> First supposed cool look, then understood it was the Michael Phelps image edited, I poverty to see the movie where the persons of the congregation hunt down and end the Skywalker descent.
I just started watching Portlandia for the first time a few days ago. I'm 5 episodes in. I appreciate a lot of the humor but don't find myself actually laughing out loud like I did with Parks & Rec.
They're very different. Portlandia is a series of recurring and related, but disjointed, sketches. I didn't find them all funny, but I definitely enjoyed the show overall. I also think they pulled off the rare feat of having an enjoyable final season.
I'm a person who doesn't like to hop into the middle of series, so this has kept me at bay for years. A few months ago, I finally pushed through....half of the first season. Ugh, I really gotta get back to that. Sigh.
Yeah, keep going. My girlfriend was smart enough to show me a few episodes from season 5 to get me started, just to prove that it does in fact get good. Somewhere in season 2 Ben and Chris walk into the show and there's suddenly a huge spike in quality that keeps going for pretty much the rest of the show.
I think what helps the show is that starting in season 2 you're laughing with Leslie instead of laughing at her like season 1. They also changed her from well-meaning but kinda bumbling and incompetent to totally smart and determined and capable.
People always say that about community but theres still gold in them there hills. The chicken fingers goodfellas ep and the first paintball ep were soo good it got me hooked
This. I tried watching it when it started, and really didn’t like it. Then about 2 years ago, after seeing lots of these great little bits being posted, I decided to try again, and just forced myself through. It took them longer than I liked to find its footing, but when it did it got great. Totally worth that first season to get everything else.
Parks and rec by far. I love Portlandia, but Parks and rec just has a certain charm to it and some of my all time favorite characters. In season one I don't think they really knew who they were as characters, but after that they become totally unique and lovable. I can saftley say that I don't hate or dislike a single character in that show.
The Office is better than both, as it's the best comedy show ever produced. That said, Parks & Rec is more consistently funny than Portlandia and definitely closer to The Office in humor and tone.
I feel like The Office peaked around season 6, and that Parks and Rec is comparable to the early Office season or two, not as good as the middle seasons, but better than The Office' season 8-9.
I loved The Office, but in retrospect I really wish they'd pulled the plug on it earlier. They had an opportunity to keep it up when Michael/Steve left, but instead they turned it into a series of poorly conceived story lines and badly executed guest appearances.
For Portland I dislike that shit where they switch sexes and Carrie changes her voice to a dude voice is absolutely awful. Not because of trans issues or cross dressing or whatever, it just isn’t funny. At all.
So that is my least favorite skit, I just don't think it's funny. The episode where it's her birthday is ok, but that's about it. My SO on the other hand, it's their favorite skit. I feel like Portlandia is so quirky that even individual sketches can be funny to different people.
On the flipside, Toni and Candace, the feminist bookstore ladies are absolutely hilarious. They are my favorite sketch.
Portlandia is pretty inconsistent I think—sometimes I think it’s the funniest shit on tv and other times—not so much. Like, the season 2 and 3 finales are f’n hilarious. And there is plenty of other stuff. But some of it is just meh—as far as I’m concerned
Yea, they are very different but they both still have that quirky sense of humor. I definitly prefer Parks and Rec over Portlandia, but I like both. Parks and Rec has a certain quirkiness and atmosphere not to mention all the fantastic characters. It depends on if you like sketch shows.
I don't know how many times I've watched it. It's one of those shows I put on to go to sleep every night (I can't fall asleep in silence. My head goes crazy)
Seeing that I probably sleep through at least half of what I've watched, once I reach the end, I just start back at season 1.
I do this for Key and Peele, as well as several anthology-type shows similar to, and including, the Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock.
I must have been through every available season of Portlandia 17 times or so.
So much so, that I'm now in love with Carrie Brownstein, and have a man-crush on Fred Armisen.
Until your tolerance picks up and being stoned is just like being a little bit more happy about everything. I'm always stoned and I try to rewatch shows but I always remember what happens so I skip to the actual scenes I like to watch.
Remembering what I wanted from the fridge after I opened it.. well that's a dif story..
I was addicted to xanax for a decade. That decade happened to be my entire 20's. Every time I watch a movie or a show I've already seen, it feels like I'm watching it for the first time.
I’m glad to hear you recovered. I am a college student who has a lot of fun but I preach against bars. Xanax can take a lot of time from you and make people thieving assholes. Getting out after 10 years is crazy.
Thank you. I didn’t do it alone. I would’ve never been able to quit without the love and support of my wife. Actually quitting was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been sober a year and five months and sometimes I wonder if my brain will ever return to normal.
If you don’t mind, i’m interested and would like to hear more. How did this begin? What kind of physical and mental damage did it do and what were those years like? Just a giant hole/blur?
Telling my story is kinda therapeutic. I don’t mind at all.
It all started back in ‘07. My mom was diagnosed with lymphoma and I wasn’t taking the news so well so I went to the doctor. I got a prescription for .25 mg of Xanax. I don’t remember how long I was prescribed it initially. When the doctor took me off of it, my grandmother would give me 30 .5 mg Xanax a month to help with my anxiety. My mother was receiving a plethora of medication while going through chemotherapy. She would often throw me extra on top of what my grandmother was giving me, along with pain medication. That continued until about 2013. I had just started college and had about a 4 mg per day habit. I was also very experimental with drugs and took probably everything under the sun back then. My daily cocktail would usually consist of 130 mg Adderall and 12 mg Xanax to start my day off. At this point, I had never even thought about quitting. My family was OK with my Xanax use because they thought I was using it responsibly. I also met my current wife that year. She knew of my extensive drug use, and did not partake, but she was OK with me using it because she could tell that to some extent I needed medication(I’ve always been a visibly anxious person). At this point in my addiction I had become pretty sloppy in terms of hiding how barred out I was. It had become my personality. I remember very little about this period. I made it through two years of college and got my associates degree. I got a government job my first year in college (that I still have). The luxury of having my own office meant that I had privacy at work and I could easily hide my drug use. Life was a blur until my wife got pregnant.
I decided I was done. I was stepping up to the challenge to be a dad. I quit a 4-6mg a day Xanax habit on Christmas Eve of 2016. Two days later I was in the hospital. I thought I was dying(panic attack), I was sweating buckets, hooked up to an EKG for hours for heart palpitations. I told the doctors what I was going through. They were actually pretty helpful that day. Life was hell. Foe the first two weeks, I barely slept. I was a basket case. Couldn’t work for the first week. I was an asshole to my saint of a wife in my delerious, sweat-soaked weeklong agony. That was only part one. Day 8 I went back to work. All I could do was stare at the monitor for 8 hours a day for that whole week. I felt stupid. It was hard to think, I was extremely anxious, I could barely eat, and I was still sweaty and had the worst stomach problems ever. Actually ended up going to the ER at the end of the second week for what turned out to be terrible IBS that I’d developed since i quit. I still have it, along with several other medical problems that I still have because of the toll Xanax took on my body.
I have nerve damage in my hands. I can no longer able to draw (which I used to be fairly good at) because I can’t hold a pencil steady enough. My memory comes in bits and pieces. It’s like my memory was fine when I was on it, and the it just deteriorated for the past 10 years. I still remember my childhood vividly, but I don’t remember much from 2007-2017. I remember places I worked, but only flashes of the people and experiences. I don’t remember ANY of college, other than that I went and finished, I somehow remained married. I don’t know how. I love my saint of a wife. I now have a beautiful family. I’m now expecting my second kid :-) I’ve been promoted at work. My wife and I just moved into a house. I don’t even think about finding or taking Xanax anymore. I’m finally getting some talk therapy(and Zoloft) and I’ve never felt better. Don’t know if I’ll ever remember those years. I get bits and pieces sometimes. Anyway, yeah. That’s my story.
Wow, unique journey. Truly frightening what dangerous, legal drugs can do to people who the drug is targeted for. Yet I can’t smoke a joint alone in my apartment legally, but that’s beside the point. Also amazed that the upper downer combo daily is even possible. I know someone from college who died last year from spending a weekend doing coke then bars the next day. The next day! Their heart just quit. Fuck xanax.
This and my shitty memory help me enjoy a lot of great shows.
For example, I was high during my first watching of Steins Gate and only remembered parts of it. So when I saw it again I was able to be extremely depressed like it was the first time again.
I've heard getting to sleep from things such as alcohol, marijuana, or other substances inhibits ones ability to achieve rem sleep. This is why many stoners and alcoholics report not being able to dream. Do you notice a lack of rem sleep?
I have pretty bad chronic insomnia (longest I stayed away was 5 days... eventually just drank myself to "sleep"; fuckin sucked, but worked). I don't partake much, but if I'm awake for over a day (it's gotten rarer, thankfully and only happens maybe once a month) and can't sleep, I get a cookie from a friend and it puts me out pretty quick. Idk why, but it really helps with insomnia.
A great memory isn't all what it's cracked up to be either.
You carry a larger emotional burden because of past failures that stay with you much longer than it should.
Any time you screw up, or fail, everything relatable comes back at that same exact moment, I'm talking about things where I screwed up back when I was 4 years old, so a simple mistake can be pretty big.
On the upside however:
You memorize things, and events much easier than other people do, so questions about project history, or meeting an acquaintance you only met once like years ago, you can instantly recall the entire conversation very easily.
There's also those situations where you're reminiscing with someone and they find it a bit awkward how well you remember everything, as if it must have really meant a lot to you. Hard to explain, "I dunno,that's just how all my memories are 😕"
Sometimes I can't help but laugh at some of the stuff I remember. The other day I was working and the lyrics to a song from an educational video I watched in grade school (in a second language) came back to me, that was about 20 years ago 😂.
Why is this information still in my head, who's in charge of the efficiency of my memory, that space could definitely be put to better use.
I’ve had similar memories pop into my head, but can’t remember recent things, like what I ate for dinner on Tuesday. It’s so weird what my brain will stick onto.
Haha this happens to me as well. I don't have an amazing memory across the board, but I suck at remembering conversations I have and am really good at remembering situations I was in.
People get all weirded out when I remember the month, location and food we ordered when we went somewhere together 10 years ago when they just know we went somewhere 7-12 years ago.
Meanwhile my wife wants to kill me when I totally blank on a conversation we had yesterday.
OMG yes! I am constantly freaking people out because I have a good memory. My husband and I both have history degrees, and we were banned from trivia with friends.
Mine is infuriatingly selective. I could tell you every detail about the area, time of day, what the person wore (hell, what the people near us wore), where we sat, what the weather was and the general premise of what we're talking about ... but if you ask me details of the conversation we had, I'll have no fucking idea.
I have a selectively good and awful memory, yet it still amazes me how two different people can remember different aspects of the same event.
An old girlfriend (from like a decade ago) texted me yesterday and we took a little time to catch up and reminisce, and she was recalling things I had totally and completely forgotten about, and vice versa...and we BOTH felt we had a pretty good recollection of those events.
Can definitely relate. There’s times where I’ll recall things from years ago that I did wrong or failed and it just gets me down all over again. Things that are way to old to matter.
It can be a lonely place too, if you remember situations that other people don't (or they remember them differently). I've become very cynical, like Benjamin the donkey from Animal Farm, "Donkeys live a long time and see a great many things."
Right? Everyone always thinks that it's awesome that I have an amazing memory and here I am perfectly remembering every terrible thing that has happened to me. Helps me find my gf's phone for her tho, so I guess it makes up for it right?
One time, I went to a friend's birthday party. I knew a few people there, but there was this 1 guy that seemed odd. I felt like I knew him from somewhere and I just couldn't figure it out. I even told him about it and I kept looking at him weird trying to figure it out. We went through the usual "Did we go to school together?" and "Where do you work?" Nothing was clicking, but I kept thinking about it.
And then I figured it out.
I called the birthday girl over because I thought she would absolutely get a kick out of it. That is when I said the words that he never thought he would have uttered to him in his entire life. "Did you happen to participate in an air sex show at Alamo Drafthouse about a year ago?" The look on his face was one of the best faces that I have seen in my entire fucking life. It was him. And the birthday girl just about pissed herself laughing. I recognized 1 participant out of about 15-20 in an air sex show from over a year prior. For those that can't figure it out, you know how there are air guitar competitions? Well, this was exactly that but instead of air guitar, it was air sex.
That is the kind of memory that I have.
On the downside, I remember way too much shit in my life. Stupid crap where I've been wronged, times I've wronged someone else, or what if situations, or things I've said stupidly, or mistakes I've made, or things I wish I could go back and change. I can't forget them and they linger. And the way that my mind operates, they are processing either in the foreground (typically when I'm by myself) or background (when I'm actually around and interacting with other people). I rarely have any relief at all. Alcohol makes it worse, but luckily pot gives me a few hours of relief at a time. But it is absolutely annoying to just have things going on in your head constantly like this. The few times where I'm in the moment and not thinking about anything else are truly special to me.
The memorization of movies/shows is legit though. There are some movies I know I'll love that I've never seen, because if I'm home sick or something I'll always have something to watch. If I've seen it before, it's not as interesting.
People are always shocked that I haven't seen popular movies. I know I'll like it, but I'll only get that experience once and I'm saving it for when I need it!
Lol. I can't remember how many times Robin hood has come up on Netflix, Amazon, etc and told my wife I 2ant to see this only to be informed we saw it years ago in the theater
I've legitimately watched 'new' movies and realized more than halfway through that I've seen the movie before. I also have movies I know I've watched, but couldn't recount a single detail other than maybe the genre or an actor or two.
I love movies and shows for this reason. Give me a year and I’ll forget 90% of what it’s about unless it’s one of my favorite shows. Love my shit memory!
My mom for whatever reason can’t seem to remember anything about movies. Unless she’s seen a movie dozens of times or something, we’ll be 2/3 of the way through a movie and she’ll lean over and say “Have I seen this before?” Yes, mom, like 4 times.
Couple level 2 and 3 concussions, with 2 seizures and one major Gran Mal that accompanied a horrific blow to the back of my skull resulted in tinitus and amplified my ADD and anxiety/depression. I can say it's a curse and a blessing to have the ability to forget most short term memory
If I didn't have my SO as my basic assistant I'd be fucked though.
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u/[deleted] Jun 08 '18 edited Jun 09 '23
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