24-talk

Situation: you are in the train with no ticket. The ticket inspector asks for your ticket. You lower your voice, and say:
“My name is Jack Bauer, I am following a suicide bomber who’s right now on this train. Walk away and don’t look back”.

Situation: you need a car to do your shopping for the weekend. You spot a guy entering his Corvette, so you punch him in the face and while he’s down, shout:
“Stay down !”

Situation: you need to check if your son is going to school or not. You call CTU, and ask:
“Chloe, Give me satellite coverage”.

Situation: You are in a meeting to discuss some business strategies, but you fall asleep. You wake up and there’s your boss asking your opinion on somebody. You reply is:
“Sir, we have to find him. Right now, he’s our only chance of finding ( Sahid / Ahmed / Nazir )”.

Situation: you wife has been mistaken for Abu Asham (an islamic terrorist) and therefore killed by FBI agents, so you swear to God you’ll never ever work for the government again. Then the President calls you asking to help his kid since he can’t find his dog Bernie anymore. Your reply to the President:
“Yes, mr. President”.

Situation: you are tortured by chinese agents. Special forces agents come to rescue you, then they give you to russian terrorists because if they don’t these terrorists will detonate a nuclear device in Santa Barbara. The President calls you to say how sorry he is and that your sacrifice will not be in vain. Your reply to the President:
“Thank you, mr. President”.

tv shows (2)

I’ve been stuck at home due to a minor major incident in the past 4 weeks, so I had the chance to enjoy a couple of TV series: Seinfeld (1st and 2nd season) and Huff.

Seinfeld is a wickedly funny show “about nothing” as the americans say; never heard of it here in Italy, and I suppose that it’s a kind of show that would not translate as well to the italian taste as Friends. So there’s Jerry Seinfeld (a real first class stand-up comedian), his ex-grilfriend and two other buddies, New York and a local cafe’, nice intermezzos where Seinfeld plays himself doing the stand-up comedy thing, and lots of brilliant jokes and comedy setups that you really love to watch’em again and again.
Mind you, it’s really addictive stuff: once you begin watching it you will not stop. Believe me.

Huff is a serious one. I like it because it’s really got an adult, un-adulterated content. Harsh at times and sometimes dark as the Sopranos. A brilliant cast with that favourite of mine, Hank Azaria (some of you might remember him in Friends, playing Phoebe’s geek scientist fiancee’). Sometimes a little bit too sugary. Thanks god there’s Russell Tupper, a cocaine-fueled sharp-mouthed lawyer that I’ve just elected my personal hero of the month.

tv shows (1)

I don’t watch too much tv.
My beatiful LCD widescreen TV has a quiet life with me; not too much zapping (surely a source of stress not only for the zapper -me-, but also for the zapped -the tv-).
Every once in a while, when I’m stuck at home during the weekends (a rare event), I watch MotoGP or Superbike races. News, and what goes on in the world? I prefer the internet or the good old radio. Anyway I never dig too much in those subjects.
It was different when I was living in the UK, I must say; BBC news was at first a great way to learn spoken english (then I realized also the true meaning of unbiased news, a luxury that we don’t have here in Italy).

Anyway, I’m digressing. The point is that, even if I don’t like TV, I love good TV shows. I love them for the same reason I love long, lengthy books such as The Stand or Crime & Punishment. I love them because I fall in love with the characters, and I like to see them and follow their lives for more than two hours.

My first show has been Friends (thanks to Sabrina, who’s the only person I know with all the 10 series of Friends in DVD, all original !); then I got to know Sopranos, this time after Daniele’s recommendation. And then other shows, but I’d like now to spend a few more words on these two shows.

Friends is light; incredibly funny, I can watch any episode over and over again, and still have fun and laugh or at least smile. True, the characters don’t evolve much; but I take it as feeling-good pill, just to laugh and smile and sometimes even cry (well, close to it).

Sopranos is dark; I love the guys, I love the dark humour, I love the way it’s beatifully crafted and directed, almost as much as a full-feature movie, and more importantly I’m deeply in love with the characters; Paulie, Chrissie, Sil, Adriana, Meadow, not to mention Tony of course.