Rule of the Boob Toob

Television, the best and worst way to waste time ever invented. I was bored last night and saw Ten Things I Hate About You for the first time. Having never read Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew upon which it’s based, I can’t comment on how good the adaptation is, but I really wonder why they bothered to make that movie. I mean, sure it lets Julia Stiles do another Shakespeare-based movie, and Heath Ledger is teenybopper girl eye candy, but there were a few too many liberties taken with the characters. Nobody who’s that much of a “heinous bitch” turns into a sappy lovebird after two dates with a supposed ex-jailbird who’s being paid to date her, and high school parties are NOTHING like that. Ugh. Hollywood.

Incidentally, Heath Ledger is from Carrawarra, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, and about five minutes from where I lived (yeah, the Ugly Yellow Pub!) when I was on study abroad at Curtin, so I don’t mind him so much. I just didn’t think his acting in Ten Things was all that great.

Then again, I saw a program about submarines on TLC this afternoon and learned a lot about Jesse James thanks to the History Channel. This is why TV is worthwhile.

Speaking of the “boob toob,” that phrase is almost a palindrome, which reminded me of visiting this Web site a while back. Some people have waaaaay too much time on their hands. I think my favourite is probably “A man, a plan, a butt tub: anal Panama,” although “a nut for a jar of tuna” seems to be one of the more, well, realistic examples listed. I think I originally found the site when I was looking for information on palindromic numbers, after my buddy Dave (who was a math major) ran a little math puzzle by me that used some palindromic trick. Gosh, Google is great.

posted by Chris on 09 March 2003 at 2240 in general

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