While you've been playing/watching Game of Thrones, I've been busy learning new pool rules.
I have no idea what “Game of Thrones” is. Literally no idea. I don’t know if it’s a game, a TV show, a movie or all three. I see and hear it referenced everywhere, but I simply haven’t engaged at any level. I refuse to even Google it to see if I’m spelling it correctly. I’m totally sitting this one out.
I hope it’s the right call. I made a similar decision with “Homeland” for a while, and when I finally decided to watch Season 1 I was like “What? Why didn’t someone tell me loudly this was so good?” But by that time, everyone except my friend Patti was done talking about it. The Homeland Season 2 DVD is now available for pre-order on Amazon, but it will likely be Christmas before I can watch it online over here. I might as well skip it because I haven’t had the same restraint in Googling spoilers for Season 2 and hearing the overwhelming chorus of meh. On the bright side, I suppose I’ve saved a little time.
I’m of the age when I open up a “People” magazine and only have about 50% celebrity recognition. This move to Europe is only going to set me further behind. I can’t even count on hair salons here to have “People” magazine for my every two month pop culture trivia catch up. They’re still playing Celine Dion music in hair salons as near as I can tell. I do however know that Halle Barry is pregnant. This caught my attention because I know who she is, and that she is in her forties. You go girl – glad you kicked that sex addict second husband of yours and then that gorgeous but no-good model Gabriel (see I was doing good in earlyish 2000s) – but pregnant at 46? Hearing that makes me tired, and so happy my husband has taken care of business. I do know about the band “The Airborne Toxic Event.” That’s only because I know a couple of really cool high school kids who I stalk for music and have some fortish friends like Jennifer who go and listen to live music and rightly report it on Facebook.
In the advent of unlimited access to so much news, you have to learn to sift. When I was back home, if I’m being honest, I used to sift out most International News. Now that I’m in Europe, I find I’m reading more International News and sifting out most US Entertainment News and US News of People Behaving Badly (ie “Ex-Partner at KPMG Under Scrutiny in Insider Trading.) Of course, people still behave badly, really badly, internationally - take Kim Jong-un or Bashar al-Assad for instance – but those stories are getting more of my mind share. It seems to matter what those guys are up to a little bit more than who was on Letterman last night. It’s not as if this kind of news wasn’t available before, I’m just choosing a little better. It’s easier for me to recognize how globally interdependent our world is becoming with a border only 50 kilometers away. Not that I’m doing anything specific with that knowledge, but it’s nice to fill my mind with other things or nothing at all, and to not feel caught off guard by not knowing about who is Throning who.
Ok, Lindsay Lohan was on Letterman last night.
I’m only slightly more disciplined.