Operation Pink Herring

So a telepath and a vampire walk into a bar

I was recently introduced to a little-known show -- maybe you've heard of it? -- called True Blood. We borrowed the first season on DVD from my brother and his wife and quickly devolved into watching four or five episodes in a sitting. Love Sookie, love Bill, love the trashy Louisiana setting.

But did anyone else notice the similarities to another popular vampire series?

For instance, Edward Cullen is a vampire who lives among humans in secret. Bill Compton is a vampire who, until recently, lived among humans in secret.

Edward and the Cullens live on animal blood because they are good vamps who don’t kill humans… most of the time. Bill subsists mostly on synthetic True Blood because he's a good vamp who doesn't like killing humans. Most of the time.

Edward is a telepath who can hear everyone’s thoughts... until he meets Bella. Sookie is a telepath who can hear everyone’s thoughts...until she meets Bill.

Edward is irresistibly drawn to Bella because he can’t hear her thoughts, even though she smells so good that he can hardly resist killing her. Sookie is irresistibly drawn to Bill because she can’t hear thoughts, even though he is very, very dangerous.

The Cullens are monitored by Jacob’s pack of werewolves. Bill is monitored by Sookie’s boss, Sam. Who is a werewolf.

The wolves hate all vampires, but Jacob especially hates Edward because he’s in love with Bella. Sam hates all vampires, but he especially resents Bill because he’s in love with Sookie.

Jacob and his pack turn out not to be werewolves after all. They’re just shapeshifters who happen to turn into wolves. Sam turns out to not be a werewolf after all. He's just a shapeshifter who prefers taking the shape of a dog.

Is this all a mighty coincidence? The Sookie Stackhouse books were published before Twilight, but I can't fathom a good Mormon girl like Stephenie Meyer reading them (I'm almost done with Dead Until Dark, and some of the sex scenes would make Emmett Cullen blush.) I mean, I'm not complaining. I love Twilight. I love True Blood (I'm not 100% sold on the books yet). But man, there are a lot of similarities.

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Related: So who else is watching The Vampire Diaries? I heartily approve, both because there was a snippet of a song by MGMT that I love in one scene and because they have my long-lost LOST boyfriend playing a major role. Oh, Boone, how I've missed you ever since that damned plane fell on you in Season One! Plus, they've got a great Wolverine vibe going on with the whole good-brother-just-wants-to-live-life-in-peace-but-bad-brother-won't-have-it-thing.

Sargeant Pepper

At a quarter past six on Saturday morning I dropped Joel off at the steps to the Athletic Center and he boarded a coach bus bound for South Carolina, leaving me as a bachelorette for a full week.  He's been doing this every spring since we first started dating, and it's a week I've come to both look forward to and dread in equal measure.  We are pretty good about spending time apart, I usually enjoy having entire days to myself: days where I can go to yoga and sit around in my sweaty clothes all afternoon, watching whatever I want on TV with the volume up to supersonic levels.  But I was caught unpleasantly off-guard the first few times he went away for entire weekends; caught by a crushing sense of loneliness that I really had no excuse to feel.   I've learned over the years that the key is to make plans, and lots of them -- even if it's just running the same errands I run every week, having a schedule in place makes all the difference.  But sometimes, despite my best precautions, I find myself feeling distraught and abandoned by Sunday night.  

Happily, I made it through this past weekend without once feeling like the sobbing little lady left behind at home.  It seems I've finally gotten the hang of this week-alone thing, and it's about damned time, right?  And ironically enough, this is the last spring break I'll spend on my own since Joel's team has been cut from the University's budget thanks to the tanking economy.  So... good thing I've got that figured out.

Anyway, now my biggest dilemma is that I am DYING to watch the last three episodes of Battlestar Gallactica sitting in my Tivo... but I can't because I need to wait until Joel gets home.  Not because I'm nice, but because I need someone around to answer all my dumb questions so I'll have at least a 50/50 chance of knowing what the hell is going on.  In my defense, I didn't watch the show until last year so I never got some of the foundational background.  In, uh, not my defense, I have a lot of questions about shows that I've every single episode of, so... yeah.  Don't ever go to the movies with me, is what I'm saying.  And don't ANYONE say anything about the last three episodes of BSG or I'll have to kill you.  That goes for the entire internet.  I already had Harry Potter ruined for me by THIS stupid video, [DON'T WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THROUGH BOOK 6, SERIOUSLY] and I really just can't take another blow like that.  I'm fragile right now.  Twilight is over, Kristen Stewart is giving interviews that make it look like she's even more braindead than I already suspected, and my brother is taking so goddamn long to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that I'm left discussing it with myself on Twitter.   Seriously, K: if I hear that you've been sleeping this week, I'm going to be very disappointed.

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In completely unrelated news, I fear that my car might be heaving its last exhaust-laden breaths.  I've been thinking that it's been a bit noisy lately, and last night the brakes really didn't seem to be braking all that well.  I was just resolving to take it in to be looked at - it's due for an oil change anyway - when my radio crapped out.  Again.  Maybe it will be as simple as disconnecting and re-connecting the battery (that's how we fixed the radio last time).  Maybe this is nothing, maybe it's just another attack of Volkswagen Gremlin-itis... but I just have a feeling that this is the beginning of the end.  I hope I'm wrong, I'd love to drag another few thousand miles out of this old girl.

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And to end on happy note: ladies and gentlemen, we officially have a minister to perform our wedding ceremony.  Can I get a hallelujah?  We ended up going with the first guy we met with - the one that was perfect except for the fact that he had another wedding an hour and a half after ours - and I'm really happy with the decision.  He's the right fit for the style of wedding we want and we both felt really comfortable with him... the only issue was our fear that the two ceremonies were just too close together, timewise.  But after we met with another wedding dude who regaled us with a tale of the time he performed FOUR weddings on the same day, we realized that booking with someone else didn't guarantee us exclusive rights to that date and there was a good possibility that another officiant might not even tell us if they were rushing off to another ceremony an hour after ours.  I emailed Dude #1 and told him the situation - that we really felt he was the best fit and were just concerned about the timing - and he assured us that he would not book two ceremonies if he were'nt completely sure he could give both the same level of service.  I mailed a check that same day and put a huge happy checkmark on my spreadsheet.  YAY.  And also: PHEW. 

 

And we won't even get into the Battlestar Gallactica obsession

Thanks to a combination of clementines, snow days (finally!), sleeping late and Harry Potter, I seem to have finally kicked the persistent cold with a side of feverish delirium that has been plaguing me for the past week and a half.  But not before I (1) went for a haircut and ended up with side-bangs, and  (2) joined Twitter.

So, yes.  Twitter.  You may have previously heard me saying that I just don't get it.  Who needs to know when you're going to the grocery store and when you're at the gym?  No one, that's who! Right?  Right! 

But then I read a comment on Janet's site referencing something she'd twittered about, and I wanted to see that particular post (or "tweet," if you will), damnit!  But Twitter wouldn't show it to me until I created a username.  So, fine, I created Twitter username.  (This was a particularly slow evening, in case you couldn't tell.)  And then the next thing I knew I suddenly I had a Twitter "account" and was following 20 people.  And now I am addicted; the end.

Let's talk a bit about everyone's favorite boy wizard.  I have had Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone sitting on my shelf ever since I bought it at a garage sale several years ago, but I never felt compelled to read it.  I finally picked it up in December, hoping it could save me from a particularly rough patch of post-Twilight depression... and I have to tell you, I was not that impressed.  It was a cute kid's book and a quick read, but it was no Twilight; THAT's for sure.  I felt the same way about Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, however, I really really liked.  Really, really, really.  I panicked a bit when I realized on Thursday -- just as I was leaving for a 2-hour train ride to New Jersey -- that the collection of Potter books I'd borrowed from my friend was missing Book #4, but I've now procured my brother's copy and I daresay I'm close to being completely hooked.  I really didn't think it was possible to get any nerdier than being a 28-year-old Twilight fangirl with three cats and a blog, but it turns out I was wrong!  You can also be a 28-year-old vampire nerd who texts in Twitter updates about Harry Potter! Five years after liking Harry Potter was cool!

Resolutions and confessions

I am planning to do both an evaluation of my 2008 Resolutions, as well as a post about my plans for '09, but I need some more time to get organized.  (Luckily, being on time was not one of my 2008 resolutions.)

In the meantime, my first post on Confessions of a Shopaholic is up at Very Bookish!

Corrections, 2008 Books, Very Bookish!

Two additions to the 2007 book list:

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner.   This was my second Jennifer Weiner book -- the first was In Her Shoes, which I thought was OK, bordering on blah (I liked the movie much better than the book).  Little Earthquakes was blah bordering on horrible.  I hated all of the characters and spent the entire book wondering in what universe the wife of a professional basketball player and an ex-movie star would be considered average women (as the back of the book billed them).  Hated it.

The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle.  Very disturbing subject matter (sexual abuse), and I thought it was well done.  In the end I returned the book because I didn't think I'd read it again, but I enjoyed it.

And while we're on the topic of corrections and resolutions... I got out my travel journal to work on finishing our Barcelona photo album and it turns out that Joel proposed on January 22nd, not the 20th.  So January 22nd is the date that will stick in my mind forever.  (This is why I write everything down.)

Oh, and I also met the lovely and fabulous Zandria, Heidi and Liz (whose link I cannot find because I am awesome like that) this year!

Now that we've cleared THAT up, may I present BOOKS OF 2008: THE YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE.

1.  The Washingtonienne by Jessica Cutler.  Terrible, horrible "book".   There might have been a lesson in the dangers of blogging at work somewhere in there, but I was too busy being horrified at what a complete and total whore this girl was to catch it. 

2.  The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  Got this at B&N's holiday sale for cheap and liked it very, very much.

3.  The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller.  I wasn't expecting much, but I actually loved this book.  I'm a sucker for a good love story, and I also enjoyed all the photography talk.   I'm glad I read it several years after all the hype, though.

4.  The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  It took me forever to finish this book because I'm not so good at reading non-fiction, but it was both fantastic and terrifying.   Ignorance really is bliss when it comes to knowing where our food really comes from, because I can't look at meat the same way now that I know how these poor animals are treated.   I haven't given up meat altogether, but I do exclusively buy organic vegetables now, and I also try to buy local whenever I can and I've switched to homemade and non-toxic cleaning products.  I also gave up soda cold turkey after reading this, although soda isn't discussed in the book at all.  After reading about all the chemicals we ingest every day, I just lost all taste for my formerly beloved Diet Coke.  (Maybe that should have been my greatest accomplishment of 2008!)

5.  The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet.  I really, really liked it but I didn't love it as much as some people did.  I felt like some of the sex scenes were gratuitously graphic, and the ending was tied up a little too neatly for my tastes.  But those are my only two complaints about a 900+ page book, which I think is pretty high praise.

6.  Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.  I don't think there's anything more I need to say about Twilight.  I don't think I'll ever love another book so much, and that's OK with me.

7.  New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.  My favorite of the four.  LOVE.

8.  Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.  Love.

9.  Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.  Started out rough, but I loved it.

10.  The Host by Stephenie Meyer.  It was no Twilight, but I loved it enough to ask for a copy for Christmas.

11.  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.  I really struggled to get through this, but I think the transition back to real books after reading nothing but young adult romance novels for three months was more to blame than the book itself.  The language was a little too heavy for me in the beginning, but once I got past that I really enjoyed the story.  

12.  The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Fabulous, wonderful young adult book.  The only gripe I have is the "To be continued" ending.  I can't wait for the rest of the series to come out.

13.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.   Liked it very much and am looking forward to reading the rest of the books and re-watching all of the movies.  I especially loved the Weasley twins - I literally laughed out loud several times due to their antics.   Hermione was SO much more annoying than I remembered from the movie!

I just barely squeaked by in terms of my goal of reading 12 books during the year, which I blame partly on the fact that Omnivore's Dilemma, Ines of My Soul and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay all took so long... and partly on the fact that I've read each of the Twilight books at least 5 times.

Although I wasn't the least bit sad to quit my book club, since my tastes were obviously quite different from the rest of the group's and I struggled each month with having an assigned book to finish by a certain deadline, I did miss having someone to discuss books with.  That is why I am very excited about RA's latest creation:  Very Bookish, an online sort of book club!  It will be super-awesome because there will be multiple books to choose from each month (so no one will be stuck reading a book they have no interest in) and there will be no hard deadlines.  RA, NPW and I will be discussing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Hunger Games and Confessions ofa Shopaholicthe first month, respectively.   Here's the description of how it'll work and here's a link to my profile.  There are a lot of great contributers lined up, so stop by if you're so inclined!

Books of 2007: Better Late Than Never!

No, that's not a typo on the year up there in the title.  I fully intended to publish this in January 2008 at some point during 2008, but, uh... time flies!  Or something! 

Here's a list of books I read in the year 2007.   Happy freaking new year, internet! 

1.  Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier. I read Cold Mountain; loved it. Saw the movie; loved it. I was really excited about Thirteen Moons, and boy, was I ever disappointed. I wanted to punch the narrator/protagonist in the face. I came very close to not finishing the last 20 pages just because I did not give a shit what happened.  Thank goodness I finished it in less than 30 days and was thus able to return the (hardcover!) book to Barnes and Noble (shhhh). 

2.  The Historianby Elizabeth Kostova.  So, this is a Big Boy book. Like, 1000+ pages. I couldn't put it down, so I was carrying around an encyclopedia-sized book for a few weeks, which prompted many people to ask what That Book I Was Reading was about. Then I got to reply, "It's a book about Dracula." THAT WAS FUN. But, I will still admit: loved it. I loved Buffy, I love Moonlight, and I loved The Historian. Even if it a book about vampires.

[Ed note:  I wrote the first few of these nearly a year ago, before I'd heard of a little book called Twilight]

 3.  1776 by David McCullough.  Made me want to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and also made me feel smart. Bonus! The downside is now Joel keeps bugging me to read the copy of The Great Bridge (also by David McCullough, for those not lucky enough to have this tome on their bookshelf) that he has left over from some engineering class he took in college, and I keep putting it off because I just don't care about the Brooklyn Bridge that much. For the record, Joel never read it ether, and he was supposed to FOR CLASS, so there.

4.  The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. Meh. Could have been great, but it wasn't.

5.  Love in the Time of Choleraby Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I think this book is like 100 Years of Solitude -- at least, I hope so. The first time I read 100 Years I hated it.  I'd loved Marquez's other (shorter) books and I really wanted to love 100 Years of Solitude, too... but instead I slogged through it, feeling equally confused and bored throughout.   But then, a few year later, I had to read it again for class and I LOVED it.  It took a second reading for me to fully appreciate it, and I am hoping that's also the case with Love in the Time of Cholera because all I could think while reading it was PLEASE GOD LET SOMETHING, ANYTHING, HAPPEN. I am kind of amazed that they made a movie (which I have not yet seen) out of this book. Has anyone seen it? What the hell happens, besides a dude waiting around for fifty years for his true love's husband to die?

6.  Cold Sassy Treeby Olive Ann Burns.  Usually so much colloquialism in a book drives me crazy, but this was so well done that I actually enjoyed it.  LOVED the book.

7.  The Nanny Diariesby Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus.  Absolutely painful.  The movie looked cute, but I couldn't bring myself to see it after hating the book so much. 

8.  Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris.  I think I liked it, but I really can't remember at the moment so it must not have made too big of an impression...

9.  Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan.  This was the first Amy Tan novel I've read, and I was less than impressed. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. It was interesting, but a little fruity (even for me). None of the characters were likable. I also tried to read The Bonesetter's Daughter, but I gave up after a month of trying my very best to get into it. I haven't given up on Amy Tan yet; I do plan to give The Kitchen God's Wife and/or The Joy Luck Club a try.

10.  Digging to America by Ann Tyler.  I was thinking of taking a class on "Ann Tyler's Baltimore", but having learned a thing or two about taking classes without actually reading the syllabus, I decided to read one of her books before sending in my tuition remission waiver forms.  The book was OK.  I didn't take the class. 

11.  Love Walked Inby Marisa de los Santos.  My friend Beth sent me this book.  She'd bought and read it solely because the cover reminded her of The Time Traveler's Wife, our favorite book of all-time.  I enjoyed the book and thought it was OK, but the cover is definitely my favorite part.

12.  Lonesome Doveby Larry McMurty.  Not into John Wayne's wild, wild west?   Not into books about cowboys, whores and Indians?  Yeah, neither was I... until Isabel made me read Lonesome Dove.  It was probably my favorite book of 2007. One of the reviews on the back cover says something like "Never have I been so irritated with an author as I was with Larry McMurty for ending this novel after only 864 pages."  I could not agree more. 

13.  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See.  I read this for book club.  Everyone else loved it, I thought Memoirs of a Geisha was better.

14.  The Kite Runnerby Khaled Hosseini.   Love, love, loved it.

15.  The Alchemistby  Paulo Coelho.   Read this for book club.  I hated it, everyone else loved it. 

16.  Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.  I picked this up at a garage sale and thought it was a quick, enjoyable read.  

17.  The Hours by Michael Cunningham. ZZZZzzzZZzzZZZZWTF?!ZZzzz. 

18.  The Roadby Cormac McCarthy.   This was my book club pick.  I loved it, everyone else hated it.  (And that is when I dropped out of my book club.)  It's dark and at some parts it's downright terrifying, but I thought it was awesome.

19.  Water for Elephantsby Sarah Gruen.  Really, really liked it. 

20.  A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.   I think I liked this even more than The Kite Runner.  Although I knew Kite Runner was a novel, not an autobiography, there were a lot of similarities between the author's life and the characters' and I was duly impressed that A Thousand Splendid Suns was just as compelling without those similarities. 

21.  Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende.  It pains me to saying anything back about Isabel Allende, but I pretty much hated this book.  It took me months to slog through and I was bored the whole time.  I was very surprised to find myself falling asleep every night without even turning a single page because 1) I usually go mad for historical fiction 2) I'm semi-obsessed with the native people of South America, and 3) I adore Isabel Allende.  But my god, this book was boring.

THE END.   2008 list coming shortly!

Breaking Dawn, part deux (spoilers)

I am much more paranoid about spoilers for Breaking Dawn than I was for the other three books, since this one was just released recently and I know that several of you are not done with it. 

So I'm going to add a million lines of filler again....

to make sure that nothing shows up in your reader.....

that would give away anything in the book.

MMMMkay? 

Don't scroll down if you're not finished. 

Ten...

Nine...

Eight...

Seven....

Six...

Five...

Four....

Three....

Two....

ONE......

MAJOR SPOILERS. Do not read this if you haven't read Breaking Dawn!

Ok, let me just say that again.  DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVEN'T READ BREAKING DAWN. 

Since adding a jump doesn't seem to work in Google Reader, I'm just going to add a whole lot of filler  here to give all of you who haven't read Breaking Dawn yet a chance to close this window without accidentally seeing anything abut the book.

Seriously.  Go away.  I would feel absolutely terrible if I ruined the book for anyone. 

So... everyone who's not read Breaking Dawn is gone, right?  

Good.  So I can talk about how crazy it is that Victoria actually didn't die, and she comes back and kills Bella and lives happily ever after with Edward!

JUST KIDDING.  She's really dead. 

As far as I know, anyway. 

OK: So I am officially on page 267 of Breaking Dawn, which is halfway through the Jacob section.  If you haven't read that far, don't read the rest.  Seriously.

Eclipse (spoilers)

I finished Eclipse last night, and I re-read the last 80 pages again this morning.  Suffice it to say, I loved it.  Of course.

Things I loved:

• Jacob. I'm still with Edward all the way, but I have to respect Jacob for trying. Dude, I love him. I just love Edward more. Sorry, kid.
• The werewolf-vampire alliance 
• Finding out more about Jasper and Rosalie. I am so impressed at the depth of all their stories, and how different they all are. I loved Rosalie's descriptions of herself as totally vain, and how she's unapologetic. I love everything about Jasper.
• Alice. Enough said. I love her.
• Edward, of course

Things I did not like:

• Bella's continued reluctance to marry Edward.  I meant to talk about this in the last entry about New Moon, but I forgot.  WTF, Bella?  I understand that she doesn't have the best outlook on marriage, especially very young marriage, after her mother's experience.  I get it.   But she's more than willing to become a vampire to be with Edward, and I'm pretty sure that her parents wouldn't approve of THAT.  So why does she care so much that they'll be upset about her getting married at 18?  They'll get over it, eventually.  She goes on and on about how Edward is her life (and I love that, really I do), but then why does she have to stomp all over him by refusing to just get married?  It makes me hate her, but I can't because Edward loves her so much.

My favorite scene by far was the night in the tent, when Jacob and Edward managed to talk without killing each other.   I love their dynamic, and I loved reading their conversation.  I laughed out loud when Edward was being driven crazy by Jacob's thoughts while he was warming Bella up.  God, I love them both.

It's a close call, but I think if I had to choose, I'd still put New Moon as my favorite at this point.  Eclipse had a better plot and much more action, since so much had already been established by the first two books, but New Moon just... shook me.   I hated that Edward wasn't in it, but I think the fact that it was still so good without him makes it my favorite.

What did you all think?  

I'm almost afraid to start Breaking Dawn today because I don't want the series to be over, but I know that I won't be able to help it.  

New Moon - part 2 (spoilers!)

OK, before I start in on the EdwardEdwardEdward, I feel like I should apologize to anyone out there who's either not into the Twilight series, sick of hearing about it, or some combination of the two.  I realize how annoying this might be, and I'm sorry.  Except not really.  Because I love it.

But if you're annoyed, just skip along.  I don't think I'll be able to talk about anything else until I'm done with the last book.  Even then, I make no promises.   Dudes, if you think this is bad, just imagine how Joel feels.

And now, on to The Edward (SPOILERS!!  BE YE FOREWARNED!)

Post #2 of what I assume will be many - New Moon

You guys have no idea how hard it was for me to resist staying up all night to finish New Moon.   My coworker and I made a pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble yesterday at lunch -- which required us borrowing Metro passes and coordinating lunch hours -- when I realized that with the $6 Amazon was charging plus $3.99 for shipping, it would be cheaper to just fork over $10.99 to Barnes and Noble.   Plus, let's be honest: I really could not wait 3-5 days for Amazon to ship this book to me.

(SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  DON'T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T READ NEW MOON) 

Clearing things up

So, blah blah, out of town sooo many weekends blabbity blah, so behind on stuff at home, blah.   You don't care about that.  I don't care about that.

What I DO care about is the fact that I've had The Secret Life of the American Teenager up in my "In My Tivo" sidebar for weeks now, although I hadn't actually seen any of the episodes.  I set up a Season Pass the minute I heard that it was by the makers of Seventh Heaven and that Molly Ringwald was in it, but I didn't actually have time to watch the pilot until this weekend (blah, busy busy, blah).  I am extremely concerned that if any of you actually look at the sidebar, you might have been thinking all this time that I liked the show.  Let me clear that up right now:  Holy fucking disappointment, Batman.  It sure is by the makers of Seventh Heaven, THAT'S for sure.  They've even got the same soundtrack and everything.   But instead of Ashlee Simpson, we've got Molly Ringwald... which is just embarrassing for dear Molly and now half as fun as being able to watch Ashlee Simpson "act".   Instead of Haylie Duff, we have John Schneider, which... ditto.  Sad for John Schneider, not even half as entertaining as Haylie freaking Duff playing a knocked up teenager turned reverend/minister/whatever.   Joel came in when I was halfway through the pilot and he almost started crying when he realized our beloved Johnathan Kent from Smallville was on this show.   And that about sums it up.  I finished the pilot, it was terrible: preachier than Seventh Heaven (I didn't think it was possible either!) and not half as entertaining, plus some rookie casting director made the mistake of casting actors that look like identical twins as the Good Guy and the Bad Guy, and that confused the hell out of me.  In summary, shame on you, Molly and John, the show sucks completely and totally, I deleted the remaining four episodes in my cache without even watching them and I threw up in my mouth when I saw a preview for this week's episode alluding to the fact that Good Guy was apparently going to propose to Knocked Up Protagonist.  So, that's that.  I just needed to clear that up.

Secondly, I started reading Twilight, and I'm in a bit of a quandary.  You see, I somehow managed to completely miss out on the whole Harry Potter craze, and I'm still kicking myself for that, but what's done is done.  However, when I heard about this newfangled "Breaking Dawn" book coming out, fourth in some series that all the kids were raving about, I thought to myself hmmm... maybe I should see what that's all about.  I ordered the first book from the library, about six months later I finally got it, and HOLY HELL, NO ONE TOLD ME THESE BOOKS WERE ABOUT VAMPIRES.  I liked Buffy before liking Buffy was cool (what do you mean, liking Buffy was never cool?), I carried around The Historian for weeks so I could read it during every spare minute, and I am still pissed that they canceled Moonlight, because WTF TV producer dudes, can't you give a show a chance?  IT WAS GETTING BETTER.  I'm a sucker (HAHA) for all things vampire.  I don't know why... I just am.  So basically, this lady writes four books that are the Next Coming of Harry Potter and they're ALSO about vampires, and NO ONE TOLD ME.  Well, that's not true, Isabel told me, and I should have known she was right.  Because Isabel is always right.

So now for the dilemma: I have been staying up all night, talking to my coworkers about it all day, and BRINGING THE BOOK TO WORK so I can read it on my lunch break.  I started it on Sunday, and I'll probably be finished by Thursday, but the library still has New Moon backordered for weeks.  I'm on a tight budget (more blah blah) and I set an Absolutely No Buying Books That's What Libraries Are For rule, but if i don't get a copy of New Moon STAT, I think I might die.   Also, did you realize that the movie does not come out until December?!  What the hell am I supposed to do until then?

Also, I kind of hate these "team" terms, but Edward all the way, dudes.  ALLL the way, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

The Hours

“A smashing literary tour de force and an utterly invigorating reading experience. If this book does not make you jump up from the sofa, looking at life and literature in new ways, check to see if you have a pulse.” —USA Today

Hang on a second... let me just... yup, I do have a pulse.  So someone explain to me why The Hours not only did NOT induce me to jump up and shout about my new perspective on life, but also just plain confused the hell out of me.

Maybe it's because I don't really know who Virginia Woolf is (well, I know NOW, I looked her up in Wikipedia)?  But when I started the book (and who are we kidding, while I was reading it), I wasn't sure if she was a real person or a character in a Jane Austen book or something.  What about that movie, "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf" (haha, just kidding, it's actually a play.  I knew that)?  I never saw it, and frankly I get it confused with "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".  (If you're wondering right now how I was ever admitted to college, it's because I am really, really good at standardized testing).  Fictional or real, I definitely pictured her in the Wuthering Heights era... but The Hours took place in pretty close to modern times.  Right?

I am so confused.  What year is it?   

One thing I will say is that it was worth every penny I paid for it (twenty-five cents at a garage sale, in case you were wondering) as a frighteningly effective sleep aid.  For weeks, I'd get into bed, pick up the book, and BAM.  Asleep.  I hardly ever made it through more than a few pages.  Sometimes I didn't even finish a paragraph. 

Now that I think about it, that probably did not help with the whole making sense thing.

So my question to you, fair folks of the internet, is: should I put the movie version on my Netflix queue?  I have several long distance flights coming up, and you know what that means, right?  PRIME TIME to order up all the movies that would make Joel want to gouge his eyes out with a plastic spork from Wendy's. 

Thumbs up or thumbs down to The Hours: The Movie?  I am thinking that the dumbed-down, jazzed up film version might be just what I need to make sense of this thing.

And also, can anyone recommend a some new sleep-inducing bedtime reading?  I finished The Hours on Monday night, and I haven't slept more than three hours a night since then (hence the late night blogging).

(And hence the fact that I forgot to actually hit "publish" last night)

Hey, I like wizards, too!

You what's worse than being a psychotic fan?  Wishing you were a psychotic fan.  I feel like I have missed out on a key part of our culture.  How did this happen? 

Oh, come on.  You all know what I'm talking about.  What else is anyone talking about?  HARRY POTTER. 

I've seen all the Potter movies, so at least I have that.  But I have this thing with long series type movies (ex: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars) where I cannot retain the important information from the first movie until the second is released, and so on.  So when the third LOTR came out, I was that annoying person whispering "who's that?" and "Is that the guy that stole that thing from the other guy in the last movie?"  And I have to say, it takes a little something away from the experience when people are throwing their stale popcorn at me while I'm trying to use my flashlight to read my notes in the movie theater.

Is it too late to jump on the Potter bandwagon?  I actually do own the first book, I bought it at a garage sale, like, 4 years ago for $1.  I just have to finish the four other books on my nightstand first. 

Oh, and also read Lonesome Dove, which someone ordered me to read, but neglected to mention that the book itself weighs more than Max.  I'm on page 24.

After I join Janet's "I'm not going to BlogHer Pity Party," (which I'm totally going to join, just as soon as I can get out of the I'm on vacation mindset and actually get off my ass) I'm going to start my own official "I Missed the Harry Potter Fan Train" party. 

Seriously, am I the only one out there who is feeling left out of all the excitement?

And more importantly, can someone tell me how it ends?  I don't do well with suspense.