. Perhaps people watch these hyped up shows because their friends go on about them, so they watch them and then, to avoid being different, rave about how awesome it is and all views snowball out of proportion. This could be why I 'bear' Mad Men, because the only other people talking about it are other people who actually care about it.

I am not a hipster. I don't get annoyed at certain shows because they become popular, I'm just irked when hordes flock to mediocre programming and hidden gems die because of a lack of viewers.

Challenging myself

Ok, as a challenge, I was thinking about posting a certain amount on here for the week starting Monday 23rd June. Typically, I started with a safe achievable number of a post every other day... however, I rarely push myself, so how about a post every single day? Deal. Keep your eyes peeled, there's going to be plenty of random thoughts dropping here soon.

Update: Inevitably, that was a disaster. I'll try to stick to one every other day this week though.

Why can't you add audiobooks to the iTunes queue?

I just tried to drag an audiobook into my iTunes queue, and it wouldn't let me. I then tried to add it to play next via the iOS Remote, and I couldn't there either, so it must be a lack of function rather than a UI oversight.

I understand that the two are different types of media, despite being transmitted through the same means. However, is it not feasible that I may want to chill to some music before delving into an audiobook, and then may want some music afterwards to relax themselves out of the tension of some exciting roller coaster of fiction. Better still, if audiobook publishers used .m4b files properly and added chapter markers, would it not be a neat experience to listen to an audiobook, with chapters separated by some tracks of your choosing?

One final note, I spotted in the iOS Remote app that the "Rewind 30s" button is displayed when an audiobook was playing, which is useful. However, I can't find such a button on iTunes itself.

(One last note - when viewing this post the i in iTunes looks uppercase. It is not; I wrote the i in lowercase, it just seems to display merged)

I'm nervous about Rainbow Six: Siege

I have some very fond memories of some Rainbow Six games, as I do with Star Wars: Battlefront II, and as is natural with any reboot/revival/return, there's an element of fear.

E3 is happening at the moment, and one of the various videos Ubisoft unveiled was gameplay footage of Rainbow Six: Siege:

I was in awe for four minutes and thirty seconds of the video, constantly thinking "finally, the 'realistic' combat game I've always yearned for is being made", until it occurred to me - don't hate the games, hate the players.

If you happen to have ten people playing Siege in the manner demonstrated in the video, then fine, it will be the amazing game it has the potential to be. If, however, you have ten stereotypical FPS pros playing it, there will be a bodycount of nine, perhaps ten, within the first thirty seconds of the rescue team explosively breaching through a garage. I suppose there is a balance somewhere, as if the majority of people playing want to play it realistically, measured, and slowly, then the trigger-happy FPS pros will be out for the count just as soon as if they were playing against other FPS pros. Or, all the people creeping around bannisters to get a better look will be executed by somebody sprinting and jumping all over the house.

In all honesty, I don't know how it'll turn out, as all I've seen is the video above. I can only hope it's everything it looks to be.

"Hot N Cold"

I am melting. The dilapidated fan is whirring away in vain, I am wearing just jeans and a t-shirt, and the window is wide open. Yet I continue to melt.

I rotate between sitting at the desk on the uncomfortable chair, collapsing on the bed until it becomes too warm, or just walking around the room with my hands on my head in exasperation.  With those fidgeting factors, this could take a while to write. Although, I don't even know what I'm writing.

The one thing I am certain of is that if I had to choose between the weather being forever cold or forever hot, I would choose cold. A psychologist or some such person may say that if the weather was cold at the moment, I would long for warm weather. They would be wrong. Even in the bitter cold of winter, I have said on numerous occasions that I would rather it was always that cold rather than stiflingly hot.

The heat makes me stressed, uncomfortable, agitated, short tempered, unproductive, and bored. If I want to get something done, I may take a shot at it, and then give up because the heat is all too much. In an attempt to embrace the warm weather, I wanted to sit outside in the sunshine and read a book - something I haven't done in a long time. One problem - the sun is not shining, there was even rain earlier, and the skies have been bland if anything. Yet I still find it warm. I'm just not cut out for warm weather. When it's cold, I can just put more clothes on. When it's warm, well, it would be awkward to remove clothes.

I have an urge to burst out and find some sunshine to sit in, yet I cannot find any.