TV. season passed

each year i try out a few of the new shows that come out for the new tv season. usually i get burned and pick all the ones that end up getting cancelled after just a couple episodes (take 'do not disturb' or 'carpoolers' for example). but sometimes they are really good, and they actually stick around! usually i am interested, but the networks arent. recently though, there have been a few shows that the networks stick with, but i loose interest. i tivo shows and watch them at my leisure, but sometimes i just dont care about them any more. here are a few shows that i started with, but for one reason or another, ive decided to give up on. these are the shows that have suffered the terrible tivo fate called: season pass delete!

pushing daises: i joined this one right from the first episode. the story was strange, but strange in an adorable way. each episode has a narrator who speaks in rhyme, and the whole thing has a strange 'tim burtonesque' quality to it. the first season was really enchanting, the story of 'a pie maker who could bring people back to life if he touched them once, and back to death if he touched them again, and the girl he loves who he brought back to life, but now couldnt touch' was great, but i just dont care anymore. this show didnt have any new episodes after the writers strike last fall, and i guess a year later, i'm just not interested anymore. too bad, it had a good first run.

my name is earl: again, i've watched this one since it first came on. i really like jason lee, and was interested in seeing this show. to be honest though, i cant say ive ever really liked it. some of the stories were fun, and the characters of randy and joy were often amusing, but i rarely laughed, and certainly didnt care about the characters. i guess this one could have been deleted a couple of years ago and i most likely wouldnt have even noticed. it was mostly just a filler before i got to watch the good stuff: 'the office'.

chuck: the ads for this one last year looked cool, so i watched the first episode. it was a bit of fun, but what really hooked me was the fact that in that first episode they played a song by brothers martin, which is jason and ronny martin- the men behind two bands i really love: starflyer 59 and joy electric! right there, i was hooked! any show that supports my man ronny is worth me watching. so i watched the rest of the season and really enjoyed it. i would still be watching it this season, actually, but the awful truth is this: my tivo can only record two things at once, and 'chuck' is on opposite 'how i met your mother' and 'the sarah conner chronicles', so unfortunately, chuck gets cut. it looks like fox is moving 'sarah conner' to fridays in february, so i think i may give chuck another try!

ugly betty: granted, i shouldnt really even be admitting to the fact that i watched every episode for the first two seasons, huh? oh well- whats done is done. i'm not sure what i liked about the show in the first place, but what ever it was, it is long gone. and now, so is the show.

AUDIO BOOKS. i am legend

wow. this is, without a doubt, the greatest audio book i've ever listened to.
i saw the movie and enjoyed it, but hated the ending. i had heard that the book ending was a bit different, so i was curious to find out how that one went. after listening to it, i have to say that the movie really dropped the ball on this one.
the story is of robert neville, the last man alive after a deadly virus killed off the rest of the population. he struggles with survival as he finds that this virus has turned some survivors into vampires. he tries to deal with keeping them out during the night as well as what it means for him to be the last human alive. the twists and turns the story takes are unexpected, but perfect. the ending? brilliant.
as always with audio books, a lot of the fun is listening to a good story well told, and that falls on the reader to perform the material in a fitting way. so many books fail because of the person performing the book. in this case, the guy they got to read the story was perfect- alternating between gruff, confused, joyful, and many other emotions. he hits it out of the park!
i cant really do justice in explaining just how amazing of an experience it was to listen, with bated breath, to this story as it unfolded. if you have any interest at all in audio books, you MUST listen to this one!

AUDIO BOOKS. going postal

ahh, the masterpiece! after listening to a bunch of terry pratchett's books based in disc world, i must say that this is by far the best!
it centers on a crook named moist von lipwig (yes, the character's name really is moist). he is given another chance by the king, and this time he has to take on the role of postmaster and try and start up the postal service which has been in decay for many years. he gives it the old college try and much to everyone's amazement, including his own, he starts to find success! this causes the natural showman to up his game and start making ridiculous claims that he then has to try and keep up with.
the characters are fantastic, the writing is witty and crisp, and the story really drew me in- this one is a blast!

AUDIO BOOKS. wintersmith

the last of the tiffany aching trilogy, this book focuses on her encounter with the god of winter. in this story tiffany accidentally finds herself the object of the wintersmiths affections. she has to use her witching ways to try and convince this god that she isnt really that into him. if she fails? eternal winter! fortunately she has the 'wee free men' to help her out! this one is certainly the weakest of the trilogy, but it was still great fun to listen to and see how it all played out.

AUDIO BOOKS. wee free men

this book is actually the first one in the tiffany aching trilogy. unfortunately, i didnt know at the time, so i started with the second book first. there were a few references to events that took place before that story, so it was nice to catch up on what i had missed.
in this story tiffany first meets up with the little creatures known as the 'wee free men'. in the story tiffany's little brother gets snagged away to another dimension and she must go in after him and get him back out. along the way she meets these strange creatures and becomes their queen (as often happens). again, i was continually impressed with pratchett's cleaver wit and his characterization of these little blue men had me laughing the whole way through! 'what do we do men?' 'drink!' 'and?' 'fight!' 'and what else?' 'we drink and fight!'

AUDIO BOOKS. a hat full of sky

the only other audio book that my library had by terry pratchett was this one. its the second book in a trilogy, but i didnt exactly know that when i listened to it.
this is the second adventure of tiffany aching, an 11 year old girl who is training to become a witch. she goes to live with a witch to learn the ropes, but is always plagued by these little blue men called nac mac feegles. they are scottish and use funny terms like 'crivens!' and 'waily waily waily!' they try to help tiffany, but usually end up making matters worse. the story revolves around a scary entity known as 'the hiver' as he tracks down tiffany. a fun book- i think i found my new favorite characters: those nac mac feegles are hilarious! and stephen frears, the man who reads all of pratchett's books, does an amazing job of creating all the different characters and even does a great job with the scottish accent!

AUDIO BOOKS. thud!

i had no idea what i was missing. you know how people say 'you havent lived until...'? well now i know i hadnt lived. now that i have been introduced to the universe of 'discworld', i now realize that i can start living!
my only introduction to terry pratchett was through 'good omens' an apocalyptic book pratchett co-wrote with neil gaiman. i saw this book, 'thud!', on a shelf in the library and recognized the name (and enjoyed the cover art), so i gave it a try. it is set in discworld, a world created by terry pratchett (he has written dozens of books set in this fictitious land) that involves all kinds of fantasy characters: vampires, orcs, werewolves, witches, elves, zombies, dwarfs, etc. just about anything you can name. they all live in this world and are all used by pratchett to comment on our own culture in very comedic ways. these books are really funny! its obvious pratchett is british, because his writing has that sort of monty python style of humour (notice the british spelling).
this particular story is set in the city of ankh-morpoc and follows the watch as they try and solve a case that involves ogres and dwarfs and a historical battle in coom valley. the watch must solve the case of the dead dwarfs or face a civil war between the two species. the twists and turns along the way are brilliant, as well as the funny commentary on everything from art museums, to cell phones! this is the book that got me hooked on discworld!

AUDIO BOOKS. digital fortress

ok, i'll admit it, i got swept up in that whole 'di vinci code' nonsense a couple years ago. i read the book and really enjoyed it as i was reading it, but once i was done with it i realized just how badly it had been written. i even got suckered in to 'angels and demons'. those two books, as well as this one, suffer from the same problem: terrible writing! each chapter is only about 10 pages long and they all end in a cliffhanger, it sucks you in to the peril and quick moving pace that you forget to realize just how stupid the story really is!
digital fortress though, is not fast enough paced to distract you from the bad writing. this one is about a government organization that decrypts emails and stuff in order to catch bad guys. they run into this code that is supposedly unbreakable and they have to try and break it. as it goes along it pounds you over the head with the same basic information and constantly refers to how smart the characters are, yet when faced with a problem they take forever to solve it! most of the puzzles and challenges they face i was able to figure out as soon as it is presented, but they dont get to the solution until after about twenty minutes of guess work. a sure sign of a lazy writer: when a character explains something and then another character replies 'so you saying...' and then just rephrases what was just explained. and this happens all the time in this book! it was about a 6 hour book that could have easily been whittled down to about two hours if the characters had any brains about them at all. oh, and this is a technology based thriller, so it is wildly out of date to boot. definitely a waste of time.

AUDIO BOOKS. cs lewis

ive been a big fan of c.s. lewis' christian writings since i first read 'mere christianity' my freshman year of college.
i found this collection of lewis' books and figured i'd catch up on some of them. ive read a couple of them before, so two of them were new to me.
The Problem of Pain: this book goes through and tries to answer the question of why God would allow pain in this world. it was very fascinating and went in directions i hadn't expected. he spent some time looking at what perfect man was like in the garden before sin, and even spent a chapter looking at the question of if our pets will be in heaven with us!
The Screwtape Letters: i had read this one before, but it was really cool to hear it read. it just allows the mind to wander even more and imagine what is going on. this is a correspondence between two demons: screwtape, the mentoring uncle, and wormwood, the novice demon trying to corrupt his first soul. the fun of this book is that it turns the faith jurney upside down- these demons are happy about bad things, but frustrated by the good things that happen.
The Great Divorce: unlike the title suggests, this book has nothing to do with a failed marriage. the great divorce referred to in the title is actually in reference to the divorce between heaven and hell. in the story a man arrives in the afterlife. he somehow finds himself on a visit to heaven. while there he observes many people in heaven trying to talk with those who they loved on earth who ended up in hell. they try to explain to them what happened and how they can make things right. its an odd little story with some rather strange doctrinal overtones, but an interesting portrait of heaven, none the less.
Mere Christianity: what can i say, really? this is one of the finest books ever written. it is lewis' defense of chrisitanity in general. the first part of the book takes us logically through an explanation of how this faith makes sense. the second part is a study of God, and the third part is a look at how it all effects our life.

AUDIO BOOKS. grammer snobs

i had paged through another grammar book called 'eats, shoots, and leaves', which is a witty look at the importance of understanding grammar. i saw this on the audio book shelf and thought it might be in the same vain, so i gave it a shot. big mistake. this book is about grammar and the english language, but it has absolutely no wit or humor about it. it just delves into lame dissections of the smallest minutia of adverbs, adjectives, and punctuation. boring! after listening to the first disc i gave up and realized that this author is one of the big meanies she is railing against. and seriously, grammar snobs?!? i guess i should have expected what i got...

AUDIO BOOKS. there and back again

during the whole craziness and obsession that was going on while the three 'lord of the rings' movies were coming out, i always thought that sean astin was the most interesting of the whole bunch. he always seemed the most normal and accessible. the rest of the guys involved were cool too, but i was always rooting for sean and his character sam.
come to find out all this time later that he actually had written a book chronicling his experiences during the filming and releasing of the films!
the book deals a little with his life before 'lord of the rings', but only as a context for his experiences with those films. it talks about him first getting the job and then meeting the rest of the cast. he goes into some interesting anecdotes about their time together. its a very interesting and enjoyable listen, but it does suffer from over thinking. every time sean is about to express his own opinion he first apologizes and insists he means no disrespect and that this is only his opinion. at times this is a necessary reminder, but he goes overboard with making sure he doesnt offend anyone involved. and as a result, the book suffers in that it feels too edited. it feels like all the good stories were cut out at the last minute because he got worried about how the others would take it.
its watered down, but its still fun to hear about the experience from his perspective.

AUDIO BOOKS. marley and me

i was on a non-fiction kick when i checked out this audio book. i had heard some good things and knew they were making a movie about it, so i gave it a try.
now, before i get into the book itself, let me just reiterate one thing: never underestimate the importance of a good reader. i have listened to a fair share of audio books, and one important thing it who reads it. to be honest, its almost more important than the book itself. if the reader is able to convey great emotion and portray many different characters convincingly, then it doesnt matter what book it is because it will be enjoyable. a story well told is always better than a good story poorly told.
having said that, this book might have been good, but the reader totally ruined it. the unfortunate realization is that the reader is actually the writer of the book john grogan. its nice when an author can read their own stuff, but sometimes its worth getting a professional... i started listening and was so startled by the terrible reading that i almost gave up after the first five minutes! after about ten minutes i was completely mesmerized by the voice, trying my best to duplicate it with my own voice because it was so ridiculously bad. i actually got through about two cds before i finally gave up. i didnt care at all about the story, im sure the book is marvelous and really touching, but i couldnt possibly tell you why because i was just trying to repeat what was being said and trying to get the same ludicrous intonations in my voice so as to mock it better! the best way i can think to describe the voice is that it sounded like a gay lispy forrest gump. and seriously, who could concentrate with that?

AUDIO BOOKS. freakonomics

about a year and a half ago i rediscovered a very cool part of the local library: audio books! i walked up and down the isle and came across this one. i had heard a lot about it and figured id give it a try.
the book basically details how social situations effect and are effected by the economy and society in general.
some of the more interesting things covered are questions of why drug dealers still live on their moms couch, how the passing of roe v. wade might have changed this countries crime rate, how names may effect our social standing, and the most interesting of all: how superman took down the klu klux klan.
it sounds boring, a book about economics, but it was actually a very fascinating listen. it was sometimes a bit confusing to read though, due to the fact that the book has charts and graphs and in the audio version they have to explain each of them. im sure much of the information would be a ton simpler to understand by looking at the charts.