13th December 2006, 7:37 PM
Fittisize Wrote:I've always thought that I have a pretty good grasp on popular culture and yet I've only seen A Christmas Story once. In Elementary school during class. I didn't even remember the movie until I read about it in this thread. In fact, I don't even know anything about the plot or characters (although I do remember one scene that invlolved a child getting a whuppin' because he was blamed for teaching a kid curse words...or something). Judging by some of the posts I've been reading, this appears to be a huge cultural phenomenon that has simply passed me by. No matter. Sometimes this just happens. I seem to be the only person left on Earth who hasn't seen Pirates of the Caribbean yet (either one) and I don't feel sheltered or inadequate in any way.
A quick scroll through my satellite listings and I see A Christmas Story playing on five different channels. How did I miss out on this again?
Well you did have to actively search for it to find out it was there, and I have to ask if there would be any particular reason for you to be idly watching any of the channels it was on anyway. There's a reason for everything.
Anyway GR, you're right, never seen or read those, though I do know they exist at least. Discworld? Eh, not really interested. Most of it has been pretty much ruined by a friend of mine constantly quoting from various books in the series. I'm a little too busy reading a few new books I got like "The Blind Watchmaker".
Besides, I'm not about to have you say THOSE are things I just could NOT have avoided seeing. Most of my family hasn't seen or read, or even heard, of those either. I'm a nerd but not the sort of nerd who gets into all this stuff to maintain proper "nerd" status but rather the sort who gets into the things I enjoy and becomes a nerd through that. I may eventually see 2001, but eh, I get the impression I already know the whole story anyway without having seen it. Something about a super intelligent evil computer, and a guy shuts it down before it does something evil, and then they get to Saturn and there's a black thing that's "full of stars".
It may be good, but with that ending I have to wonder if they didn't decide to do a cheesy cop-out ending of "we basically turned on all our photoshop effects and call it deep and mysterious and meaningful when it's really just meaningless" sort of ending.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)