House of 2½ Monk, CSI, New York

I rarely watched Philippine TV shows and sitcoms. I watched news; I also watched some talk shows from the ANC. When my siblings start to talk about entertainment gossip, one of my nieces would say that they need to make a sort of backgrounder because a foreigner is listening. Most of those who came into the Philippine entertainment scene in the last 10 years are unknown to me.

The TV shows I watched are the kind that validates my slightly abnormal psychology. I watch House. In one of "House" episodes, he said something about his not wearing a lab coat has nothing to do with how he diagnosed diseases. It is presumptuous of me to even compare my case to "his" but I hate the uniforms the government prescribed for us. Or in our case what our own uniform committee has chosen as uniform. They seem to always choose cloths mostly made from wool or synthetic fibers. They are hot and uncomfortable to wear. They are the kind of cloth meant to be worn in an air-conditioned room with nothing to do but file papers, write, type, the kind of work that does not make you sweat. They are not meant to be worn if one is suppose to carry and shelve heavy books or do housekeeping sometime in the day. Other people may equate uniforms with efficiency and effectiveness but in my case, it does not.

Another show I watched is CSI. I like gore and mayhem. I also like to guess who the culprit is. Last week's episode of CSI: New York features the New York City Public Library as the scene of the crime committed. A rare book "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" was treated with Thallium which causes the death first of the Librarian of the rare book section. The death of course was murder or rather euthanasia according to her husband who administered the poison through that book. He made other deaths occur to make his claim valid—that the librarian job was hazardous—so he could collect the insurance. He would have represented the other victims in a legal suit against the library and therefore collecting another fee, a settlement fee or whatever. I never thought a librarian's job could be exciting in that way. Imagine your library being the scene of a crime and if you're not the victim, you could be one of the suspects. I always thought the most exciting thing that could happen in a library was if an angry client would go at you with a heavy book or skewer you with an umbrella. Or a book would suddenly turn into a monster ala Harry Potter episode and would attack the librarian.

Last evening’s episode of Two and a Half Men (a rerun of season 3, episode 12 I suppose) had Alan in a grip of panic inside a bookstore. He has always wanted to read it seems, but never had the time to do so and he is in a panic because to him there is no more time to read the classics, biography, geography, etc. Charlie, his brother told him he could read while he is using the comfort room and Alan replied there are not enough bowel movements in his lifetime to read all the best books. One’s bowel movements, for those who read while pooping or one's lifetime may never be enough to read all the good and not-so-good-but-entertaining-all-the-same books but one could try. If we spent our time just thinking and planning about reading then we may even never get to read even one good book. Anyone can start reading at any age. Some started while they were still young but that does not automatically mean they are the best reader. There is no age limit to reading just as there is no age limit to learning.

And Monk. Monk is another TV character of course. He is the most or rather he has the most abnormal psychology and he makes me feel the most normal person in the world.