Your "If You Build It, He Will Come" Quizo Update

Normally, once I'm done with a show (Medea - you may have heard about it) I like to take something of a mini-vacation to unwind. I couldn't do so last weekend because of Quizo Bowl 3 and the Rex Grossman Is the Worst Quarterback in the History of Everything Bowl, but I finally got my chance this past weekend, and oh what a vacation it was.

I slept. I watched season 2 of Battlestar Galactica on DVD. I played Guitar Hero.

That's pretty much it.

It was very restful

I got back sometime last night and was subjected to trying to watch television with my dad. In the past this has been... I would say "trying" experience but that doesn't quite cover it. "Excruciating" experience is a bit closer but still comes well short of the mark. Let's see what thesaurus.com can give me:

"acute, agonizing, burning, chastening, consuming, exquisite, extreme, grueling, harrowing, insufferable, intense, piercing, punishing, racking, rending, searing, severe, sharp, shooting, stabbing, tearing, tormenting, torturesome, torturing, torturous, unbearable, unendurable, violent"

Hmm... agonizing is good. Dunno about rending or stabbing necessarily, I don't think it ever actually broke the skin. Ooh, punishing, torturesome and unendurable, now THOSE are good.

So, as I was saying, for the longest time watching TV with my dad was punishing, torturesome (which GMail's spell check insists is not actually a word) and unendurable. He's one of those people who will constantly barrage (assail, bombard, batter, beset, beseige, ooh, cannonade) you with the most annoying questions while you're trying to watch something. "Who's that guy?" "What are they doing here?" "Is that guy somebody?" "What's going on?" "Now who's THAT guy?" "Why is that guy talking to that other guy?" "What are they talking about?"

And so forth.

This would go on the entire length of what you were watching, making actually viewing something almost impossible. At first I would remain calm and say "just watch the show, Dad" but he would never let up until a point a few months ago when I was trying to watch Lost and he started in on it and I finally just shouted "I WILL KILL YOU WITH THE FUCKING PLAYSTATION IF YOU DON'T STOP DOING THAT."

Now, at least, the questions have considerably lessened in output and have become somewhat relevant (accordant, applicatory, appurtenant, conformant... are those WORDS?) and, on occasion, can actually produce an amusing (agreeable, cheerful, comical, gladdening... gladdening? what the fuck is "gladdening?" I swear thesaurus.com is just screwing with me now) exchange. Take this from last night's Galactica:

Dad: Why does that guy have an eyepatch?

Me: The Cylons took his eye from him.

Dad: When did they do that?

Me: Uh.. for a while there the people were on this planet and they were, uh, occupied by the Cylons... it was kind of an Iraq allegory thing -

Dad: Eyepatch Dude is kind of a jerk.

Me: Yeah, well, he's still kinda pissy about killing his wife.

Dad: He killed his wife? Why?

Me: Well, er, when he was in prison his wife collaborated with the Cylons to help him out. And then when he found out about it he killed her.

Dad: Why are they acting like he's so important? I've never seen him before.

Me: He's the XO of the ship, Dad, he's been around the whole time.

Dad: Even before the Cylons took his eye?

Me: Yes, before that.

Dad: These people all seem really upset all the time.

Me: Life on Battlestar Galactica is not pleasant, no.

(we watch in blissful silence for a few seconds)

Dad: Wait, I thought Cylons were robots.

Me: They are robots.

Dad: But they just called that chick a Cylon.

Me: She is a Cylon.

Dad: You just said Cylons were robots.

Me: They... well, they ARE robots. Most of them. But some of them are robots who look like people.

Dad: Robots that look like people.

Me: Yes.

Dad: Where did that guy come from? The one the other chick is talking to. Is she a robot who looks like a person?

Me: Yeah, she's a robot... the guy... okay, see, he's a real person, and you thought he was crazy cause he talks to this vision of that blonde chick that only he can see, but then you found out later that one version of the blonde robot chick actually sees HIM in her head, and so that's pretty cool. So that's not really him, okay, that's just the vision of him in her head that only that specific robot can see. Because, you see, there's lots of copies of each KIND of robot, but only that ONE copy can see the guy in her head, so -

Dad: I'm going to bed.

All these years of frustration (annoyance, contravention, dissatisfaction, impediment ) and all I had to do to get him to shut up was to answer his questions.

JLK