Episode 620

I have resisted the temptation to write about The Bachelorette for precisely five weeks.  Self-editing is a virtue: a lesson Ashley, this season's per-fect (does anyone else notice that she pronounces that word too phonetically? - yes, I'm a very tolerant person) Bachelorette, needs to learn.  For those of you who have avoided ABC, People Magazine, and humanity for the past month or so: this season, Ashley fell immediately for Bentley, a seriously deranged lunatic who trashed her on national television and then left the show, claiming that he couldn't be away from his daughter.  Yes, this man is a father.

When he left, Bentley said that their love story wasn't over - instead, there was just a "dot-dot-dot."  (Deep, I know.)  Boy oh boy, did Ashley hang on to that one.

It would be exhausting and violence-inducing to count the number of times the name Bentley has been spoken this season on the show - I would estimate around two hundred (and we're only six episodes in).  What I can count, though, is how many times the word - oh wait, not word, totally ridiculous and meaningless phrase - "dot-dot-dot" was spoken on last night's episode: seven times.  That's twenty-one "dot"s in 79 minutes of television.  (Full disclosure: I fast-forwarded through all of the "coming up on The Bachelorette" clips, which constitute about 85% of the show, so my count doesn't even include those occurrences - I'd say we could safely double it.) 
 

Luckily, Ashley finally came to her senses and ended the madness using a well-deserved Cee Lo style farewell with three dots of its own: "f*** you."

Episode 619

Everything reminds me of The Office.  Everything.

An article on economic history?  Yeppers!

A Lady Gaga song on the radio?  Yesh!
 

Any situation in which someone counts to three (or the go that's after three)?  Absolutely it does.
 

The list goes on, and becomes more and more banal (I can't even go to the dentist or hear someone say "as well" without a little chuckle). I won't describe which scene in The Office each of those things reminds me of (though if you're reading this, you probably already know).  And in return, I'll ask you not to tell me which Swiss philosopher has informed your most recent relationship decision. 

Everyone has their own frame of reference - mine is TV.  And, of course, post-Foucauldian social theory.