i've neglected this journal for a while, after only writing one entry. my bad.


today's rant is about the office.


now, i just want to start by saying that i love the office. sometimes i watch entire seasons of the show in one day. i feel that the humor is almost always witty and original, the dramatic tension is addictive, and the premise for the show as a whole is just brilliant.

however, not too long ago, i noticed a major flaw in the plot of the show as a whole, and it's been bugging me ever since: ommission of celebrity status.

currently, stars of reality TV shows achieve celebrity status. not that i would know who these people are, but current and former stars of shows like "america's next top model" and "i love new york" get recognized on the street and often earn a loyal fanbase.

the office, for those of you who don't know, is a sitcom based on the premise of being a reality show that documents daily life in the office of dunder-mifflin, a failing paper supply company. it is shot documentary style, like an actual reality show, and includes personal interviews with people in the office, similar to the "confessional room" set up in every real world house.

now, keeping with premise of being a reality show, wouldn't the workers of dunder-mifflin get recognized on the street for being stars of a hit reality tv show? i'm not talking about the actors, mind you. obviously in real life, steve carrell probably gets followed by fans everywhere he goes-- buying a lamp must be impossible. but in the world of the office, where he is in his fourth season as reality tv star michael scott, shouldn't that come up somewhere?

so, a note to the writers of the office, whenever it is that you come back to work: it's not believable that a reality tv show would be successful enough to make it to a fourth season, yet obscure enough that its stars could continue to lead normal lives. write accordingly.

( introduction )


today's rant is about garden state.


the movie itself didn't really piss me off. granted, it was awful, but people make awful movies all the time. every frustrating thing about garden state stems from its following.

when garden state came out in theaters, i heard nothing but good things about it, so naturally, i went to see it at the first chance i got. i left the theater wishing i'd found a better use of my two hours and ten bucks, because i realized that i had just paid good money to support a taste-creator. a culture crushing, identity sucking taste-creator.

a taste-creator, for those of you still unwilling to notice it, is a film or record that is both hip enough and accessible enough to give a lot of its devotees the power to proclaim themselves fans of a culture they didn't give one-and-a-half shits about beforehand. the accompanying soundtrack intensified this effect. if you're a garden state fan who began 2004 listening to taking back sunday and watching movies starring amanda bynes, there's a good chance that you finished out the year with tastes far too discerning to ever admit to it.

the proof of all of this is evident in the responses i'm given when i tell people that garden state sucked. most of the time, i'm told that i "just don't get it." i DO get it, you fucking novice chumps, and i was a pretentious snob years before your overnight transformation into aspiring record critics. i completely understand everything about the movie, and i can assure you that nothing about it was as deeply concealed as you seem to think.

watching conversations that occur between these masters of disguise feels sickeningly similar to being a 13 year old boy and listening to my friends brag to each other about how far they'd gotten with a girl. all of it is completely fabricated, and everyone in the circle knows it, but no one is going to step up and call everyone else a fucking liar. the same way that i never got a blowjob in middle school, none of you ever saw lifetime before the 2005 reunion, and none of you ever owned an issue of cometbus.