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Thursday, March 19, 2015

Nope, I Just Don't Get It

Karen: Are there certain things that become popular, and you say to yourself, "I just don't get it?" It could be a movie, a song, a comic -whatever. Everyone seems to think it's the greatest thing since Lee and Kirby, or the day chocolate and peanut butter discovered each other, but it just doesn't click for you.

I'll throw out a few of those, genre-related, here. Number one, I don't get Big Bang Theory. There, I said it. When the show first came on, friends and family urged me and my husband to watch it. "You'll love it!" I was told. "It's all the stuff you guys like!" I suppose theoretically, I should be the perfect viewer for it: science background, huge SF/comics geek. But we struggled through three episodes -it just didn't make us laugh. If anything, I found the show alternately boring and annoying.  Every once in a while I check out an episode to see if anything's changed, but nope, it just does nothing for me.

I have a similar reaction to the Harry Potter films and books. I have friends who adore both. When the books came out, I tried reading them. Actually, I got through the first two. But they left me cold. I grew up reading Tolkien, Norton, and later, Zelazny and Farmer. This stuff just wasn't doing anything for me. And the films? Never felt pulled in or involved in the story, and couldn't keep half the characters straight. But I know I'm in the minority. With both of these, I sometimes wonder if there's something I haven't clued in to, but then I feel just fine without them in my life.

So what popular entertainment, past or present, makes you shake your head with bafflement? 



55 comments:

  1. Facebook and Twitter! I seriously don't get it!

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  2. I totally agree with you about Harry Potter. I read the first book, and saw the first four movies. They're OK, but nothing special in my opinion. I just don't understand what makes them so special for so many people. But hey, at least it's gotten young people interested in reading.

    However, I love The Big Bang Theory. Sorry.

    I also never did like Forrest Gump, don't understand why The Godfather is the greatest movie ever, and I think chicken wings are absolutely disgusting, though I think I must be the only one in upstate NY who feels that way. OK, so that last one isn't popular entertainment...or maybe it is.

    I'm sure there are other things that fit the bill for me, but I'm drawing a blank right now.

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  3. I'll also agree with JalRod about Facebook and Twitter. I don't need to hear everyone's thought on every little thing that happens, nor do I feel compelled to write and publish my every little thought and everything that happens in my life to the world.

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  4. I didn't get the appeal of the movie 'Avatar'. It was pretty to look at and the special effects were good, but the plot and characters did nothing for me.

    I watched the first season of '30 Rock' and with the exception of one scene with Tracy Morgan, I found it flat and bland.
    I'll probably think of more when I get to work.

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  5. Like dbutler, I can't abide chicken wings, and also love Big Bang Theory.

    Never liked "The Office"; had friends who swore by it. Watched it once and nearly fell asleep.

    Star Trek (sorry, everybody). I've watched it all, thought it was ok but not earth-shaking. Actually preferred the Saturday morning series to the live action show.

    Deadpool. Doesn't interest me at all...

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  6. I'll defend Twitter as a tremendous source of information - news and sports. I have a personal account, as well as the one we maintain for the BAB. Tweets are so short, it's really no investment of my time to skim and skip over the stuff I'm not interested in clicking on.

    Put me in the camp, however, that doesn't have a Facebook acct. and doesn't want one. I've said it before -- I really don't care if you're eating oatmeal on your patio while watching the sunrise.

    Which leads me into another aspect of life on which I've previously commented -- so-called reality TV. Hate it. Even the design shows we watch on HGTV have devolved into people telling me their feelings, and frustrations, and blah blah blah. I DO NOT CARE. Just show me the house once it's fixed up! People that get wrapped up in The Bachelor, Survivor, etc? I don't get it.

    And another thing: I don't care which "celebrities" are at this or that NBA game. People that do care? "Nope, I just don't get it!"

    Doug

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  7. Re-reading my previous comments, I have affirmed my previous conclusion that I am a curmudgeon.

    Doug

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  8. Holy Cats, Karen-- you're verging dangerously close to turnin' us all into a bunch of eager Andy Rooneys (the since-departed KING of curmudgeonly "You-know-what-I-don't-get?"-ers from 60 MINUTES)-!!

    Mind you, I've been rather on that path since high school---FOREVER behind any pop-culture trends. . . perpetually slow to acclimate to them. . .

    BIG BANG THEORY I really do like quite a lot, but it perpetually loses points for surrendering to the low-road, easy, crass laughs rather than trusting its cast and truly very clever writers to carry the humor and the show without it.

    I. . . have neither a Facebook nor Twitter acct, which has actually become a bone of contention at my workplace. I've only recently given folks limited access to my cell-phone #.

    There's a huge internet sensation of this guy called PewtiePie (sic) who records himself playing video games, and posts the recordings on YouTube. HBSon & a goodly number of his pals have spent untold hours & hours watching recordings of this fellow playing (and commenting on) video games. I've enjoyed playing a goodly amount myself over the years-- but to simply passively sit and watch someone else play for hours??

    Honestly, I NEVER got FRIENDS. I tried to watch it a number of times, and simply couldn't get myself to care about any of the characters. Similarly, SEINFELD was amusing to me in small doses, and could be situationally hilarious, but these main characters were, honestly, just awful people. . . completely self-absorbed and un-likable over the course of time. I find that I turn it off whenever I come across it on TV.

    Beavis & Butthead.

    Oh boy, here's one that'll get me tossed right off this blog: FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF had both myself and HBGirlfriend (before we were married, mind you) exiting the theater wanting to throttle that character. Although I must say that the Twist & Shout sequence was a pure joy worth seeing the entire film for. . .

    HB

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  9. Hoooo, that's a gasp-inducer, there, Sean--!

    I do sometimes wonder if Star Wars was a right-movie-at-the-right-time phenomenon? Seeing it on the big screen was certainly one of the most gratifying cinema experiences of my young life, and I honestly hadn't been caught up in the hype, even, at that point. There'd been previews and such on TV, but it was the following week that it REALLY became unto a thing alive. And the 2nd film did a great job of bringing us further along, but--- ending on a cliff-hanger-- something about that clicked a small switch for me, and I had just a touch of "jaded" on-board for pretty much everything after that. And I'm afraid I've never been able to get myself to surrender to any of the book series that the franchise sprouted, as beloved as they are by so many.

    HB

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  10. HB --

    Ferris Bueller's Day Off is in that category of films that would have been much better had the last act been cut. The whole scene with the boys trying to take the miles off the car and Cameron's meltdown wears me out.

    In Ang Lee's Hulk film, if it had ended 20 minutes sooner and spared us the whole "Absorbing Man" scene, we'd have had a nice Hulk film that honored the old Tales to Astonish series.

    Here's another one for me: zombies. I don't get the attraction either in the comics or in shows like Walking Dead. Not in my wheelhouse, I guess.

    Doug

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  11. This is probably heresy but I can't understand the fuss about super-hero movies - Spider-Man 2 is the only one of the five Spider-Man movies I've seen and I just can't get excited in the least about any of the ones coming up, for me they are just a money-making machine dumbed down for a mass audience. I feel I should point out that JK Rowling meant her Harry Potter books for children - by the way, I've read that she's the second biggest donor to charity in Britain. And I'd agree with Sean about Star Wars - the first one was a cultural phenomenon but you can keep the rest, and I couldn't care less about the new one coming out - surely this tired old space-opera has had its' day ?

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  12. OHHHHH GEEZ.., this'll be a busy site today, gents and lasses.

    "Doug, you thing YOU'RE a curmudgeon.."

    Never got Manga/anime, especially in the '80s when you had the japanese space stuff.., the direct descendents of 'Speed Racer'. Never into Anderson's supermarionette stuff, DEVOTED to Space:1999 and most of UFO, but couldn't stomach the previous stuff, but I do admire the effects work.

    'Friends'..? Uggh, I tried watching some episodes a few years back on Kuwaiti cable channels when I was getting dressed for work in Kuwait. Still cannot watch it. Loved Fraiser though.

    Cannot get into Potter, Hobbit or LOTR movies or literature. Never did anything for me.

    I tried to like watching baseball, nope just a passing interest at best.

    As for Facebook, I resisted for years and years when the former wife was on it. For years I knew there were cool sci-fi and Beatle stuff pics posted, but I still resisted. Now since being single again, I started some low-level interest pursuing geek and whimsical interests, HATE all the game invites.., but I do post scripture, some politics and other bits of interest (plus checking out some of our other BAB member pages....). Made some good online friendships. Haven't Twitted yet, until someone bludgeons me with all the glamor of having a Twitter acct, I probably won't.

    Bike helmets..? Nope, will never get it. Safety is important, but never had it growing up and **somehow**, in some mysterious cosmic way, we all survived with only 'Mr Yuck' stickers.

    I do enjoy Big Bang but gawd, some episodes have been repeatedly watched so often, geez. They jumped the shark with Penny's short hairdo, and now most episodes seem labored to generate any legitimate, earnest laughter.

    SW Prequels and the BSG reimaging a few years back. No time for either. Give me 'Star Wars' and 'Empire Strikes Back' or vintage Galactica anyday. I've only stomached ROTJ when it first came out (barely....), and perhaps watched it on a VHS tape twice since.

    Never liked Reality TV, why does self-absorbed drama equate to quality television..? My girlfriend does like 'Chopped' on the Food network for cooking ideas, but the judging stuff's kinda hokey to me. Years ago I watched 'The Bachelor' for a spell, just to poke fun at it.

    ("Who cleaned those hot-tubs anyways...???")

    Ohhh, the list could go on and on. Who's up next..?

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  13. Sorry, should have edited more.

    "Doug, you THINK you're a curmudgeon.."

    Sorry.

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  14. Ok, "25th Anniversary with the cast of 'Pretty Woman' today on TODAY"....

    David mutters to himself.., 'It.. was.. just.. a.. movie.'
    .
    .
    .
    Get over yourselves.

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  15. And there's one more thing I have to confess to being puzzled by - the Beatles. I'm not saying they didn't have some good songs but their god-like status is baffling to me. I know I'm not alone in thinking this as a show on BBC radio a few years ago revealed that half the audience considered the Beatles to be over-rated. And George Harrison himself said : "The Beatles were a rock 'n' roll band - get over it ".

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  16. Colin, great post. A big Fab fan, yet I totally agree with George.

    Never understood the adulation of John Lennon.. His talent was good, his drive was critical at a few junctures in their fame trajectory but all the post-group attention is ludicrous. John would have been the FIRST to call those fans 'nuts'.

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  17. Boy, LotR-- both the trilogy and the films-- is a really good call from my perspective, although I freely recognize and respect the deep attachment that about a zillion folks have for both. I've started the books three times, and have never been able to plow through to the end of THE TWO TOWERS. I swear it seems like Tolkien wasn't even working from a well-thought-out outline as he wrote his epic tale. Frodo & Sam are solidly established as the tale's protagonists. . . and they disappear for hundreds of pages. JRR doesn't know how to resolve the story of- Merry & Pippin, is it?-- so he flat out says, "Welp, these guys are done. I've lost track of what I wanted 'em for. Adios!"
    And the films-- I'm stunned that HBWife got through all three of them-- but the first two at home almost instantly became a personal MST3K fest for us, which became a HUGE problem when we saw the third in a theater. . . 'cause we were still in that frame of mind, and stifling riotous laughter throughout (OMG. . . that final, interminable, slow-motion good-bye wave. . . free-running tears of suppressed laughter & fighting for breath. . . we were AWFUL!!!)

    HB
    (Knowing full well I'm-a steppin' all over some poor, innocent toes, here. . . )

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  18. Colin, one thing to note on the heralding of the Fabs and the Stones is pure and simple revisionism..

    Back in the mid-60s, you had plenty of bands competing, and even plenty of rock films by the likes of Herman's Hermits, Dave Clark Five, etc.. They've since fallen by the wayside and thus out of today's consciousness.

    Ultimately, you only have groups like Beatles, the Stones, Yardbirds, Cream, and Byrds still resonating to varying degrees. Folks may diss comparatively-weaker films like 'Help!' or others, but there were plenty of rock movies competing for attention. Using Youtube to check out 'The TAMI Show', the follow-on 1965 'Big TNT Show' and shows like Shindig and Ready Steady Go will illustrate that.

    Some just took hold more than others.

    Case in point..: I remember Paul McCartney gushing in interviews about first meeting Don and Phil Everly...

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  19. Big Bang Theory
    Dr. Who
    Over-zealous self-protection from so-called "spoilers"

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  20. I would echo Osvaldo's Dr. Who sentiment, but truthfully I've only ever tried it twice.

    Doug

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  21. I'm a huge Beatles and Star Wars fan. But I'd argue that both were a case of right place, right time.

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  22. Gosh, David - thanks for being so understanding, I know what a big Beatles fan you are. There are plenty of their songs that I like myself and I know they are important in the history of music but I think George Harrison's statement shows that they must feel burdened by being lauded so highly all the time - well, maybe not Paul McCartney as he seems to revel in it.

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  23. I'd agree that timing matters with these things, but all the same I thought Star Wars was pretty dumb back then as a kid. Saw part of the Phantom Menace on tv recently - yes, its bad, but I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how the earlier films are any better.

    Funnily enough, I'm not into the Beatles either... you could easily do seperate "I don't get it" discussions on most of these topics.

    -sean

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  24. Yep. Andy Rooney ain't got nuthin' on this crowd.

    I agree with the "right place, right time" sentiment on so many of these. I loved the first Star Wars and the first Harry Potter when they were originally released. But, I quickly got bored with both of those franchises.

    And sorry Karen...I love Big Bang but agree with David that it has jumped the shark already.

    Tom

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  25. Another way to look at this could be to flip it around and consider preferences that seem out of step with popular or critical opinion.
    As someone who enjoyed Jack Kirby's later 70s Marvels - including, perhaps most of all, Devil Dinosaur - this is an area I may be overly familiar with...

    -sean

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  26. Wow, Karen, great topic! It's certainly a magnet for comments.

    Anyway, to address some of the above, I really don't get Facebook and Twitter, either, even though last year I had to open up a Facebook account for one of my jobs (it's media-related). However, I use it only for work purposes (to access another account) and use my personal page to mainly to post photographs taken when I take my dog for walks.

    A lot of the others I totally agree with as well, esp. so-called reality TV, Dr. Who and baseball.

    Otherwise, since this is primarily a comics blog, I'm bringing this back to comics and say I just don't get the immense adulation accorded to Grant Morrison in some corners of comics fandom. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a pretty good writer, and there's some of his stuff that I like immensely (We3) or thought was quite good (All Star Superman, JLA: Earth 2), but I don't get the rapturous praise he often garners, as though he's the Cervantes, Shakespeare and Twain of comics combined. Many of his works that are often lauded as these landmark, must-read comics left me pretty cold (like Flex Mentallo, Sea Guy and Seven Soldiers). And I'll readily admit that I haven't read his Animal Man, Doom Patrol or Invisibles, but after getting burned with some of the other titles I mentioned, often at considerable expense, I decided the only way I would read those is if I can borrow them from someone.

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  27. Oh, and I like chicken wings just fine, thank you...

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  28. Not really true to today's subject matter, but I kinda miss DVD 'Easter eggs' and Pop-Up videos..

    I know I know, totally '90s shtick (or schtick, depending on which Yiddish dictionary you use..) which got tired, but they were nice entertaining features.

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  29. Doug, add another to the list of Dr. Who non-fans. And I detest. (Detest!) reality television. I will watch frost form in the freezer before tuning in such shows.

    Man, this topic really has fired up the curmudgeon in me; and I'm in a great mood today! One more bit of heresy- no interest in the NCAA tourney...

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  30. I like baseball, although I agree that it's a very slow-moving sport.

    I like soccer (football), but am always surprised that it's the most popular spectator sport in the world. It seems that basketball, with more offense, would be a better candidate.

    And I do get fired up for the NCAAs each year!

    Doug

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  31. I don't get the Hunger Games' appeal.

    In general not a fan of slasher movies.

    Or pumpkin flavored coffee.

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  32. Facebook.

    Star Wars.

    Turkeys. Why do we have the world's least edible bird for the biggest meal of the year?

    Sherlock.

    Seinfeld.

    Frasier. Everyone kept telling me it was witty and sophisticated but it just felt like I was watching a particularly arch remake of Are You Being Served.

    Harry Potter.

    Citizen Kane. Every shot's so contrived that it puts me right off.

    2001: A Space Odyssey. Yawn.

    Charles Dickens. Totally indigestible and filled with people with silly names.

    Shakespeare. Just an excuse for actors to go overboard.

    Wuthering Heights. I made one attempt to read it and gave up halfway through.

    Peter Pan. A genuinely atrocious book.

    Chicken Licken. They forced us to read it in primary school. I shall never forgive them for it.

    Pantomimes. I know you don't have them in America. Trust me, you're lucky.

    Circuses. They're supposed to be a form of entertainment -- but they're not entertaining.

    American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, golf, cricket.

    Blur, Oasis, the Doors, Fleetwood Mac, Stone Roses.

    Bohemian Rhapsody.

    Jazz.

    The Velvet Underground.

    Turkish Delight.

    Coffee.

    Michelangelo. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is ludicrous kitsch. Everyone looks like a body-builder - even the women.

    London buses. My city got rid of that type of bus forty years ago. When's London going to do it and stop pretending they're good?

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  33. I have no interest in Facebook, Twitter or reality TV. I resisted reading Harry Potter for a long time, but when I finally did, I got hooked really fast. I used to like Big Bang Theory, but last summer's "million dollar contract holdout" really pissed me off, so I stopped watching just out of principle.

    I never understood the appeal of golf (playing or watching); I just find it boring. Auto-racing too...Formula 1, NASCAR, Indy, whatever...they're just going around in a circle!

    There's lots of bands, movies, and comic artists that I don't see the appeal of, but I guess that's just a matter of personal preferences...or maybe it all is?

    Mike Wilson

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  34. It doesn't need my help, but I'll "defend" the existence of Facebook. I've lived all over the country, whereas most of my family lived in one place forever. We'd see each other at funerals and weddings, that was about it. Facebook has allowed me to get to know many of them a lot more since I created an account. I'm also my families historian (the one with an Ancestry account), and they send me lots of old family photos via Facebook.

    Something else I don't get:
    Iron Man as a solo comic book character.

    I just finished reading the Iron Man Omnibus of Michelinie/Layton/Romita stories (review forthcoming on my Bronze Age Reprints blog). I'd read bits of it before, like the Doc Doom 2-parter and the Justin Hammer/alcoholism saga. But the rest of it wasn't very interesting and Iron Man was just too damn powerful for any villain to be seen as a credible threat.

    Yes, I just dissed 800 pages worth of Bronze Age comic stories!

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  35. Goodness, Steve--!
    Your just a half-step away from telling all of us dad-blasted kids to stay offa yer lawn. . . ! I think. . . I think you win the Curmudgeon-iest Poster award for the day, yep? (To be fair, many things on your list I'm totally going "yes!" at, but many others, I'm like- "Dude, I LOVE that/those/them!!!")

    I. . . enjoyed DKR & DKR2 very much-- but they never, ever made me fall in love w/ the Batman the way the entire rest of the world did. In fact, I'm afraid Batman on the whole (esp modern Batman) is just a character I can't seem to ever surrender myself to for very long. I find him kinda boring, overall.

    HB

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  36. The Green Goblin.

    Candy Crush.

    Titanic (movie version not reality).

    Frozen Yogurt.

    Popcorn.

    Matching socks.





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  37. HB -

    You're the first person "of a certain age" who has liked DKR2. At least that I know of.

    Doug

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  38. You guys really ran with this one. Holy cow. I'm glad you could vent your collective spleens (now that's an image) and use this as a sort of 'group therapy' session. I think Sean is correct; we'll have to do a follow-up, where we discuss things we 'get' but no one else does.

    Of course, many years ago, that would have meant all the stuff we like -comics, sci-fi, fantasy -you know, the subject matter of every blockbuster film today!

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  39. Thank you YES!

    Big Bang Theory, two hot girls, but just such a lame show.....

    In this day and age, do we REALLY still need laugh tracks to let us know what's funny or a joke???

    Also, I don't get pretty much ANYTHING that's popular anymore, I'm just a hippy whose only grasp of technology is the public library computers, my 80G Ipod for music, and still have a flip-phone (it DOES text and take pics!) Also, I dread the day when paper books and printed word no longer exists.....

    However, I loves me some twerkin'....just glad I don't have a daughter, ha-ha!

    starfoxxx

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  40. Hiya,

    The alternate bio-zombie movie "28 Days Later". They lost me the moment I saw the 'laboratory' that the 'rage' infected animals were housed in. Forgive me if I sound assertive but the last thing any animal research center would do is autopsy a primate in full view of the others.

    They're fully capable of making the connection.

    I do realize that you have to approach any movie with a certain degree of 'the willing suspension of disbelief', but something like that in the first five minutes knocked the participant out of me.

    Thank you

    pfgavigan

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  41. Hmmm, ok judges (Doug and Karen) do we indeed have a winner in today's 'Curmudgeon-off' sweepstakes..?

    SteveDoesComics, HB, Colin and J.A all come pretty darn close as finalists.

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  42. Count me in as someone else who does not see the allure of The Big Bang theory. My daughter loves it, and she knows I would love it too if I gave it a chance. I have and I don't.

    'Nuff Said!

    Rip Off

    P.S. Oh and get off my lawn by the way you whippersnappers!

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  43. I don't get.....

    Rob Liefeld

    Backing up the DVR and still watching the commercials

    People who eat one scoop of ice cream and no mix-ins

    Serving sizes

    why we don't have "marge" clothing sizes

    why it took so long for someone (Rip) to finally get in the "lawn" comment

    why people don't put ketchup on mashed potatoes

    square pizza

    adam sandler

    Rob Liefeld (I know I started with him but that's how much I don't get him)

    with the plethora of procedural shows how no one has once just died of natural causes before they could get murdered

    (That's all right my mama, that's all right for you
    That's all right my mama any old way you do
    But that's all right, well that's all right
    Well that's all right my mama
    any way that you wanna do).

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  44. Progressive insurance ads.

    Equestrian sports in the Olympics.

    Origin stories in movies.

    Healthy chips.

    Image Comics.

    Superheroes in street clothes and leather instead of spandex.

    Chalk.

    Electronic tickets.

    Edible Waxy bottles of some sweet liquid that was sold as candy.

    Mole sauce.

    Dance shows

    Tim Burton's Batman

    vegetarian pizza with goat cheese

    Lois Lane

    X Files






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  45. T.V. sitcoms. Last good one was Cheers.
    Reality shows. Last good one was never.
    Most superhero movies. And I can't stand Iron Man.
    Don't eat chicken wings...I used to work in one of those places.
    ...just... just trust me on that last one, o.k.?
    All music today. God, I'm sick of Taylor Swift.
    m.p.

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  46. Welcome to the ranks of the curmudgeons Doug! Yes I too have a Twitter account but no Facebook. My bother literally lives on Mark Zuckerberg's Frankenstein-like monstrosity but I have limited my social media profile to Twitter only (so far).

    The main phenomenon I don't get? Twilight. There's an internet meme which stated that Stephenie Meyer was giving fantasy literature a bad name but George RR Martin rescued it with his Game of Thrones series. It was meant to be tongue in cheek but I fully identified with it. As I told someone recently, you have to have a teenaged (in the worst sense of the term) mindset to read that sparkly vampire stuff. I just finished reading Bram Stoker's Dracula and all I can say is I know now why it's a classic. Mankind will still be reading it 500 years from now (assuming Mankind is still around and the nanobots have not taken over as Bill Joy and Stephen Hawking might argue). Twilight? I highly doubt it.

    Ditto with Fifty Shades of Grey! As the saying goes, I ain't touching that with a 10 foot pole! I'm no prude, but I don't get the appeal of it.

    Big Bang Theory? Hmm kinda mixed about that. I think Jim Parsons is hilarious but I'm not a big fan of the show itself. To me, it promotes misconceptions of the nerd/fandom communities. For example, not all physicists are comics nerds.

    Prowler, I'm with you on Rob Liefeld. He embodied all the worst aspects of 1990s comicbook - I hate to call it - art. Osvaldo, I'm with you on Dr. Who. Don't get it either.


    However, I am a big fan of both Harry Potter and Tolkien's Hobbit/LOTR works, both the books and movies. These two I can appreciate.



    - Mike 'still wondering why Keanu Reeves calls himself an actor' from Trinidad & Tobago.

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  47. Well-- really, I think I'm more tired of Taylor Swift herself, mp, than I am of her music. She has a nice facility for a musical hook (and I'm not much of a lyrics-conscious person). Same w/ Lady Gaga. In fact, the last three or four years, I've found myself really enjoying a lot of the background-radio pop music. Much to HBGirl's utter horror.

    Prowl! Dude! I got the "lawn" allusion in waaaaay before Rip! (No offense, Mr Jagger!) Where's the love-??? grmble-mumble-grmp. . .

    Gosh, there are so many things, though, that I DO "get" that a lot of us don't seem to! I love:

    Dr Who
    Star Trek (although I have some trouble w/ DS9)
    Frasier
    Big Bang Theory (kind of)
    The Beatles!
    Superhero films (do I have to shout-out AGAIN for Green Lantern??)
    Frozen Yogurt (urp)
    Sherlock
    The first 3 or 4 Harry Potter Books and the first two films.
    Also The Hobbitt (book)-- much superior to LotR

    HB

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  48. Commercials.
    I'm sick and tired of ads with self-important millennials (or whatever you call those monsters) musing about the car they should drive, the suit they should wear, or the beer they should drink.
    Ditto baby-boomers, with the ads for wireless plans, boner medication, or laxatives.

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  49. Mike from T&T, re: Keanu Reeves. This! To date, I still insist that the ONLY role he ever played well was Ted (of Bill & Ted fame), i.e., a good-natured doofus, which seems to be his default setting.

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  50. i'm with the author of this posting neither The Big Bang Theory or harry potter do anything for me.

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  51. oo-- good one w/ Keanu Reeves, edo. Yes indeedy. He's jaw-droppingly awful in BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA in particular. . .

    HB

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  52. I will never, ever, ever watch Breaking Bad.
    Whenever the talk at the pub or the office turns to box sets / TV shows, it's like an automatic response: ooh, have you seen Breaking bad? Breaking Bad's great! You haven't seen Breaking Bad? Why haven't you see Breakling Bad? Breaking Bad's wonderful!
    And on. And on. And on.
    This has happened so many times, that I would rather cut off my own head and have it replaced with a red hot toffee apple than watch Breaking 'kin Bad!


    Game Of Thrones: Boring, boring, boring. And when you're finished with how boring it is? There's a whole lake of boring to dive into.

    All sport. It staggers me that after the news on TV, we get the sport. Like it's in any way important or meaningful. It's blokes running around a field, alternately kicking or throwing something. How is this entertaining?

    Harry Potter. Unbelievably badly written Tolkein rip off. Even for kids it's rubbish.

    LOTR. Three books and movies ( As Randall in Clerks 2 says ) of people walking to a volcano. Enough with the walking.

    Ant & Dec. Kid's TV show presenters doing a Saturday morning show on Saturday night.

    Oh, look the sun's out and the birds are singing...

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  53. Every episode of Friends, and by extension, every reality TV show:

    Hiii! I'm really self-obsessed!

    Hii! I'm really self-obsessed too!

    Hiii! Are you two talking about how self-obsessed you are?

    Yeah, but I'm really angry about what you said about me to her!

    So? I don't care. I'm a horrible person.

    So am I !

    You two are so self-obsessed...

    Television. Full of people you'd never normally invite into your lounge.

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