Here’s a small barrage of a few short reviews of a few entertaining things lately:

• Over The Hedge is one animated movie not for the weak of heart. Hyperbolic in its use of hyperbole as it may be, it’s got enough sap in it to at least water down the seeming misanthropy that can seethe from the raccoon character.
• I’d have to say that Nacho Libre has got to be Jack Black’s most interesting performance. The setting, the sheer abuse of stereotypes from top to bottom, and the clipped storytelling that I have seen in many movies even from the Philippines, all underscore the pleasant hero story. Not to mention that it may very well be the most philosophically significant movie of the past twenty years since Dude Where’s My Car?
• I had a strange feeling, judging by the previews, that Cars may be the movie that proves the Disney-Pixar relationship’s irrelevance. NOT! Though the storytelling seemed a bit slow at first it served only to place the viewers in Lightning McQueen’s predicament of being in the middle of the boonies. The bonus “Hollywood-level inspirational moment” near the end of the movie is worth every second in tacky, treacly, syrupy fun.
• “I came across a beast with two voices.” For a show on ABC Family there’s enough nudity and teenage love life in the pilot for Kyle XY to make a prude squirm. This teenage version of Fox’s John Doe is, for the most part, promising, at least for the station involved. Will it be a widespread hit? Not so sure.
• It’s been years since I bought a new game for my PC but I tried out Titan’s Quest and I’m liking it, despite the Sysyphean effort that my computer goes through trying to run the damn thing. I don’t have one of those fancy PCI-Express cards just yet (and never with this existing box, but if I get a windfall I’ll probably get an eMachine for gaming) but I am still enjoying the game. It’s Diablo II with no Christian imagery and better gameplay. Excellent replay value, I can tell you right now, even though I haven’t gotten out of Grease, erm, Greece, just yet.
• Finally from the world of wine, which I have not had a bottle of in at least six weeks due to a very interesting retail job schedule, comes my less-than-ten-bucks-and-you’re-drunk selection: a 2004 Pepperwood Grove Viognier. I am never the type to describe the tastes of wine by comparing the flavors to inedible objects (one review of another wine I read mentioned “pencil shavings”). This wine, then, has hints of citrus and apricot, and upon first sniff seems a bit sweet. It has a very fruity bouquet and a sharp but also fruity “entrance,” as it hits the tongue, but it is very dry as it goes down your throat, like any classy, dry white should. I had this with my dinner of gorgonzola wedges and Italian crusty boule-type bread. On this, my day off. Nothing like treating myself, ya?

So that would be that for this first edition of Culture Shock, hopefully I have more in the future.

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. — William Morris (as seen on De Doc)

It is without a doubt that our society today is a consumer-driven society based largely on credit.

This is in itself a fact worth bemoaning, as we are, as a whole, borrowing against ourselves into a bleak future. If an individual were only hurting himself I would say “leave him to the dogs,” as I usually say, but it is worth considering that we as a society can not stand to witness the suffering of others. The reaction, of course, is almost an oxymoron in and of itself. We ignore vagrants while we send our used clothing to goodwill. The ultimate oxymoron, of course, is that we indiscriminately protect the weakest in our society no matter whether they have wrought their pathetic fates unto themselves or not.

Our consumer culture is not the problem. Keeping up with the Joneses isn’t even the problem. Credit cards themselves aren’t even the problem. The fact that there is so much credit card debt isn’t even the root of the problem, it is merely a symptom. The problem is an even bigger one: the concept of responsibility is lost on so many among us.

The quote with which I introduced this post is a telling one for me. So little of what I own is meaningless, and nothing I buy is meaningless at the point of purchase. And when something I own loses personal value, I find someone else who might gain value from it. And that for me is the whole idea behind the “comsumerism” portion of this site’s tagline. It isn’t hogwild purchasing and “blinging out” on the newest toy. It’s about gaining personal enrichment from what one buys, and always within the limits of one’s means. That is the only consumerism I believe in.

I was never what you would call “poor,” and while my education and living expenses through college were handed to me, I have gone through my own period of personal hardship. It is with these circumstances that I treat my personal purchases, and my wealth in general. I am not one of much money, but I am a wealthy man.

The massive paradigm shift that is directed towards personal and social responsibility will happen—if it ever does—long after an economic problem on a widespread level happens as a result of all the borrowing around us. There are days when I wish I could impart even some part of how I see the world (beyond writing on here) unto others, but in the wisest words of my stepdad: The experience of experience is intransferrable.

The only question I would like to ask of you, dear friends: without rationalizing at all, do the things you own have worth and meaning? Or are you without meaning without the things you own?