Things I’m Doing Instead of Working

Having had two weeks off due to a work injury, I’ve had plenty of time to work on my various grad school applications. Of course, I squandered that time horribly. Here’s a list of things I’ve done and am doing.

Watched Dawn of the Dead

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH!!!!!!!

I hadn’t seen Dawn of the Dead until a little while ago. Now I have. Solid film. There ya go.

Watching Sherlock

Sherlock is a recent BBC take on the classic with it taking place in modern-day London. Holmes is a semi-professional police consultant who has an eye for detail and an obsession with text messaging and Watson is a vet of Afghanistan with a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder. As a whole, it’s a great show. While I’ve yet to see subsequent episodes in the first series, the first episode was great.

There is one thing I found very interesting, and that is the use of text messaging itself. Sherlock is SMS obsessed, it seems, so texts are flying around all over the place. Typically when that happens in a show, either the character reads the message out loud or the camera zooms to the phone so we can read the message. Instead, in Sherlock, the messages appear on screen, as below:

Holmes does seem the type to sign his text messages.

I think it is a cool way to address the problem of texts on a screen (in that if you have a button-mashing protagonist there is going to be a ton of texts being sent, and you can only pan to someone’s iPhone so many times before it gets old). It is a little distracting, but there is something cool and, I dunno, video-gamey about having messages pop up like that. At the very least, it’s creative.

Watching The Walking Dead

Part of being a good zombie-wasteland wanderer is being able to make hard decisions.

I’m just going to say it: The Walking Dead is a pretty mediocre T.V. show. There isn’t a single character to care about, the acting is awful, the pacing is pretty bad, and the series plot is incomprehensible and/or stupid. The zombies look good, which is great if you just like zombies, but here’s something else: zombies suck. Of all the paranormal undead creatures that walk the earth, zombies have to be the absolute lamest. They aren’t scary, can’t think, and all they do is eat. If I wanted to watch people that were dead inside gorge themselves, I’d head to a buffet, thanks. With it on a break, I am currently evaluating whether or not I want to keep on watching.

Watching Community

TROY AND ABED IN THE MORNINGS!

It’s still on the air for a little while before its much ballyhooed hiatus, and it’s still, well, good. The thing with Community though is that it is so hit-or-miss. Some episodes are hilarious, others are just stupid. Granted, they seem to be more hit than miss, which is great. In the show’s defense, it has to have one of the most likable casts in awhile and is certainly one of the most unique television shows to hit airwaves in awhile.

Not watching Whitney

The kind of wacky shit that goes on in NBC's hit sitcom, Whitney.

I have never seen an episode of Whitney. I only know that it is staying on the air during the mid-season and Community is being dropped. A lot of people have been lambasting Whitney and blaming it on Community not continuing to air because of NBC dropped Whitney, which is allegedly awful, Community could air. However, Community is being swapped out for 30 Rock, which has not been funny in years, so maybe the blame should be redirected?

Playing Skyrim

It may be cold, put pants and sleeves would just slow you down anyway.

Enough said, right? Skyrim is awesome and has occupied so much of my time. Again, I’ve done next to nothing and left the main questline relatively untouched, and I’m alright with that.

I think my problem is this: I hate short videogames. I like tons of playtime and replay time. While I’ll probably replay through Skyrim (though probably not as in-depth as this time), part of me is always worried I won’t, or that I’ll miss something by not doing every single side-quest. Which is why whenever I play a RPG I end up doing just about all of the side-quests before touching the main quest. There ya go.

Playing Dungeons of Dredmor

The "Congratulations!" makes me feel less shitty about it every time.

“The dungeon is dark and musty. Somewhere, far off in the distance, the distinct sound of a Sickly Diggler scraping his drill hand against the wall can be heard; in the opposite direction, a Blobby is blobbing back and forth, it’s blobby underside making grotesque slapping noises as it bounces along. Descending from the stairs, torch in one hand, sword in the other, is Thuglor XXVI, the  great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Thuglor I, the first adventurer to venture to these depths.”

I’ve been playing this game a ton and between my reckless playstyle and just bad-lcuk, I’ve made it to my 26th guy. It’s brutal but the game itself is amazing. I will keep on playing, as should you.

Not working on grad school applications

The few, the proud: grad students.

I’ve got a list, I’ve got references, I’ve got money saved up for applications, but I have yet to actually work on them. As the days pass I doubt I’ll be applying to any grad schools with a December deadline (most seem to have a Dec. 15 deadline if they have a December deadline at all) and instead to ones in January. I don’t have a good excuse with all this time off to have not gotten them done, which is a shame.

Working on a blog

At least I'm keeping busy.