stuff about stuff
* After what seems like three straight months of 90+ temperature and very little rain, we've got 68F and days of torrential downpours that required evacuations. And the LIRR, NJTransit, and Amtrak are gakked because of fires. Also, we've got alligators crawling out of the sewers for real. In allegedly unrelated news, roga showed up in NYC right before all of this began.
* Here's the latest in the wring-everything-from-everyone-not-rich-enough-to-avoid-it schemes from Albany: a bagel store got stuck paying back-taxes because they weren't charging the 8.875% sales tax on sliced bagels. We (the NY consumer) pay tax on any food that is prepared, more or less. I can buy a watermelon tax-free, but if I buy a container of sliced watermelon, I pay sales tax on top of the convenience mark-up. And so it goes with bagels and, well, everything else. All the more so when the budget's $9 billion in the red.
* I've tried the first of the Women's Murder Club novels by James Patterson et al and... I think this will be my last. It's going through the checklist of Stuff I Generally Don't Like in my fiction: first-person narrator, attempts at depicting the inner thoughts of extremely disturbed individuals, etc. And I'm not loving his women characters; they're all... written by a guy. Every single one of them is totally and explicitly thrilled with how they look in the mirror, they have stereotypical girly tastes and actions (Tori Amos! fruity drinks! barely suppressed urges to spill all of their private lives to near-strangers!), they are all paragons of professional success with either no regrets at what it might have cost or, better yet, it not having cost anything. Maybe it's hypocritical -- I certainly write my share of male characters with obvious lack of firsthand experience as such -- but I find it tiresome, more so on top of everything else.
I started The Beacon at Alexandria at cofax7's suggestion, I believe it was. I wasn't reading it fast enough, though, and with only one copy in the system, I couldn't renew it because of holds, so it remains unfinished.
* I'm caught up on Burn Notice and I have a suspicion that whatever happens this week, it's going to be a long wait until November. I thought last week's episode was pretty kick-ass and long overdue considering Michael's particular numbskullery this season. And there was Robert Patrick, too. I suspect he'll have a lot more fun in this role than in the similar one he had on NCIS.
* The adverts for the new television season are starting to appear on buses and subways -- the Hawaii 5-O-0 ads are omnipresent, at the least. I'll probably try it out because I seem to give every police procedural a test-drive. I can't think of anything new that I'm looking forward to eagerly. I know the No Ordinary Family pilot is up online for viewing (for free!), but I'm sort of more interested in The Cape, which is supposed to be a mid-season thing, I think. Anyone dying to watch something starting in the fall?
* Out of the old stuff, there's a lot of upheaval:
I don't think anyone is actually looking forward to the changes on Criminal Minds; JJ's departure is no great loss, but I don't like that this is Emily's last season at all. Also, the show has not yet managed to introduce a new character without them being immediately unlikable (Emily, Rossi, JJ's maternity temp). Whoever the new girl is, she's going to be in for a rough ride.
The spinoff (Suspect Behavior, apparently) keeps adding boldfaced names to wash away the taint of its unhappy debut, plus they're bringing in Penelope Garcia as a regular character. We shall see; I maintain that however execrable it was in the backdoor pilot, it will improve when standing on its own because all CBS shows suck in the backdoor pilot. How much it will improve remains to be seen. My burning hatred of Janeane Garofalo may mean I never find out.
NCIS:LA They've upgraded Deeks to a regular and given Eric a sidekick. I'm more interested in the former than the latter, since I don't see why Eric needs a sidekick. I liked Deeks and if it gives Kensi more screen time as his partner, I'm for it.
CSI:NY, my love/hate show, gets points for replacing one forty-plus actress (Melina Kanakaredes) with another (Sela Ward) instead of upgrading to a perky Gen Y-er. They'll get another few points for wrapping up the Shane Casey plotline once and for all (seriously, Lindsay, just shoot the guy), but, really, this is such an awful show it will never win on points.
Spooks, always a show with a ton of cast turnover, is pushing the limits for Series 9 with five new regulars, at least a couple of whom will be on the grid. And no Ros, which saddens me a lot more than it would have a year or two ago. On the bright side, the increased Harry-Lucas interactions ought to be crackling in a way that Harry-Ros never was; Harry and Ros were allies, mostly, but Harry and Lucas have a much more complicated and darker history.
* Here's the latest in the wring-everything-from-everyone-not-rich-enough-to-avoid-it schemes from Albany: a bagel store got stuck paying back-taxes because they weren't charging the 8.875% sales tax on sliced bagels. We (the NY consumer) pay tax on any food that is prepared, more or less. I can buy a watermelon tax-free, but if I buy a container of sliced watermelon, I pay sales tax on top of the convenience mark-up. And so it goes with bagels and, well, everything else. All the more so when the budget's $9 billion in the red.
* I've tried the first of the Women's Murder Club novels by James Patterson et al and... I think this will be my last. It's going through the checklist of Stuff I Generally Don't Like in my fiction: first-person narrator, attempts at depicting the inner thoughts of extremely disturbed individuals, etc. And I'm not loving his women characters; they're all... written by a guy. Every single one of them is totally and explicitly thrilled with how they look in the mirror, they have stereotypical girly tastes and actions (Tori Amos! fruity drinks! barely suppressed urges to spill all of their private lives to near-strangers!), they are all paragons of professional success with either no regrets at what it might have cost or, better yet, it not having cost anything. Maybe it's hypocritical -- I certainly write my share of male characters with obvious lack of firsthand experience as such -- but I find it tiresome, more so on top of everything else.
I started The Beacon at Alexandria at cofax7's suggestion, I believe it was. I wasn't reading it fast enough, though, and with only one copy in the system, I couldn't renew it because of holds, so it remains unfinished.
* I'm caught up on Burn Notice and I have a suspicion that whatever happens this week, it's going to be a long wait until November. I thought last week's episode was pretty kick-ass and long overdue considering Michael's particular numbskullery this season. And there was Robert Patrick, too. I suspect he'll have a lot more fun in this role than in the similar one he had on NCIS.
* The adverts for the new television season are starting to appear on buses and subways -- the Hawaii 5-O-0 ads are omnipresent, at the least. I'll probably try it out because I seem to give every police procedural a test-drive. I can't think of anything new that I'm looking forward to eagerly. I know the No Ordinary Family pilot is up online for viewing (for free!), but I'm sort of more interested in The Cape, which is supposed to be a mid-season thing, I think. Anyone dying to watch something starting in the fall?
* Out of the old stuff, there's a lot of upheaval:
I don't think anyone is actually looking forward to the changes on Criminal Minds; JJ's departure is no great loss, but I don't like that this is Emily's last season at all. Also, the show has not yet managed to introduce a new character without them being immediately unlikable (Emily, Rossi, JJ's maternity temp). Whoever the new girl is, she's going to be in for a rough ride.
The spinoff (Suspect Behavior, apparently) keeps adding boldfaced names to wash away the taint of its unhappy debut, plus they're bringing in Penelope Garcia as a regular character. We shall see; I maintain that however execrable it was in the backdoor pilot, it will improve when standing on its own because all CBS shows suck in the backdoor pilot. How much it will improve remains to be seen. My burning hatred of Janeane Garofalo may mean I never find out.
NCIS:LA They've upgraded Deeks to a regular and given Eric a sidekick. I'm more interested in the former than the latter, since I don't see why Eric needs a sidekick. I liked Deeks and if it gives Kensi more screen time as his partner, I'm for it.
CSI:NY, my love/hate show, gets points for replacing one forty-plus actress (Melina Kanakaredes) with another (Sela Ward) instead of upgrading to a perky Gen Y-er. They'll get another few points for wrapping up the Shane Casey plotline once and for all (seriously, Lindsay, just shoot the guy), but, really, this is such an awful show it will never win on points.
Spooks, always a show with a ton of cast turnover, is pushing the limits for Series 9 with five new regulars, at least a couple of whom will be on the grid. And no Ros, which saddens me a lot more than it would have a year or two ago. On the bright side, the increased Harry-Lucas interactions ought to be crackling in a way that Harry-Ros never was; Harry and Ros were allies, mostly, but Harry and Lucas have a much more complicated and darker history.