Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Happy Hump Day!!

A few things on my mind today:

01. The “crowd sound.” Do you know/remember the crowd sound that you may have made when you were a little kid and did something awesome? You know, the one where you emit that low, kind of soft, raspy sound so that it sounds like an entire stadium full of people cheering? I KNOW I’m not the only one that ever did this, because Rachel and I were talking about it last night. We’re totally going to try to bring it back. You know, I’ll PR a run around the lakes, I’ll make the crowd sound. I’ll blast through Lance Armstrong Intersection well before the light even turns yellow… crowd sound. Saying “Aaaand the crowd goes wild!!!” before making the crowd sound is optional.

02. The best and worst feelings in the world? Somewhere between eating dinner and talking about/reliving the glory of the crowd sound, Rachel and I watched an episode of House last night. In the episode, the House team is trying to figure out what is wrong with Ezra Powell, a highly respected (but controversial, as we find out later) doctor. After much suffering and many tests, the team remains unable to diagnose Powell and he asks to be euthanized. House, unable makes a deal with Powell that he will euthanize him if the team cannot diagnose him within twenty-four hours. Powell agrees. Twenty-four hours pass and the team is still without diagnosis. House puts Powell in a coma under the ruse that he is euthanizing him. Throughout the whole thing Cameron is (of course) lost in a guilt-ridden cloud of ethical-dilemma.

Yadda, yadda… time passes and the team eventually diagnoses Powell. Of COURSE it’s the one strain of some protein disease (or whatever) that’s terminal. Everyone knows Powell is going to die.

The next day, Cuddy approaches House and tells him that Powell’s stats were checked by a nurse around 2am and were stable. By 2:30, Powell had passed away. Cuddy was curious if House knew anything. The episode ends with House meeting a tearful Cameron in the hospital chapel. We then realize that Cameron overcame something and learned a valuable lesson, resulting in her euthanizing Powell in the middle of the night. House tells Cameron he is proud of her.

My reasoning for this story? Well, I think the feelings of pride and disappointment are extremely interesting. First of all, I’ve always thought that the worst feeling anyone can feel towards me is disappointment. Honestly, I’d rather have someone hate me than be disappointed in someone. I guess it’s maybe because feelings of hatred can be seemingly largely unwarranted, whereas feelings of disappointment are often when expectations have been made and not met in someone you care about. Anyway, yeah, I think disappointment is the absolute worst.

About pride… I also think pride is interesting because pride is one feeling another person may feel towards you WAY before, if ever, you feel it towards yourself. I wonder if the only other feeling like that is love…? Hmmm… I also wonder if pride is one of the more (if not THE only) altruistic feeling you can feel towards another. Up until this blog post, I’ve generally subscribed to the notion that there are NO purely altruistic feelings, however, I’m having a difficult time seeing how feeling pride towards another person would in any way benefit oneself. Thoughts?

03. J. Crew's Featherweight Merina Tunic. I want. Possibly in multiple colors.

04. The 11 Manliest Cocktails in the World. Are really not. I mean, seriously. Tequila sunrise?? And Nuclear waste SOUNDS badass... but it's just vodka and sunkist. I mean, come on!

05. Philosophy meets Psychology. I think it's neat, g. ;)

2 comments:

marc said...

hahahahaha
wow. yes.. the crowd sound.

power nerds also moved their jaw around while executing the crowd sound to create a flanging effect.

this (so totally obviously) in turn subtly mimicked the changing patterns of pitch, reverberation, and phasing in massive crowd reactions.

um.. did i say power nerds?? i meant me.

Sarah said...

Hahahahaha... SO TRUE!!! :)