"America: It's like Britain, only with buttons"

The more British TV I watch, the more I realize how different the UK and the US are. It's kind of mind-blowing, really. Everyone thinks that because we all speak English, we're really similar. Watch this video and think about it (sorry, linking disabled, so we'll have to do it the old fashioned way):

http://youtu.be/s0eYRHZLHAg

This is from a show called Friday Night Project (which, according to Wikipedia is now called Sunday Night Project, but whatever). This show is totally gay. I mean this in a not-at-all insulting way. It's just got a lot of homosexual vibes. Apparently, being gay is way cooler in Britain than it is here. More mainstream, more - part of everyday life. Note to America: work on that, please.

Besides that, the cultural references are just WAY different. Like the celebrities they reference. I have NO idea who they are - and thus the jokes are lost on me. There's even something almost Japanese game show about the way this show is structured. Or maybe they're just having fun :P

Over all, it's the little things that get me. Like how we use words. I was doing the crossword today in the paper and one of the clues was "alphabet ender in England." Zed was the answer - because Zed is how you say Z in French. Which makes sense, they're close together. But how did the Americans shy away from saying Zed? It's too bad... it sounds cooler.

Speaking of different ways of using words, watch this other clip from Friday Night Project:

We have a game like this in America, too (which I was forced to endure by [novel killer]. At least I had [mind ninja] there for moral support). Except we call it, "Marry, have sex with, or kill." Which just doesn't have the same... levity. Plus "shag" is just a great word we don't have in our "form" of English.

Oh, Britain... sometimes I'm sad that we left your empire. Oh, the splendors we could share together. But then if I were British, this wouldn't seem as novel and exciting. Plus, if America still belonged to Britain, we'd be stuck in some weird parallel universe and it might be like 1984 and totally suck. So we're probably better off. No hard feelings, right? Right?

Well, that was quite homoerotic

After an interesting lecture on "Holocaust Envy" [Львица] and I went to a pub called Town Hall Brewery for dinner and to have an "intellectual conversation" on the presentation we'd just witnessed. Amidst our critiques and questionings, [Львица] noticed two men sitting at the bar, one apparently doing an eye exam on the other. We thought it was odd, but turned back to our conversation. Then, while passing by an eye glasses shop in Dinkytown today, the event returned to my mind, along with this fun factoid: Top 5 Jobs for Gay Professionals. Yes, that's right boys and girls - apparently people in the gay community are drawn to helping people improve their vision. I can't remember where I first heard this statistic, or why it would have come up, but it's one of those random things to throw into conversation. Like the fact that plants can have fevers (did you know that? [Львица] shared that knowledge with me after finding it on the inside of a Snapple cap. Yes, that's now where I get my scientific information from).

But back to our dear friends at the bar. Either we watched two men practicing doing eye exams just because... but if at least one of them really was an optometrist, and if they were both gay, maybe we just caught some kind of kinky foreplay. C'mon, like you never used your job to impress someone. You know what Captain Jack would say...

This video took me like an hour to find on Youtube. Seriously, be proud of me - I beat the big, bad video posting sight. Also forgive the two hundredth Torchwood reference this week.