Housekeeping, a terrible book, and the TV Show Meme! Day 29!

[alg]

Quick housekeeping: If you are going to comment anonymously, please make sure you sign your comments. I suggest logging in to Dreamwidth or LiveJournal instead of commenting anonymously -- and if you don't have an account at either site, you can try logging in with OpenID, which you already have if you have a Gmail or Yahoo account, Flickr, Blogger, MySpace, WordPress, or AOL. Thanks! Moving on:

Hi! I hibernated all weekend, using the computer pretty much only to double-check the recipes for scones and buttermilk waffles. It was pretty amazing, although I don't know that I'd want to make a habit of it -- I came home to quite a lot of email, and over 200 entries in my Google Reader. Ack! While hibernating, I read a lot, and cooked a lot, and watched a lot of tv with some of my close friends.

I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson -- I know, I am the latest. Will it surprise anyone to know that I was thoroughly unimpressed? Sorry, but if I can figure out your whole mystery and guess some of the surrounding drama before I'm even a hundred pages into a 500 page book... well, the book is going to have to work a lot harder for my esteem. Frankly, I am pretty shocked that people read this book and were surprised by anything in it -- most of it seemed cliche, predictable, and boring to me.

I was also not impressed by the quality of the prose, the ridiculousness of the "hero," and the amount of graphic descriptions of sexual assault/rape, and torture-murder. The loving way the rapes and torture-murders are described contrasted pretty strongly with the scant, fade-to-black consensual sex scenes. There were a lot of things I didn't like about this book, but that topped the list. I was really not surprised when I found out that the original Swedish title of the book is Men Who Hate Women -- that is far more appropriate.

Anyway, I feel like I am the only person in the world who's saying this, but save your money -- if you've read one mediocre book with a predictable mystery about a serial rapist, you've read them all. Take your ten dollars and buy yourself a copy of Bound instead. Helloooooo, Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly. Whew. I wish they would make a million more smart, clever, sexy, funny, noir movies in which they are lesbians. Watching it for the nth time this weekend, I kept forgetting it was made in 1996 -- it stands up really well. What I'd forgotten since the last time I watched it was that the beginning was so damn campy and hilarious -- and I clutched the hand of the friend watching it with me during the suspenseful bits, even though not only have I seen it before, but I practically have it memorized.

It did a really good job at taking away the bad taste in my mouth from that terrible book.

And now: the tv meme. Just today and tomorrow and then I will post my version of this, which I've made for books! I am pretty excited to do the book one; I was going to wait until August, but I might end up just doing it now, since I'm so excited. I hope that many of you will do the book meme along with me -- I love hearing about what people are reading!

Day 29 - Current TV show obsession

I don't have one right now -- I'm not watching a lot of tv at the moment, since I'm doing a lot of editing. But, of course, Leverage started a few weeks ago, and White Collar's second season kicked off last week, two shows I really dig. And over the weekend, after watching Bound, I was introduced to the cartoon Invader Zim. Whoa! What a great show -- genuinely hilarious on several levels. The basic premise is that Zim is an alien, a member of a race who wants to take over the universe. But Zim is annoying and not very good at his job, so they give him what is basically the alien invader version of "make work" -- they send him to a planet no one's ever heard of that there are no plans to invade. Earth! And they give him a quickly-assembled-from-trash robot assistant named Gir (pronounced GRRRR) who is even more hilarious than Zim. And, of course, Zim ends up living next door to a kid who is obsessed with aliens (and knows Zim is an alien, but no one believes him!). The kid's sister is great, and loves video games, and the kid's dad is a mad scientist.

There are a bunch of episodes on Netflix that I can stream instantly to my computer, so I think I'll be working my way through the episodes at night before bed.



Other days...
Day 01 - A show that should have never been canceled
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you’ve watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death

Comments

[annathepiper]

My housemate's been trying to work his way through Dragon Tattoo on his Nook, and he was saying it was a bit of a slog for him. I don't think I'll mind punting it at all, since it ain't like I don't have well over 500 things on the To Read list. ;)

And I do like me some mystery/crime/suspense sometimes, so sure, I'll check out Tana French! Thanks!

[alg]

Your housemate sounds charming. :)

French's new book just came out -- her books tie together, but you don't have to read one to read the others. I haven't read the new one yet (although it looks great), but if you're only going to read one, I recommend her second one, The Likeness.

[annathepiper]

My housemate is indeed awesome!

I was just looking up Ms. French on Goodreads and I'll see what I can do to grab an ebook once my current sort-of-hiatus for new books is over. The summary on the first one sounds neat. :)

[alg]

Oh, the first one (Into the Woods, I think?) is great! You have to be into the narrator, though, who is kind of a whiny, entitled brat. Normally I hate that kind of thing -- and yet her writing was so good (I thought) that it didn't really bug me, but rather seemed like a necessary puzzle piece.

[annathepiper]

Duly noted! I'll slurp the sample down onto my Nook when I've cleared out some more of my backlog of stuff I already own. (See previous comment re: well over 500 things on the To Read list, by which I mean, pushing 600! I just checked--I'm at 581. I really need to actually read some of these things. *^_^*;; Including yours, for that matter!)

[alg]

Well, you should read mine first!!! Hee.

My TBR pile is bigger than it has ever been before, so I know of what you speak!!

[annathepiper]

I gotta say, that 'instant book sample at a button click' technology is super-addictive. ;)

TOO MANY BOOKS NOT ENOUGH TIME it's a shame I can't actually get paid for reading books all day!