Word: humdrum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...find planets full of pornographic animals. Throughout Tsutsui’s eclectic assortment of stories, rather mundane characters are brought face to face with dystopia and the world of science fiction. Time machines and stampeding gangs of smoking abolitionists break through the white static of the protagonists’ humdrum lives. Tsutsui’s surreal elements forcibly draw attention to the need for an expressive outlet in a world marked by such brutal pressure to conform.And indeed, the pressure to conform is brutal. The men in these stories (and every one is written from a masculine perspective) face...
...filming (several times) the dramatic entrance of a reporter into the midst of the completely apathetic group. (FM does not speak Japanese, therefore it is entirely possible that the commentary is actually some form of psychoanalysis.) Of course, viewers in Japan won’t be pleased watching this humdrum scene, so the crew kindly asks the students to look away from their laptops for a minute and cheer loudly while they are filming. On the fourth take, a loud roar finally spontaneously emanates from the grille couches. During a ball. And the Sox are still losing 3-0. Satisfied...
...food prices. Last year saw new records set for wheat and corn prices, and, despite falling since their peaks, they are still high above the average. Unsurprisingly, HUDS is therefore undergoing a serious budget crunch, which means that you can say goodbye to all the rainbow highlights of your humdrum student life—tasty little bacon bits, those weird, whole-wheat waffles...
There's no surer sign of a fading soap opera than a lurid plot twist. Unlike their glossy American counterparts, British soaps like the long-running, top-rated EastEnders traditionally aim for stolid social realism, depicting ordinary folk pursuing humdrum lives. Now, though, dwindling audiences are spurring EastEnders' producers to unleash implausible killers and gothic disasters on their workaday protagonists. In a recent plotline, a character was taken hostage by his deranged stepson and saw his wife shot as she came to his rescue...
There's no surer sign of a fading soap opera than a lurid plot twist. Unlike their glossy American counterparts, British soaps traditionally aim for stolid social realism, depicting ordinary folk pursuing humdrum lives. Now dwindling audiences are spurring producers to unleash implausible killers and gothic disasters on their workaday protagonists. Take the hapless citizens of Walford, a fictional London borough that is the setting for EastEnders, one of Britain's top-rated soaps. Recent episodes have seen a troubled adolescent kidnap his estranged stepfather, chip-shop owner Ian Beale, to exact revenge for his psychopathic mother's death...