Mondays and Tuesdays are culture sinks

Compared to the rest of the week, Monday and Tuesday play host to an inordinately large number of cultural attractions. Yes, there’s Doctor Who on Friday nights and Smallville on Saturdays, but

Ever since school began in September, I’ve been cooking dinner on Mondays to practise my rudimentary cooking skills. While preparing dinner, I like to listen to podcasts. This schedule works nicely, because The Vinyl Cafe podcast is up by Monday at the latest, and I prefer to listen to the podcast, as I can’t catch it every Sunday; sometimes I‘m at work. I love the on demand convenience of podcasts. In addition to Vinyl Cafe, there’s a new podcast of Search Engine every Monday. Lastly, if I have any left over interviews from Spark’s enhanced podcast feed, I’ll listen to those. Occasionally I listen to an Ideas podcast, but not regularly.

After dinner, my dad and I watch a couple of TV shows if we‘re both home. First there’s Stargate Atlantis, then Chuck, and finally Heroes—sometimes we save Heroes for Tuesday if we don’t have time to watch it. This week’s episodes of Stargate Atlantis and Chuck were particularly awesome! I loved seeing Bill Nye guest star on Atlantis—he got several great comic relief lines. Then, of course, there was the kiss! (Oh, by the way, that was a spoiler alert…). Similarly, Chuck continues to wow and astound me. Although the episodes are often predictable, it’s just so enjoyable to watch them. The lines are witty and delivered perfectly by the stellar cast. I love that show.

My opinion of Heroes is that the writers are squandering a good concept by producing inconsistent episodes. They still have too many characters, so it’s hard for them to integrate these disparate elements into a coherent storyline, resulting in continuity errors and flat moments in episodes that really detract from the better parts.

We record Terminator: The Sarah Chronicles later that night to watch on Tuesday. Earlier during the afternoon, since I‘ve been lucky to have no class on Tuesdays, I usually listen to the week’s episode of Spark as soon as it’s available for download.

Now, however, I have an additional show to watch on Tuesdays: The Guild, Felicia Day’s webseries about a group of gamers who spend waaaaay too much time gaming. The first season, originally available on YouTube, was a set of 10 hilarious 2-5 minute episodes. This season, the show has partnered with Microsoft to make the series available on MSN Video and for download on Xbox Live—in HD, no less! So now I can watch the episodes on my shiny HDTV. I love technology, and free stuff….

Then after my dad and I catch up on leftovers from Monday night, including Terminator, I get to watch House. It apparently perplexes my dad why I enjoy House; I just love Hugh Laurie’s character. His performance is entertaining, and some of the scenarios in that series are just so absurd—clearly no doctor could actually act like House and keep his or her license, but since when has TV had anything to do with reality?

Lastly, The Rick Mercer Report and This Hour Has 22 Minutes are on Tuesday nights. Since the CBC kindly makes these available online, I don’t always watch them, and sometimes I don’t even bother recording them. But it’s fit to include them in my Tuesday night of culture osmosis, since I could watch them on Tuesday if I didn’t have math homework….

Now I must try to complete my ring theory assignment so I can hand it in tomorrow. My ring theory assignment and the education paper I must revise and print out before going to bed are my last assignments of this term. Next week, exams begin—one next week and two the week after. Then I get a nice break before the second term plunges me into a new scheduling hell!

I need a haircut.