Out Of Touch, Guilty Pleasures

Edit: Harmony's guilty pleasures

While listening to the radio on the way to work this morning, they were talking about the Oscars. I could honestly say that I could not tell you the plot to any of the movies that they mentioned on air. Is this a good thing? Probably. Granted, there probably were some decent movies on the Oscar list for this year (or is it the previous year?). But I figure the less in touch with popular culture that I am, the better.

A lot of that probably has to do with the fact that we have no TV service at our house. Back when we originally got our house, we decided that we'd live without cable, for budget purposes. Now I don't know that we'd get it if we decided we could afford it. This, of course, is not condemnation towards those who do have cable TV. In fact, we'd like to come over to your house(s) if there's ever a good Mythbusters episode on repeat ;) Sure, TV can be a learning aid. But it can also be a big time sink.

I'm not completely out of touch with all aspects of pop culture though. Some parts are somewhat unavoidable. I can't go to any mainstream news site without Anna this or Britney that. I can proudly say that I hardly ever click on those links. All the news agencies seem to think that it's a gigantically big deal that a certain Ms. Smith is dead and blah blah blah. Why is this lady so famous now? In my opinion, she has done absolutely nothing that deserves fame, or even infamy. Same goes for a certain Ms. Spears. I *really* don't care how often she checks in and out of rehab. Best of luck to the children that any of these strange people have. I hope they don't grow up to be like their mommies and daddies.

The following list exposes some of the guilty pleasures and non-frugalities we enjoy. This portion was inspired by a Common Room post on Non Frugalities:

• Broadband internet service. We don't even really feel guilty about this; I only consider this non-frugal in that there are slower and cheaper options, which we would only downgrade to in absolute dire circumstances.


• Chinese food every few of months or so. I know, all the MSG and fat and grease, and it probably undoes all the otherwise healthy eating that we do. This list is kind of embarrassing already.


• I'm probably a horrible person for liking a good action movie. My current DVD collection includes a lot of lightsabers, guns, and swords. Yes, I do like a bit of carnal entertainment every now and then. *sighs*


• Various (and periodically bought) organic/natural snacks, like Natural Doritos (thank you Frito Lay!!!!) or Newman-O's (Paul Newman brand organic Oreos).


• As I alluded to before, we love the Mythbusters TV show. Sometimes I really wish we could get just Discovery Channel, and the Military Channel while we're wishfully thinking.

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And here are more, as requested, from Harmony:

• DARK chocolate. I would almost say the darker the better, but I have found that my ideal range is somewhere between 65% and 75% cacao. Mmmmm....


• Computer games. This is really a guilty pleasure for both of us, as JunkMale would be the first to admit. I have a certain fondness for Nancy Drew adventure games, which are designed for pre-teen girls.... but I must admit that it's still very fun to solve all the puzzles. I also love the Sims. JunkMale likes, and I quote, "anything fun where I get to kill things". Yes, we know video games rot your brain and make everyone into delinquents. That's why it's a *guilty* pleasure. ;-)


• Ice Cream. Tonight, in fact, we are going to Baskin Robbins. When we went to the mountains for a day trip last weekend, we each got a cone. We typically have some ice cream in our freezer, although in that respect we really aren't that picky. So long as it's frozen and sweet we'll probably like it (JM: unless it's pickle flavor, or something).
  

It sure took me a while to think of those, but better late than never I suppose. :)
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Lest you were beginning to think that I was always "higher than thou" and always looking down my nose at all the heathen, there you go. Alert the tabloids; JunkMale has told all.