Of Course, It Could Just Be a Rock

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

I used to have a job that probably mattered somewhat in the big scheme of things. I suppose that should have been enough for me, but apparently it wasn't, because I'm doing something completely different and far less important in the big scheme of things now. If I were to go on strike tomorrow (assuming I could - I think they'd probably fire and replace me in about 10 minutes), I don't know that it would really be that effective. That's probably a bit how those Writers' Guild people feel right now. They probably thought life would start to fall apart if we had no new sitcoms or Desperate Housewives episodes for a few months, and unless they're the ones driving the recession, I'm not sure that it has. I mean, I can't say that I've noticed that much of a difference. I don't watch that much TV to begin with, I suppose, but it seems like they've just come up with variations on the same reality shows to fill in the time. I don't pay close attention, so one Biggest Loser just seems to bleed into the other (sort of like birthdays for me now - I seriously couldn't remember how old I was the other day).

Actually, it's not technically true to say that I don't watch a lot of TV. It's probably more accurate to say that I'm not a consistent TV watcher. I watch plenty of useless banter between sports analysts, a lot of NBA games, and my share of Seinfeld re-runs. There are only a few shows that I watch religiously (e.g. The Office voluntarily and 24 involuntarily). I'm a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica (nerd alert!), and now I actually DVR an even nerdier show called Monster Quest, which helps me figure out whether I have to worry about being eaten someday by giant birds or Bigfoot. [By the way, why do we use "Tivo" and "DVR" as verbs but never used to say we were going to "VCR" something?]

I can apparently drop Monster Quest from my short list now, because Bigfoot has been found. Apparently, he got tired of having the nerd paparrazi and people with fake lady bigfoot pheromones chase him around all day, so he hitched a ride to Mars somehow. We wouldn't know that, except that one of the little remote-control cars we have driving around up there caught him on camera. Even then, we wouldn't know except that some person apparently spends their days and nights going over every little pixel of these pictures. At first glance, you wonder how anyone could miss it:



Well, try to find this in the context of the whole picture (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA10214.jpg). I finally found him by the rocks in the bottom left corner, but I had a point of reference and knew what I was looking for.

You have to feel a bit bad for the guy. I mean, stars and athletes complain they have no privacy and sometimes throw on a wig or some sunglasses to try to hide from the photographers, but this guy went to another planet, and we spent billions of dollars to send cameras there to find him. I guess that's what happens when the writers are all on strike and we have nothing better to do.