The Week in Entertainment

TV: House... by the way, contemplating Kutner's suicide, I have decided that (a) it makes no sense and (b) they owed Kal Penn some decent screen time. It's not like they didn't know he was leaving. This week's ep: oh, now they give Cameron and Chase screen time - so Cameron can be an idiot. And I do like the way the digital signal crapped out over and over, and the CW - with no dialog, only the music in the soundtrack - overrode the basic channel for the last fifteen minutes. Sweet digital. I bet all the 24 fans are pissed as hell. So I didn't even actually see the payoff to the oh-so-important Cameron-the-idiot story except apparently she changed her mind, judging by the final montage. At least I didn't miss Hugh Laurie playing the piano and the harmonica. Scrubs - Janitor married Lady! Yay! Better Off Ted - "Do you think wildly erratic mood swings could be a side effect of the energy patch?" "Hard to tell... this is what happens when the company will only pay for testing on drunk frat guys." I hate that this show will probably not be picked up. #1 Ladies' Detective Agency - this was a good episode; darkening just slightly as Precious gets her feet under her and business picks up. Very nice. Ashes to Ashes - still liking it. Next week, finale (ratzafrakin short Brit series!) and I wonder how they'll play it. Appalachia pt 1 - EO Wilson points out a home truth "Ordinarily when we say history we mean the arrival of the first colonists, in the last 1700s for Appalachia, and then, if we're going to be real generous, we try to take into account the Native Americans, who may have arrived as much as 10,000 years ago..." He - and this excellent episode - goes on to point out that the land has a history much older than that. And a wonderful Alan Rickman movie called Blow Dry - don't know how I missed it before! Funny and touching and just hearing Alan Rickman say things like "He could and all".

Read: Birds of Prey by JA Jance - not too bad, really. That finishes up the Jance my friend gave me. Conclusion: pretty good writer, books are intriguing, JP Beaumont is a well-realized character if an occasionally irritating man. Began reading Bukhta radosti (Bay of Joy) by Andrei Dmitriev. I don't read as fast in Russian as in English, so not through with it yet, though it's not by any means a huge tome.