Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Big Brother Allstars

So I'm pretty safe admitting that I watch Big Brother All-stars for certain reasons. For those who do not know what it is, they pick a bunch of people and keep them confined in a house. No TV, no books, and they have to scheme to get food and to vote out housemates via various competitions. This is the seventh season, so there tends to be some universal behavior. Winning competitions helps you stay in the house as does scheming with others in "alliances." However, laying low and doing badly has its benefits because you appear not to be a threat. Keeping your emotions in check and being able to adapt to benefit those in power that week is key.

Anyway, in my more cynical moments, I'm amazed at how much this whole physics world is like that. With whom do I align? How do I possibly work with people for whom I have no respect? I've learned not to hold grudges...I don't let certain people know how upset I am that they screwed me because there's no point. I see my relationships basically as just how do I get what I want from them without giving up too much.

It sounds pretty bad, but remember that I pretty much suck at these games, so I'm sure I'm pretty tame compared to those who find this stuff obvious.

While I'm on the topic let me just list the best shows on TV (go Season Pass them now):

  • Simpsons
  • Modern Marvels
  • Scientific American Frontiers (when it's actually on)
  • Nova (not all of them)
  • Colbert Report
  • Pardon the Interruption (when it's not baseball or football seasons)
  • Mythbusters
  • Daily Show
  • Extreme Engineering
  • How It's Made (just stumbled on this recently)


Thinking about TV, the other day they had the Simpsons on in which Lisa becomes a vegetarian, causing a big rift with her father Homer. This one has the funniest Simpson's line ever:

The whole family is at the table, Homer is trying not to talk to Lisa because she sent his grand, roasted pig down a hill during his big BBQ, everyone starts fighting, and Homer yells at Bart to go to his room, and Lisa yells "Why don't you just eat him!".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obligatory reflex Simpsons recall:

Homer: Wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute. Lisa honey, are you saying you're *never* going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad! Those all come from the same animal!
Homer: [Chuckles] Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Douglas Natelson said...

Other Simpsons quotes relevant to physics:

(after Lisa, forced to stay home from school because of a teachers' strike, builds a perpetual motion machine)
Homer: Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

(in the Halloween special where the race of microscopic beings living in Lisa's bread mold science experiment think she's a god, and shrink her down to their scale, when she asks to be made normal sized again)
micro-Prof. Frink: Why, that would require a Re-Big-ulator! And everyone knows that's absurd!

Douglas Natelson said...

Sorry - I misquoted from memory. Here's the actual lines:
Lisa: Listen, I can take care of everything, all you have to do is unshrink me.
Little Frink: Unshrink you?! Well that would require some sort of a REbigulator, which is a concept so ridiculous it makes me want to laugh out loud and chortle.. but not at you O holiest of gods with the wrathfulness and the vengence and the bloodrain and the "hey hey hey it hurts me"