Of Soaps...

After coming to college, I believe that after sleeping, watching soaps has probably consumed the maximum amount of my time, given that I am not much into computer games.

Thanks to the 24 hrs net provided by the Indian government, we always have some soap or the other which remains to be seen, and here I'm not just talking about arbitrary soaps which just happen to be on the lan, but good, watchable soaps which are a source of addiction and endless discussions.

The strike by the Writers' Guild was thus a very inconvenient break...and we have spent long hours discussing the futility of their demands.

It would be hard, and moreover pointless to think about which my favourite soap is. Of late, I have become rather disillusioned with Friends...however I believe that is the fault of too much repetition on my part rather than some flaw inherent in the show itself. Still, I have found I cannot tolerate a single more episode of Friends.

This semester, I had this phase where I was watching all the sci-fi available, or rather which I could fit into my schedule without competely leaving college. During this period, I finished off Heroes, Kyle XY and 4400.

4400 and Kyle XY proved to be so revolting that I had to discard that entire genre altogether, without watching the highly recommended Lost.

Then there was the Avatar stint, which still continues. I don't believe Avatar belongs to the class of Animes, but I'm not an expert on the subject. I highly recommend Avatar.

If the reader is a soap enthsiast, I am reasonably certain they must be aware of the phenomenon called South Park. Now, though I am an ardent admirer of South Park, I do not like all its episodes...some are really meaningless...put together just for the sake of I dunno what. However, some of its episodes are products of pure genius. I especially recommend the ones on Paris Hilton and Chef Aid.

Chef Aid was the episode in which the writers coined the term "Chewbacca Defense", a reference to the famous bailout of football star O.J.Simpson in his indictment over his wife's murder. The term became popular enough to find its way into Wikipedia, and subsequently, into mass media, and is now used for any kind of a defensive statement where the speaker seeks to confuse his/her audience by talking nonsense (you can find a speech by George Bush on Iraq on youtube by the same name).

The last great discovery has been Seinfeld. Notwithstanding my earlier comments, while I was watching Friends, I had no doubts that it would remain my favourite soap of all time, especially after I had sampled a few other comedies. However Seinfeld has proved to be better- while Friends had just one witty character- Chandler, all of Seinfeld's characters are very urbane and subtle. Besides Chandler, Friends' humour was at best slapstick, and Seinfeld's standups are simply too good. I don't believe a parallel to it exists.

It is 2.00 a.m. and I seem to recall I have quiz in about 7 hours (man, that sounds like a lot of time!)...so I guess I should finish off here.