A Guilty Pleasure Post - My Love of Coffee Mugs

     I drink a lot of coffee, well there is probably people who drink more coffee than I do and a lot of people who drink less coffee than I do. It's varies from day to day. So what I should say is I drink a lot of things that require mugs i.e. tea, coffee, hot cocoa. Actually I think that's it. The point is I love coffee mugs. I own about nine mugs and here they are.

     If you know anything about what the reaction was to The Lord of the Rings when it came out, you'd know this was a popular phrase often tagged on walls and written on signs in the 1970s. So of course being a huge Tolkien enthusiast I had to get it.

     These are just regular ol' coffee mugs. Nothing special written on them but don't they look nice? They've got kind of a Green Lantern theme to them.

     House Targaryen of A Song of Ice & Fire and Game of Thrones fame, with their sigil and their motto on the side. They would probably drink some kind of wine out of this.

     Shaped like the famous TARDIS of Doctor Who fame with a nice lid to make up the top of the Doctor's time traveling police box. I have to say, it holds a lot but a square shape to drink out of can be kind of awkward. I use this more for tea than coffee.

     A Portal theme cup using Aperture Science's 70's logo. This is the smallest of all my mugs, being diner sized which they use for multiple refills. For some reason this lends to the taste of it. I can't explain it but coffee tastes the best in this mug.

     Coffee of Doom, the fictional coffee shop from Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content. I mostly bought this one because it looked cool but it feel much sturdier than all my other mugs for some unknown explanation. Maybe that red part inside of it as actual ceramic blood to keep the mug everlasting or it could just be made of thicker stuff considering it's from a more small indie kind of business rather than the large manufacturers of the other ones.

     Now here is a mug I don't own, but will.

     Why am I posting about mugs? Is there some kind of point? Well, I'm graduating soon and with graduating hopefully moving towards getting a writing job, getting a manuscript finished to sent out and submitting my writing to as many literary magazines, online news sites and well basically anywhere. There's something very "adult" about what's going on and it made me think of a discussion my friends and I have had on multiple occasions.

     I can't quite remember the context but I remember in what I believe to be 2011, my friend Dan told me that what made him feel like an adult was going to bed early because of responsibilities. I didn't agree because my parents have for the longest time stayed up very late due to my father's evenings work schedule. His parents, which I believe he told me so, probably went to bed very early to get up for work the next day. 

     Now, come early 2012 my friend Chris and I are doing our weekly writing sessions at Starbucks when the discussions of socks come up. This actually might of been late 2011/early 2012 as this revolves around Christmas gifts. He was telling me he loved getting socks as a present because otherwise he'd have to buy his own. In response I said that I always preferred Christmas presents to be things I wanted but wouldn't buy for myself and not things I need. This led to Chris's definition of what it means to be an adult which is having to buy your own socks.

     Eventually, when I started realizing I was collecting a set of coffee mugs for myself I came up with my own little signs that you're an adult. My friend Keri having just received a coffee mug from her job uploaded a picture of on twitter and I said "Being an adult is owning multiple coffee mugs." I remembered the discussion about socks and going to bed early then added it to the list. It could be a on BuzzFeed if the list was a bit longer.

Signs you are an adult

1. Going to bed early.
2. Buying your own socks
3. Owning multiple coffee mugs.

     One day another friend will add to this list of quirky signs you're an adult and then we'll have a real list on our hands. Obviously there's more to being an adult than these things but it makes me laugh that my friends and I have these quirks that makes us feel like "adults."

We can't stop here, this is spoiler country! - Spoiler Paranoia: When is it warranted, and when isn't it?

Ah, a short reprieve from Thesis to do some writing. I've been working on Thesis since May 10th and the time it takes up has made me antsy to write so badly.

     Since yesterday was a monumental episode for HBO's Game of Thrones I thought it would be the perfect time to discuss spoilers. In case you don't know what spoilers are they're facts about any medium that has a story or plot revealed to you before you can find out for yourself.

     It seems to me lately that spoilers, the term not spoilers themselves, has entered mainstream pop culture over the last couple of years. I think this is akin to the pop culture phenomenon of both Harry Potter and Lost. That's just what is on the forefront of my mind as far as spoilers in mainstream media. I distinctly remember when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out the controversy of an important plot point, which I will not post here, being scanned onto the internet and displayed. The series was a big enough hit that the controversy had made it into the news. Then there was ABC's Lost which had a strong structure around the mystery of the island. Thinking about it now, I wonder if that coincided with the rise of DVR and Tivo because if you spoiled Lost for anyone before they were able to see it, you were in trouble.

     But why are spoilers such a big deal? The big deal is that you are robbing people of an emotional connection to a story they may only get to experience once. Not everyone has time to rewatch, reread and replay. Not everyone wants to figure out what’s going to happen before it happens. People with intense careers, families and limited money only get to experience a story once and then have to move on. There’s only so much time in a day. So when a plot element is revealed to them before they’re given the chance to experience it for themselves the journey may seem like a waste of time. No one wants their time wasted. Sometimes it’s better to not know. In my life I have never peaked at a Christmas or Birthday present because I wanted to be surprised. I only get to unwrap that specific present on that specific day once. Once you know how a story ends, who dies, who lives, who sleeps together and who gets married you never not know. So to that extent I understand why people would want to shield themselves from spoilers.

     There are some spoilers that are just ingrained into pop culture now and there's no way around them. If you're complaining about someone spoiling something that came out anymore before the turn of the century you are asking for too much. As a kid the only Star Wars film I had ever seen was the first one but I knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father. It had been beaten over my head for years but when I finally borrowed a set of the three movies from a friend on VHS when I was twelve and watched Empire Strikes Back I was still blown away by the movie even though I knew what happened.

     That's just me though. I'm a rereader, rewatcher, replayed. The replay value of stories is important to me. I am not a fan of throwaway entertainment and if a spoiler is enough to ruin the story for me I am probably not going to waste my time with it.

     I see both sides of it though. For example, last night t-shirt brand RIPT apparel immediately on their twitter account spoiled last night's episode of Game of Thrones. This is a company that probably sells Game of Thrones t-shirts and should know their market doesn't take too kindly to spoilers like that. If you haven't seen last night's episode do not search out their twitter account. An editor of a website I frequent who called them out on the spoiler proceeded to get into an argument with another twitter user on whether or not it was a big deal because the book has been out for so many number of years and the information is out there no matter what. This is an example of someone being insensitive to another person's experience of a story.

     On the flipside recently Matt Smith announced he'd be leaving Doctor Who during the Christmas special this year. This was literally a press release and people were complaining of spoilers. Similarly a couple months ago when comedian and host of The Talking Dead Chris Hardwick hosted a panel for The Walking Dead an audience member who voluntarily attended the show complained about spoilers in heckling manner when they began talking about episodes from the current season. This is when Spoiler Paranoia crosses the line into ridiculous.

     For me though, spoilers aren't a grey area. When I first read A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Sword of Storms I was glad none of it was spoiled for me because they had an emotional impact on me. On the other hand, remember that spoiler about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? I know what it is, and wasn't a reader of those books at the time. I only began reading them last summer and have just gotten up to the sixth book. I know what happens because I've seen the movies with friends and because of that spoiler but it won't ruin those books for me because they're fun.

     I guess my point is that spoilers are on a case by case basis for me but do everyone a favor and don't spoil anything for anyone. I've been guilty of this because I get excited about stories, and I want to talk about them to the point that sometimes I don't think before I speak but don't ruin the experience for other people. At least try not to.