Personal Crap

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Meaford, ON, Canada
A big lover of all types of media, from Movies to Video Games, Books to Music, Television to Stage.

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BIG ASS HUGE WARNING DISCLAIMER - IGNORE AT YOUR OWN PERIL

Okay, here's the deal: Blogger has been having problems with their counters as of late, specifically with those blogs marked as having adult content. Now, this particular blog was marked as adult content since it is written as a train of thought, including all the rotten language that flows through my head constantly :) As a result, I marked it adult for that, not for having pornographic photos all over the place. So, simply put, be aware that there is language on this blogsite, and if you are offended don't bother complaining because I wrote this so that you'd know it before reading, and it is your fault if you don't believe me and decide to possibly get offended anyway. If language of a vulgar nature might make you upset, go read something by Disney.

12/29/10

My Secret (No Longer) Love of Coronation Street

To those of you who know me, you know that I am a huge fan of television.  I certainly watch a lot of it, and I ensure that when I am watching certain programs I ignore phone calls, people at the door, burning embers drifting past my nose, etc..  To me, what makes good viewing is intriguing storylines, humour, interesting locales - and if you can manage to throw in a few hot women, I'm all for it!

When I was younger, like 35 years ago or so, I used to have a hell of a time trying to figure out what to do on Sunday mornings.  I used to be up the same time as I would be for school, about 7am, and there just isn't a whole lot for a five-year-old to do that early on a morning when the parental units are trying to get sleep.  Keep in mind that this is the 70s we're talking about here, which means television channels didn't air overnight, stores weren't open for shopping, and about the only thing to watch was religious shows or farm reports.  There were only two things available to be viewed that were of any interest, and I had to choose one of them.

Those who know me also know I hated my mother.  Loathed her, despised her.  Threatened to do her with a sword if she ever came around my home again.  The last time I spoke to her, two years before she died, I dis-invited her to my wedding, and then told her I wished she had had an abortion so that I would never have had to have her as my mother.  Celebrated with an impromptu pool party when I was informed she was dead.  These things on their own might seem shocking, disturbing, and very hateful - and they certainly are.  I'm not going to go into depth here at this moment, but if anyone ever reading this wants to try and understand how I could be this way to her, send me an e-mail at gutrend@gmail.com or comment below asking for more info.  Otherwise, for those I haven't alienated, let's keep going.  I'm bringing this up to explain that I wasn't always like this with her.  When I was a kid and didn't see her for the spiteful, vicious, abusive person she was, she made huge impressions upon me which I am still feeling the repercussions of to this day.  I can honestly say that, even without a psychiatrist, I am aware that 95% of the person I am today is as a direct result of my mother's influences, and how I either embraced them or fought against them.

As a little aside, I'll explain that more fully.  My mother, and again I'm not getting into specifics, demanded high marks from me in school - so, I purposefully barely passed, skipped classes voraciously, and under-achieved like a fiend.  Someone noticed this and I still got into U of T regardless, don't know how, but there it is.  My mother hated electric guitar - so, I fell in love big time with heavy metal music.  My mother hated my posture - I still slouch.  She wanted me involved in sports - I'm 340lbs, a hundred pounds overweight based on my height and frame, and it is contributing negatively to my heart condition (though not the cause of it).  My mother hoarded crap and made it a rule that I could never have friends over to the house - I keep things as tidy as I can when living with two people who often don't give a shit, and wish I had friends to come over daily, or at all.  There are things that she did when I was younger and more impressionable that stuck with me as well, and some of those are in fact good things.  She created my love of music in general.  She was an avid television watcher (both a good and bad thing, it can be argued).  She for a very long time didn't like the majority of our family, hence I only have interactions with my cousin - and she alienated the family against me by lying about certain events and flaunting her ongoing extramarital affair by bring the douche to every family event she could.  She was an avid reader, and I can't keep enough books in the house.

However, the one thing that she did when I was very young that is related specifically to this entry is this:  she HATED Coronation Street. With a passion.  No idea why.  So much so, in fact, that the second the theme would start playing on CBC on those early Sunday mornings, she would throw it to any other channel just to avoid hearing it.  She got me to hate it to, so on those mornings when I was awake and alone, I'd end up watching whatever black and white movie was on CityTV that early.  Didn't care for most of them, but that's how I grew up.  Hating Coronation Street into my 30s.  Until one day...

It was again a Sunday morning, I was awake and alone.  I was flipping channels and saw Corrie there on CBC and I thought to myself that with all the things I had been doing for most of my life to spite her, why don't I look and see why she hated this show so very much.  So I did.  I've been watching the show faithfully ever since.  For those readers whom also watch Corrie, I started with the following plot lines:  Molly and Tyrone were getting ready to get married, though Tyrone was trying to make a big production of the ceremony and had no money to do so; Tony Gordon and Carla were together, and Maria was seemingly crazy, accusing him of killing Liam (if only I had tuned in early enough for Liam's murder); David and Tina were together and Gary Windass was trying to win her from him.

Now, I'm a rabid fan of the show.  So is my wife, and we can't even wait until the omnibus on Sunday mornings to watch them - we tune in and/or record each episode at 6:30 every night Monday through Friday.  Not only that, but I also read ahead.  Yeah, it irks me that we're ten months behind the British airing of the shows, and at some point I hope we have the means to watch them 'live' as it were, but that would also mean a lot of recording for 10 months so that we could catch up all at once and be on top of the episodes.  Well, it isn't like I'm doing much else, but we still need a proper station to broadcast the current run to us.  I'm even looking into whether we'll be able to see the shows from Britain when we are in the Dominican Republic.  They get channels from all over the globe down there, so if we can get CBC and ITV down in the Caribbean, then all we need is a DVD recorder and a proper Tivo, and we're off to the races!

For now however, I'll just have to content myself that I know what's about to happen with George's obsession with keeping Simon away from Peter, when Gary will be coming home and the change in him and why, whether Sally will ever find out about Molly and Kevin, whether or not Steve and Becky are going to actually conceive again, or whether Tina will really be staying together with Jason or whether there is someone else in the wings...and of course, waiting until October for the 50th anniversary show, complete with incredible pyrotechnics and all!

The best part of it all?  Simple.  If my mother had ever taken the time to watch the show, even once, she would have loved it.  So, guess that's a point in my favour, hmm?