Books in February

I read some books in February that I can barely remember. Must read better books next time.

The House at Midnight

Very indulgent. I read an article by the author where she named the The Secret History by Donna Tartt as her favourite book of all time (it was on the Guardian website) and you can see how she's tried to do something similar here with the group of friends and the country house. Where The Secret History is kind of ethereal and mysterious this book is just banal and written in a prissy, humourless way that's quite depressing after a while. There was one joke in it about Dalziel and Pascoe but that was it for the whole book. The main woman whose name I've forgotten (it was something like Sarah or Michelle) is an exasperating pushover with a Babysitter's Club-esque obsession with sophistication, "So-and-so was dressed in a red dress and had dark hair and a cigarette holder. I looked down at my workaday shoes and felt insecure. Blah blah blah. Then I let someone swear at me and pull my hair."

We Have Always Lived in the Castle



A jolly, short read. Its blackly comic tone was a relief after suffering through The House at Midnight. I never have as much to say about books that I enjoyed as I have to say about books I disliked. I guess that's my failing as a human. In my book notebook I wrote scores of angry notes about The House at Midnight but for this one I just wrote, "Short. Too short?" and "Similar to The Wasp Factory" and it was a bit similar to The Wasp Factory, the unhinged, isolated siblings burying old bits of animal and nailing stuff to trees.

The Lake of Dead Languages



Utterly predictable mystery novel. What to say about it? It's about a woman teaching Latin at the school she attended oh so many years ago. There's a suicide; but is it a suicide? There's a brother and sister; but are they brother and sister? There's having sex with some dude in a mask; but is it the same dude in the mask who you think is in the mask and on and on until you want the book to end. Another one that drew me in with promises of The Secret History. When will I learn? Probably never.

Evil at Heart



Why did I buy and read Evil at Heart? It was on sale when Borders was closing down. It's part of a series, I'm a sucker for a series. There were a few stand-out parts that unnerved me a little, but for the most part I was unmoved. People were wandering around finding mutilated corpses, there was a kidnapping and someone with pointy teeth...that stuff's gross and scary but I just didn't care. The reason for my apathy is the hackneyed characters. Obnoxious "jounalist" and wacky dresser Susan has a Sweet Valley High-esque disregard for danger that gets her into all manner of scrapes. Detective and serial killer-bonker Archie Sheridan is so dark and intense that I read his dialogue in a Christian-Bale-is-The-Dark-Knight voice. Bumbling police man whose name I can't remember always shows up just in the nick of time. Tripe.

Television II

Just updating on my Televisioning for the past month. This is the right time for TV as there's so much stuff on that I've had to abandon my nightly episodes of The Waltons and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I miss John Boy's mole! I'm still watching Lost and thank God that Nurse Jackie has ended because I'd taken to shouting at the TV during episodes.

Glee

I had this pitched to me as Election with songs. Pair this with the general buzz around the show and as you can imagine I was expecting big things including very dark humour and thrilling musical numbers. It started off well but is becoming a chore to watch. I guess they stopped putting jokes in the show about four or five episodes in so there goes the humour, and more often than not I find myself hiding behind a cushion out of embarrassment during the musical numbers. I'm thinking specifically of the bit where the teacher dances around the other teacher (who's wearing a wedding dress) and sings The Thong Song. I felt embarrassed for the teacher singing, I felt embarrassed for the teacher being sung at, I felt embarrassed for me, I felt embarrassed for humanity for having produced something as excruciating as The Thong Song.

Jiminy Christmas.

The characters are terrible. Without exception, the men are dumb, the women are psycho. This leads to all manner of exasperating meta-soap opera storylines that eclipse scenarios that might be more interesting. I would like more focus on the choir competition, but, "Hey, we've gotta do this if we wanna make it to regionals!"once or twice an episode is all we hear about that. I've had enough of fake pregnancies and fake stutters and lying pregnant cheerleaders. I want them to get on with the business of being a FUDGING GLEE CLUB.

American Idol

I watch American Idol from start to finish every year. My enjoyment of it has increased in the past couple of years because I've been able to record it and fast-forward through the boring bits like the "getting to know you" videos before the contestants sing their songs. Last week I watched the videos and regretted it.

Tell us something that America might not know about you.

"I like to colour!"

One of the best things about watching Idol is reading the Television Without Pity re-caps:
http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/american-idol/
They're good for at least three "Ha!"s per re-cap.

Also check out:
http://www.votefortheworst.com/
Because there's something so delightfully spiteful about it.

So this week on American Idol we lost Katelyn (noodlehead), Alex Lambert (mullet), Todrick (Tondrick) and most lamentably Lilly Scott, answer to the question: What would happen if Lord Fear from Knightmare and Stephanie Pratt of The Hills fame had a little musical baby?

The Vampire Diaries

I was prepared to dislike this show but I'm actually kinda digging it. At first I was annoyed at how it was so different from the books. Nowhere in The Vampire Diaries does it describe Elena as an alarmingly thin, pinch-faced brunette. Then I remembered that I didn't even like the books that much and that I only read/owned them for a sense of L.J Smith completism. It's a fun show. They got the casting of the brothers ass-backwards though. I always pictured Stefan as the pretty-boy and Damon as the one with the big jaw. Also I think Ian Somerholder, while attractive, is too old to play an eternal teen. Depending on the make-up he reminds me of Super Hans from Peep Show.


Plus Damon would really be on board with putting a snake in a salad spinner.

Calendar

For 2009 and the latter end of 2008 I had this calendar:

Possibly the greatest calendar ever. A cat calendar with an edge; all the cats are moody and homeless. They're not chasing yarn or lapping up cream or upgrading ur RAM; they're huddling together for warmth on the mean streets of Corfu! My sister bought it in Greece and as such it'll tell you what month it is in both English and Greek. The only downside is that there's no space on it to write down appointments or DVD release dates.

But whatever, it ticks so many other boxes that you don't even want to write on it. Clearly Rebel Street Cats was going to be hard to top. I wanted something similar. Not necessarily in subject matter, just something with the same combination of wry and earnest. This is why I went for:


It's funny ha ha ha it's a calendar with a picture of a toilet for every month. It's educational also due to the edifying blurbs accompanying each loo. The best of both worlds.

That was my thinking behind getting the toilet calendar. I had the most honorable of intentions. However, it is now March and already the sight of a new toilet on the first of every month is wearing me down. Looking at a place where possibly hundreds of people have defecated every time I sit down at my desk is making me sad. Having to consult what is essentially a pamphlet of latrines in order to find out what day my birthday falls on this year makes me want to slap myself in the face. I have only myself to blame! Stupid toilet calendar. Gah.



Ugh.