AudioShocker

Well, kids, it looks like your ol' Uncle Culturology fell off the ol' wagon there for a little while, but I've stood back up, brushed the dust off of my trousers, shaken my head around to try and gain my bearings, and wouldn't you know it? Here I am, writing a column again, number fifty-five! And so much has happened since 054, hasn't it? Beyond my personal troubles waking up in massive illegal  burned-down firepits with a faceful of mescaline-soaked charcoal, only to phase back out into the ether for another week, having so desperately wanted to write a column here and there these weeks... but I digress, I'm not going to make excuses, rather I'm here to persevere. Despite my run-in with a case of Scotland's finest "Wreck the Hoose Juice," and subsequent transatlantic tomfoolery... golly, I'm just getting too distracted here, aren't I?

So what can I culturologize today? How about the fact that Avatar sucked? I guess that's not really that interesting, and a moot point, and just kind of blandly hater-ish. But such terrible writing, gah, that any time I actually managed to be sucked into it's Imax 3-D world, I was pulled right back out by the utter crap of its writing. But my favorable opinions of the continued recession-era 3-D craze continues. The future is now, people. Now now now now now (or, hmm... despite being "back with a vengeance" here at Culturology, I seem to still be half-assing it... though I feel bad about this...)

One thing I don't feel bad about is Conan O'Brien losing his job. I think I stopped really caring about late night TV just in time for that whole hullabaloo (despite my one hemi-post trying to speak of the issues there-involved). Really, now that football is over (football ended when the Steelers didn't make the play-offs and once I had already one my fantasy football league's championship game (that's right people, not only am I a hot-shit cultural critic, but I also kick ass at fantasy football)), I don't watch hardly any TV at all, except for some occasional snippets of international news on my local PBS station (German TV news on Wednesday nights!). And find myself, remarkable, having better things to do from 11:30-1:30 than watch desk-based interview television.

So let's see... what else happened... oh! I finally read (finished reading) Richard Powers's Generosity: An Enhancement, which readers might recall as my choice for the not-suck-y book of the year. It was really pretty good, definitely worthy of the prize (though I'm now reading another nominee, Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply, and it's really pretty good too). Not Powers's best book, but a good book.

Alright, well, here at least, we see that Culturology is alive, if not kickin', and re-dedicating itself to getting its shit back together and having, like, real fine vintage-quality posts again soon enough.