Let's Get Vaguely Serious

Why is it that, every single time there's a major, publicised tragedy, people seem to decide that it is their moral duty to start a "commemorative" chain e-mail/instant message, or put an X in front of a screen-name? The latter is, I suppose, not so bad, but doesn't it seem more than a little pointless? Does it not suggest that the "wearer" of the X is trying mainly to demonstrate that they're a caring, wonderful person without ever having to do anything for another human being? Perhaps I'm just missing something screamingly obvious, but I can't think what on Earth it would be.

The chain messages, however, really do grate. Sending a pre-written sentence to everyone you know does not, in my mind, constitute a good way to mark s tragic event. Particularly as they often contain a statement to the effect of "If you don't pass this on, you obviously don't care." How anyone can receive a message like that and not immediately want to punch the sender in the face I really cannot understand. It's like someone shaking you vigourously without warning and demanding that you do the same to everyone you know, and then branding you a heartless, hate-filled fiend when you refuse.

Now, I realise that this sort of thing's significance pales in comparison to the tragedies that they respond to, but this is something that the average person can do something about. Beyond not planting bombs and not murdering people, there's not a lot you, personally, can do in your everyday life to sort the world out, and you don't need to compensate for that with little crosses or irritating messages or by vigourously shaking people in the street. So please, spare people a lot of pointless annoyance and stop. And just in case I should ever die in some pointless and tragic way, and become the focus of media attention for it, I implore each and every one of you to do all you can to ensure that nobody starts anything like this for me. However I leave this world, I don't want to be remembered as a bloody chain letter, and I very much doubt that anyone else does.

You Want To Go Where People Know That Sitcoms Are All The Same

I'd become pleasantly used to watching an old episode of Frasier on the Paramount Comedy channel at six on an afternoon. It was a nice routine. But then, suddenly, they changed the schedule, and now I'm pretty sure they show one of their worthless, dire programmes instead. So, for a little while, my routine was totally thrown out. But then I discovered that Paramount Comedy 2 (which is deserving of praise solely for the promotional trailers they ran for it) shows Cheers in the same slot, not to mention the slot directly before it. I welcomed this change with open arms, because I haven't seen nearly as many episodes of Cheers, and also because it seemed like a natural progression, or at least a natural regression.

Anyway, a couple of episodes ago was the one with Sam's "surprise" bachelor party, and as I watched it occurred to me that I have never, ever seen a surprise party on a television programme that the recipient didn't find out about in advance or inadvertantly trigger by assuming someone's secretive behaviour was because they were organizing one. This seemed a little odd to me, but then I realised that that may well be how it works in real life. I have only ever been to one thing that remotely resembled a surprise party, and I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to know if the surpise was real or not. So if anyone can remember a surprise party that came as a surprise, please let me know. It would set my mind at rest.

And if you can think of one from a TV programme, that's even better.