Sunday Seven # I’ve lost track

Seven Random Thoughts

1. So, where have I been?  Somewhere I mentioned February was  going to be a bitch.  It was.  The boss was overseas, which meant I was the boss.  And all of my March blogging time (what little there is of it) has been managing the yearly Supernatural March Madness contest.
2. Almost 2 weeks ago I fell at the gas station (tripped on the gas hose as I was trying to step over it).  The head made contact with the cement and the first thing I noticed as I got up was the blood all over the white blouse I’d worn only twice.  Actually, it wasn’t too bad.  I never lost consciousness and was never dizzy.  It’s just that head wounds bleed a lot.  I did need a few stitches, though.  The scar has healed enough I don’t have to put a band-aid on it to go out in public.  What has been the most difficult are the muscles I pulled.  My chest and side are slow to heal.  They seem to be manageable now, but I have to remember to take the motrin even when I don’t think I need it.
3. I knew I should have gotten a pedicure this weekend.  It’s going to be 80 degrees tomorrow and my toes are not sandal worthy yet.  And I just bought 4 new pairs of sandals.  (Hey, I’ve been wearing the same 2 pair for too many years now, so I think I deserve them!)
4. The temperature in Clear Lake, IA (which is in northern Iowa, i.e., most Minnesota)  has been warmer than Alexandria, VA for the past few days.  This is good news, since I’m thinking about retiring there.
5. Francesca, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo was ok, but I’m not going to read any of the other books.  It was extremely graphic (violence against women) and the ending went on forever.
6. I do recommend the novels of Olen Steinhauer.  I listened to 36 Yalta Boulevard (his 3rd book) in the car, and was encouraged enough to check out his first book from the library.  This also happened with Boris Akunin.  I listened to his first novel The Winter Queen (read by Campbell Scott, an actor I’ve always liked—and the son of George C.) and read a couple others.  Of interest to my Supernatural friends, the original title of The Winter Queen was Azazel.
7. I have a new interest/obsession/crush/whatever, the Syfy show Merlin.  I’ve always loved the Arthurian legend, and this is a novel take on it.  The season finale is next Friday, and it looks to be really good.  Last season’s finale was fabulous. I never did write a separate post listing all the things I loved about it.  I think I’ll spend the rest of my Sunday afternoon watching the season 1 and 2 Merlin DVDs I just bought.

Batting .ooo

TV is not my friend.

Since I hadn’t watched any Supernatural during the repeats, I decided to speed-watch “Appointment in Samarra” last night prior to tuning in to the new episode.  I finished the repeat late (which I like to do so I can fast-forward through the commericials), and what do I get for my troubles?  Nikita!  *pffft*!  Worse, because the cable guide still said Supernatural, my DVR recorded it.  Bah!

At least SyFy had the decency to note that Merlin was being unceremoniously usurped by Being Human, so the DVR didn’t fire up.  (And they did a mini-Merlin-marathon on Tuesday, so I got to watch some season 1 episodes I’d never seen before, including the series premiere.)

I watched the premiere of Being Human last week, and honestly, it’s not very good.  I swear the only reason it’s a hit is because of Sam Witwer, who gained a following on Smallville a few seasons back.  Because really?  The other two lead actors are pretty crappy.  At least Mark Pellegrino adds a bit of class.   (He seems to have put on weight since his Lucifer days on Supernatural.  I guess blood has a lot of calories.)

I suppose I shouldn’t be bitchy about Nikita or Being Human.  After all, I scoffed at Supernatural for its two Pretty Boy leads until I actually watched the show and found out the Pretty Boys could actually act.

So, no new tv episodes for me last night.  Poop!    Instead, I went to bed and read some more of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  So the evening wasn’t a total bust.

Secret Santa strikes

I was very lucky in this year’s Secret Santa drawing at work.  The fellow who drew my name knows me pretty well.  He gave me a bottle of wine (reasonably good wine, too), some books on CD (which he’d burned from his extensive audio.com collection), and his business card (which got lots of laughs).

Oh yeah, our Secret Santa ended up not being very secret because instead of putting all the presents in one pile, everyone just gave their gifts directly to their recipients.

I’m only bringing it up now because it’s apropos.  The CDs I received included a copy of the book  Freakonomics, plus 2 bonus CDs, “A Chakra Meditation,” and “Why Blog” (or some such title).  I started listening to “Why Blog” today.  So here I am now, all fired up to blog.

And for once, I can think of at least 3 or 4 things to write about, including 1) tonight’s scifi double header with a new Supernatural and a new Merlin airing back-to-back; 2) a great title for a book I came up with from watching “Pioneers of Television” on PBS; 3) why I’d password protected my January goals, and 4) all the different directions my blog could take.  Hee.  Heck, I could probably have made a “Sunday Seven” out of it.

Instead, you’ll just have to make do with this post. 

My summer of Sherlock Holmes

I love a good mystery.  Heck, I love a mediocre mystery.  I think it all started in my early working days, when Murder, She Wrote became my Sunday night escapism before having to face Monday morning.  So I’m always searching for something to fill that void.  Recently it’s been The Adventures/Memoirs/Return/Casebook (pick one) of Sherlock Holmes on PBS.

PBS's Sherlock Holmes and the first Dr. Watson

Before this summer, I think I’d read only one Sherlock Holmes mystery, “The Speckled Band,” and that was as an assignment in a literature class.  I didn’t much care for it, so I never pursued Arthur Conan Doyle.  But this summer I decided to give the “cozy mysteries” a rest and pick up a Sherlock Holmes volume.  Turns out most of the mysteries are short stories.  And even the “novels” are more like novellas.  Just perfect for a slow reader such as myself.  I started with a collection that included all the short stories up to “The Final Problem.”  Curiosity piqued, I then read the first 2 novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four.  I haven’t read anything beyond “The Return of Sherlock Holmes,” but I will at some point.

My library creates what I call “unpamphlets.”  They’re just a piece of colored paper cut in thirds (about the size of a business envelope) listing various books to try.  For instance, “If you like John Le Carré (whom I do, but usually can’t follow), you’ll like…”  and then lists a bunch of books of similar vein.  One of these lists is titled “Beyond Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”  I decided to branch out and read one of these books.  While the Irene Adler series interests me, I ended up choosing Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara by Alan Vanneman, mostly because much of the action takes place aboard the Orient Express.  It was ok, but reading about Watson having sex made me want to stab my eyes out.  Thus, I wasn’t interested in reading the author’s first book,  SH and the Giant Rat of Sumatra until Holmes, in a recently aired episode (I don’t remember which one), mentions traveling to Singapore with Watson to investigate “the giant rat of Sumatra.”  (The book was published in 2002.)  Taking a casual remark and making it into case intrigued me.

Until I saw the reviews at Amazon.  It received a whopping 2 stars.  And The Hapsburg Tiara?  1½.  Looks like I’ll be reading something else.

Well, lookie here.

I started this post about 2 weeks ago:

This coming week is going to be a rough one.  I begin my new, longer commute tomorrow.  The few times I’ve driven it for the day, I’ve been very tired when I get home.  Now it’s going to multiplied by 5.  And, the boss is taking the week off! Yikes!  I’m going to be held accountable.  I’m not going to be able to schlep into work late.

Well, it was indeed the week from hell.  I had not one, but two one-on-one sessions with two different generals.  When the boss came back this past Monday, I told him he was never allowed to go on leave ever again.

The hours are significantly longer.  I work 10-11 hour days—and then there’s the commute.  Most nights I don’t even bother turning on the computer.  Last weekend I was totally wiped out.  At least this weekend I have a little pep.

Last weekend I stopped by the library and got a couple “books on tape.”  Right now I’m listening to My Man Jeeves, which is a series of short stories by P.G. Wodehouse.  The stories are supposed to be about Bertie Wooster and his all-knowing butler Jeeves, but the last few stories I’ve listened to have been about Reggie Pepper.  I cry “Foul!” or at least “False advertising!” as I find the Bertie & Jeeves stories much more interesting than the Reggie stories.  Although Reggie’s “Rallying Round Old George” is pretty entertaining.

(photo shamelessly taken from Amazon)

Several years ago, PBS had a tv series about Bertie and Jeeves that was quite fun.  At the time, I knew of the actor who played Jeeves, but not the guy who played Bertie.   I just looked it up on Amazon and what do I find?  Jeeves and Wooster (as the series was called) starred Stephen Fry as Jeeves (and darned if I know how I knew him, unless it was from A Fish Called Wanda) and, as Bertie?  Hugh Laurie!  Good Lord, how old was he then?  Well, I think Bertie was somewhere in his mid-twenties, and the series wasn’t as old as I’d thought.  So  guess it makes sense that Laurie now plays a mid-late 40-ish doctor.

Gosh, you never know what you’ll find on the interwebz.