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[pmcd9]

To leaven my earlier post about my parents and their beliefs, I offer you this.

[side_show]

Awe, that's so sweet.  They look like good people.   This is the thing: people can have very different views from me, but so long as there's kindness in their hearts I can find massive capacity to love them.  It's more when people are selgiraffe and/or assholes that I'm gonna take exception and become driven that they need their ignorance yelled out of them.  I'm not teaching anyone anything when I get in that mode.  If I can just remind myself that the response should be "you're being an asshole, shut up" rather than "you're wrong, any let me explain why."

[jay-ell]

Paul's parents are rad people. I have talked at length with Mr. McRae on the phone, I can only assume his lovely wife is equally charming.

[wombat]

Those photos are just awesome.

[AugustWest]

This is the thing: people can have very different views from me, but so long as there's kindness in their hearts I can find massive capacity to love them. 

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS.

It doesn't matter what dogma you claim to follow -- what matters is what you DO.  I've known plenty of supposedly "enlightened" assholes.  I've known just as many people who follow an religion that seems absurd and cruel to me, but have hearts filled with love and kindness.  I have a lot more use for the second group.  It ain't what you say, it's what you do.

[AugustWest]

To leaven my earlier post about my parents and their beliefs, I offer you this.

They love each other.

[pmcd9]

They love each other.

I saw them again the next day and they were in the middle of a huge fight and would hardly speak to one another.  Ha ha ha.  They've been married for 54 years.

[CortJstr]

I like the idea of The Big Bang Theory (the show) better than I actually like the show. It could have been done so much better. It's just that I watch it and it reminds me of Two and a Half Men, which I despise. So I watch The IT Crowd instead, it fills the "cheeky comedy show about people with autistic spectrum"-shaped hole in my heart.

I'm late to the party but this is basically what my exact post would've been.

[miles]

I like the idea of The Big Bang Theory (the show) better than I actually like the show. It could have been done so much better. It's just that I watch it and it reminds me of Two and a Half Men, which I despise. So I watch The IT Crowd instead, it fills the "cheeky comedy show about people with autistic spectrum"-shaped hole in my heart.

I immediately thought of Community when I read this post, and I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's my favorite comedy right now (Louie is so good and can be funnier than anything, but it's in a different category to me) and is on the same level as Arrested Development, The Office (the UK series) and the first five seasons of The Simpsons. I have so much love in my heart for that show.

Two and a Half Man sucks a hard one harder than a toilet in an airplane bathroom. Maybe that's why I never got into the whole Charlie Sheen thing last year. Has he done anything good since Major League?

I instinctively disliked the Big Bang Theory but so many of my friends like it that I've watched a few episodes. I can appreciate the humour (when it isn't just 'here's a geeky word or reference, isn't that funny?') but I can't get past the damn laugh track after every sentence.

I can't understand how the laugh track (or I guess a live audience being prompted to laugh) has survived the last decade. I enjoy How I Met Your Mother (probably because I can't get enough of Alyson Hannigan... no, that's without a doubt the main reason) which I think uses a laugh track exclusively, but I can't stomach any other sitcom that uses one anymore. Maybe it's just bad writing because I still enjoy Seinfeld and some older comedies, but it's so grating now.

Yeah, so in a thoughtful and intelligent discussion of science, belief and tolerance, all I want to talk about is TV. Seriously. I could go on for hours about Remedial Chaos Theory.

[theinevitable]

Starting with the D&D episode of Community was a mistake. I felt like they were doing what people say Big Bang Theory does-- just perpetuating stupid ideas about what nerds are and what D&D is. I mean, really, they couldn't find some dorky writer to tell them "no, there is no such D&D class as 'archer,'" or something? Or else, their dorky writers did tell them this, and they ignored it?

I'm sure that one day I will look back at how foolish I was for not liking this show, but right now I just Do Not Get It.

[miles]

I'm not one to tell someone how they should feel about something or whether they should like it, and I haven't seen enough of Big Bang Theory to comment on that comparison. The show is full of stereotypes but in a manner similar to The Simpsons?

Anyway, wasn't the game just made up to be the best possible game to save Fat Neil? And characters in the show are always fuck*ng things up in misguided attempts to help people. It was also just funny to watch a group of people who would never play D&D play D&D. Also and especially this.

[pmcd9]

What I'm understanding is, the real problem isn't that my parents don't believe in science, but rather that they watch a crappy sitcom that nobody here likes, and that they should be watching [insert your favorite crappy sitcom here].

[Choop]

hey paul it's just a sidebar. should we split this community chatter over toward a&e?

yep, community is that rare breed of sitcom that you can't just jump into. the characters have been building histories and the relationships are complicated and the personalities are so strong that you kind of have to start earlier on. the chicken fingers episode would be maybe the first great episode, and even to get the most from that one you need to know who the players are. i'd say start with the s1e1, skip to chicken fingers and watch everything from there in order. there is a continuity here that is as important as any other facet of the show. it's like the wire but funny.

louie is another favorite of mine, and i'd argue that it tosses continuity out the window. nothing really changes on louie, which is fine, and makes it probably harder for him to come up with, what, eight hours? of original content - and that doesn't count how funny it can be. louie is my favorite drama about comedy.

what makes community great is that it's a sitcom about sitcoms. it makes fun of sitcoms that are out there and sitcoms that used to be, while deconstructing and reassembling and honoring and homaging the form. some of the best episodes are the genre parodies; most of the episodes that don't parody a genre instead take apart a trope or series of tropes, to mine whatever humor can come from that, and most of them work really well too.

eh but i'm rambling. i haven't talked with anybody who's watched it and disliked it. people have typically either not seen it or enjoyed it. inev, if that one error (lost on me) yanked you out of that (fantastic!) episode, and the rest didn't pull you back in, well i'm curious as to why.

[wombat]

What I'm understanding is, the real problem isn't that my parents don't believe in science, but rather that they watch a crappy sitcom that nobody here likes, and that they should be watching [insert your favorite crappy sitcom here].

Sounds about right.

[jay-ell]

Yesterday I was telling my Mom that I had bought the first few Percy Jackson books for my Niece, starting with The Lightning Thief, and I gave her a brief rundown of the plot -- Percy finds out he's a demigod, son of Posiedon, and he has to go on a quest to find out who stole the lightning of Zeus before a war breaks out between Posiedon, Zeus, and Hades. The following conversation ensued:

Mom: Yeah, that doesn't sound like something I would read. You know, I'm into the, uh, one god stuff.

Me: Well, of course. But to me, it's like reading fairy tales. It's worth knowing mythology because it tells you a lot about the culture these stories came from.

Mom: What culture is that?

Me: Uh...ancient Greece?

Mom: Oh. I thought you meant a real culture.

The mind reels.