pardon me, i'm feeling ranty, and i haven't bitched for a while on here...

i think this is basically the closest i get to being bored. i don't really get bored. i've always got so many things lined up to entertain myself that i'm not sure it's technically accurate to say that i'm capable of actual boredom. but i think this feeling is as close as i'll get.

i'm not really one to fall in love with the idea of routine. i try to avoid routine as much as possible. i don't like showing up at work the exact same time everyday. whether it's 7:45, 8:30, 11, whatever, as long as it's not back-to-back-back days of standard 8am everyday. so far i've been able to avoid it well enough.

but at home, it tends to be a different story. alayna and i are comfortable with each other enough so that we're basically like a couple that's been married for a couple years. we're sweet to each other like a married couple, and we bitch at each other like a married couple. we're kind of the standard couple really... she's more apt to do the dishes like a woman, i'm more apt to get in trouble for not doing a chore.

when you're past college and into the working world, you're really free to do anything you want with your nights. people take a lot of different approaches to that... some take up hobbies, some go out all the time, some have organized events and activities that keep them away from the house for hours, some people work 60 hours a week and have no free time at all, some spend their whole night just couch potato'ing. i think i'm still trying to find my niche as far as how i spend my night hours when living with someone else.

i kinda see nightly interests as a venn diagram. some couples have a large overlapping area, some have virtually no overlap at all. i guess i feel like we've got an average amount. i consider both of us individually to have a pretty wide array of interests -- alayna will sit down and enjoy a basketball game just as much as she'll stay glued to the tv for an episode of rachael ray's 30 minute meals. i'll play first-person shooters one minute and watch a tivo'd episode of steven's untitled rock show the next.

the thing is, at times when we start falling slave to a routine i start to feel like we have very little interests in common. at this time of year, we've got australian and american big brother's airing, and we're both interested in that. she considers herself a bona fide reality tv fan, whereas i'm the complete hypocrite that shuns all things reality except big brother, amazing race and occasionally survivor. but my problem is i tend to grow a little weary of shows like that way quicker than she does, and i end up just kinda coasting along. big brother australia has a little over a week left, and thus far 126 episodes have aired this season. no, i didn't mistype that. when a show has been running non-stop (roughly 11 episodes per week) for 87 days, how can it not wear thin on you? you get to the point where you just watch till the end just to finish the damn thing, and you end up being completely relieved when it's over.

i get a little scared sometimes cuz i'm afraid we've sort of fallen into that every-night-we'll-be-tv-drones category. we aren't traditional tv watchers, we basically watch nothing live. but sometimes, it's... kinda all we do... it's weird. and this isn't even prime tv season, it's the middle of the damn summer. i mean it's great that we have specific interests and we're able to download or record what we want and enjoy it, but sometimes it makes me a bit embarrassed. i'm the one with the killer home theater setup, i've got the giant tv and great soundsystem, a gamecube and a PS2, and we spend 90% of our time watching shows 98% of the people we know care nothing about.

it's one of those things that never let up. there's always something else to watch. i have gigabytes and gigabytes of shows i like or have heard good things about. some of it i end up getting around to and love (the office), some of it i delay for a while and get to later (futurama) and some of it i get so lagged behind that i disgustingly delete it and forget about it (robot chicken). but i'll never run out. i know i know, terrible problem to have, but that's how i always approach it.

i have the first 2 seasons of alias on dvd. wanna know a secret? i've never even seen one full episode of it. but i've seen 20 minutes before that were great, and rick (who has similar entertainment tastes) says it's good. this fall, the fifth season of alias is starting. do i actually expect to watch 4 complete seasons worth before that? i'll be lucky to have seen 4 episodes. i have countless examples of shows i'd love to watch. but then i have a handful of burned dvd's i have yet to see. i have stacks and stacks of terrific GC/PS2/PC games i've only played 5 minutes of.

it's my nature sometimes. i have an interest and i squeeze the life out of it till i'm almost not interested at all anymore.

i'll admit, and alayna (now having had 2 months to observe my daily ways) has pointed it out as well. i spend too much goddamn time at the computer, and i have to find some way to stop. i remember when i moved from college into my apartment that i purposely set it up so that my tv was in a different room than my main PC, so i'd be more apt to stay near the tv (hence, more gaming/movies/etc) instead of at the computer all the time.

in college, downloading was my vice. didn't matter what it was, just to get something, to collect something was what i wanted to do all the time. who cares if i didn't listen to the albums i downloaded or played the PC games i burned. now, i think it's RSS feeds and message boards that eat all my time. i put too much stock into the latest slashdot and tivocommunity topics, the latest tech news and apple rumors, gaming reviews, etc etc etc. i'd say a tenth of what i come across actually interests me. most of the time i get to a point where i just realize i'm sitting at the computer(s) just for the sake of sitting and i'm too lazy to start something else in another room.

i think sometimes i just need to tell myself on particular nights that i don't need to do anything online. i like to be up on the news, but i don't care this much. i don't have to organize newly ripped albums or my latest catches from the complete_cd newsgroup every night. i just need to vary things up a bit. i need to feel the accomplishment of watching a movie everybody talked about but i never saw (sideways) or a guilty pleasure i wanted to see (constantine). i need to be honest and blow off big brother for a night or two and just say that i'd rather get back into paper mario or play a few games of NHL 2005. i think that's what will make me feel better. every night can't be about sitting around bullshitting on a computer and watching people trapped in a house with cameras.

imagine the irony of complaining about internet addiction on a blog. ;) i'm sure we've both had enough.

--j