Weekend review.
Dec. 4th, 2005 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Library book sale this weekend. Sadly, I completely misestimated the amount I was spending. When it rang up as $4.99, I realized that I had culled way too much from my pile - I could have bought a lot more. But by then it was too late.
It's hard for me to tell if I'm going to like a mainstream novel or not. I went over tables and tables of them without picking much of anything up. With SF and fantasy and mystery, I can often even pick up good clues about whether something is worth looking at from the title and book jacket. With mainstream novels, even the blurbs don't necessarily help me. I keep checking things out from the library and not liking them very much.
We've started watching House so that we can fit in with the rest of my friends list. I like the show - bitter sarcasm can carry me a long way - but I can't help wondering:
Am I really supposed to believe that the reason this guy is constantly on the brink of being fired is because he's nonconformist and insubordinate, rather than, for example, because he almost kills every single patient via a succession of incorrect diagnoses?
I went to Whole Foods to stock up on baby food and organic frozen vegetables, and was captivated by a display of tiny live Christmas trees. I've been debating whether the pleasure of having a tree this year would be overwhelmed by the hassle of keeping Alex away from it. (At least by next year she should understand what "no" means, even if she doesn't pay much attention.) I bought a little 18" pine for our dining room table. Now poor
curiousangel has to dig through the massive piles of junk in our storage area to find the buried Christmas ornaments.
After Michael gave Alex her bath, I came down to help get her ready for bed. She looked up and saw me coming down the stairs. Her face broke into a grin... and she clapped. Clapped with excitement because Mama was coming.
I am not ashamed to admit that I cried. And asked her if she wanted me to buy her a Corvette.
It's hard for me to tell if I'm going to like a mainstream novel or not. I went over tables and tables of them without picking much of anything up. With SF and fantasy and mystery, I can often even pick up good clues about whether something is worth looking at from the title and book jacket. With mainstream novels, even the blurbs don't necessarily help me. I keep checking things out from the library and not liking them very much.
We've started watching House so that we can fit in with the rest of my friends list. I like the show - bitter sarcasm can carry me a long way - but I can't help wondering:
Am I really supposed to believe that the reason this guy is constantly on the brink of being fired is because he's nonconformist and insubordinate, rather than, for example, because he almost kills every single patient via a succession of incorrect diagnoses?
I went to Whole Foods to stock up on baby food and organic frozen vegetables, and was captivated by a display of tiny live Christmas trees. I've been debating whether the pleasure of having a tree this year would be overwhelmed by the hassle of keeping Alex away from it. (At least by next year she should understand what "no" means, even if she doesn't pay much attention.) I bought a little 18" pine for our dining room table. Now poor
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
After Michael gave Alex her bath, I came down to help get her ready for bed. She looked up and saw me coming down the stairs. Her face broke into a grin... and she clapped. Clapped with excitement because Mama was coming.
I am not ashamed to admit that I cried. And asked her if she wanted me to buy her a Corvette.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:16 am (UTC)Oh, thank God it's not just me. I've been wondering that for ages. Also, I keep wondering: who in the US has health insurance that would pay for all those tests and treatments? (I like the show too, but.)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:17 am (UTC)*laughing with delight*
:):):)
As for House, hey, I don't want *reality* in my escapism! :)
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:19 am (UTC)There's also been some speculation that there's a meta-case going on -- that, as time goes on, they give more and more subtle clues that something else is going on with House himself -- that he's deteriorating or SOMETHING like that, and that the real challenge here is going to be noticing that something is wrong with House and fixing it before he DOES kill a patient.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 04:24 am (UTC)There's nothing inherently dramatic about all the times House sucessfully diagnoses someone. While the show's writers can make some open-and-shut cases interesting, simple cases in which House is right are strictly B-plots-- there's not enough dramatic potential to hang a show on any one of them. House and his team doing differential diagnoses that are incorrect but reveal new symptoms through treatment, however, can sustain the backbone of a show (and obviously has, repeatedly). That's the show's basic formula, equivalent to the X-Files' "monster of the week" episodes. It's the template that makes it possible to produce over 100 shows (which is the magic number for syndication, where the real money is... or at least used to be, before DVD sales began affecting TV's business model).
The writers also have a fairly good excuse for why House doesn't bore the viewers by reeling off correct diagnosis after correct diagnosis: It bores him, too, so he seeks out cases no one else can solve (and which even he needs several tries to clinch).
I don't know if thinking about the show differently would help people who are focused the obvious real-world consequences of this kind of behavior look past it, but House is essentially a police procedural transplanted into a medical setting. The show's creator has even admitted that the character of Gregory House is a transparent riff on Sherlock Holmes (antisocial genius investigator, drug addiction, only one close friend, minions who do his footwork for him). The only fly in the ointment (as noted) is that in the typical police procedural, you don't have a patient who nearly dies every time your working hypothesis turns out to be wrong. With House, if there's no patient, there's no show.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:43 pm (UTC)I know, and yet I continue to maintain that it is not a sign of a good diagnostician to repeatedly treat patients for the wrong diagnosis before hitting on the right one. "He's a genius diagnostician! 75% of his diagnoses are dangerously wrong!"
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:23 am (UTC)We use 4' high redwood trees (live) on a table. Dogs chew ornaments.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:24 am (UTC)Unrequested Geek Answer Syndrome
Date: 2005-12-05 03:43 am (UTC)My parents used a playpen to keep me away from the tree.
They put the tree in the playpen, and let me roam.
Re: Unrequested Geek Answer Syndrome
Date: 2005-12-05 03:52 am (UTC)Other friends tied the top of the tree to the ceiling or wall so if it was knocked over, it wouldn't actually fall.
Re: Unrequested Geek Answer Syndrome
Date: 2005-12-05 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 01:07 pm (UTC)What a cute little poo-face she is.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 03:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 04:21 pm (UTC)