Doing things with texts

Riddle me this: how much of an impact has Sex and the City had on women’s maudlin writing? I know I'm not the only person – male or female – that draws parallels between television stories and my own life stories (I'm, like, totally, sooo much more Miranda than, like, anyone else). The series saturates late-night syndication slots, hitting prime nightcap-and-laptop time. What are women (not implying that men don’t watch SATC, but for brevity using what the inane weight-loss ads indicate is the show’s target audience) doing with the easy accessibility and repetition of this show, with its emphasis on chronicling experiences in order to make sense of them? Can someone (not me, I'm bad with quantitative stuff) please do some sort of study that charts the content of blog posting alongside airdates and times? It should come as no surprise, then, that I just watched the episode in which Miranda first meets Steve, knowing of course how their story ends, and starts again, and ends again, and starts again… what can I say, there’s a romantic (mass, not heartless) buried somewhere under a layer or two of crusty cynicism. Like crème brulee. Mmm… crème brulee…
In other parts of my brain: I've been harassing the library for awhile now, since no one seems able to answer my question. The “upgrade” to WebCT Vista means it’s now possible to link to journal articles from within the course website, provided McGill’s already got access to the articles in their databases. I took it the next logical step further, figuring I’d just get all the other readings for my courses (book sections, e.g.) turned into pdfs and put them on there as well. No stacks of expensive coursepacks that invariably end up in the garbage at the end of the semester. And yet no one at the library can tell me whether or not this infringes upon ‘free use.’ I don’t see why not – only students registered in my courses will have access to these materials and they’re being reproduced for teaching purposes. What struck me as a no-brainer is turning into an increasingly irritating endeavour. So much for being a visionary…