Two and A Half Memes

Not exactly two and a half, but I liked the writers swap of Two and A Half Men and CSI (The Original) last week. It's not as if either were groundbreaking or fabulous, I just enjoyed the writers having fun. Hopefully they had fun. I loved the CSI quote Grissom had "Death is easy. Comedy is hard."

Marji tagged me.  The meme?

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you.

Oh, the nearest book? And not the one I'm reading? Okey doke.

In 1962 he purchased a large home in California. Thereafter he spent a considerable amount of time and developed substantial connections in California. Although he maintained important connections in Nevada throughout the years involved, the SBE held that he was a California resident in 1962 and in subsequent years. 2008 Guidebook to California Taxes.

Bookfool tagged me with the Six Random Things About Me. Random is my middle name. You think I make no sense blogging? You ought to talk to me. All over the map.

1. I hate endnotes in books. Footnotes, people! Footnotes.
2. Cable reruns. I live for them. Currently: CSI.
3. There are books and knitting projects in my Earthquake Preparedness kit
4. I overuse exclamation points, ellipses and the word/letter I. You should read this before I edit it.
5. I can't wait for all the pretty flowers to die this year. Yes, yes, all very beautiful but they're trying to kill me.
6. It generally takes me three or four or five tries to get those verify your comment codes right.

Tagging (by blog names): Knitting & Television, Bron's Blog, Jenny's Corner, CJ Knits On, Educating Petunia

I finally finished Queen Isabella! She really did lead a fascinating life, although she and her husband both let their lovers ransack their kingdom and their good sense. I was wildly amused to discover that Roger Mortimer, Isabella's lover, was also the first Earl of March - the Marches being the family of Lady Julia Gray in the Silent in the... series by Deanna Raybourn that I read during Queen Isabella.

Well, not read, was read to. I had Silent in the Grave on my iPhone and while I was flat on my back with that stupid vertiginous migraine, I listened to Ellen Archer reading it.  I have to admit, I was deeply prejudiced by Harlequin being attached to the book and almost didn't listen to it at all but I couldn't understand a word Christopher HItchens was saying. There were a few confusing passages in the book where I'm convinced she contradicted herself in a matter of paragraphs, but I'm not sure if it's because being read to is so vastly different than reading a book.

I enjoyed the book enough to run out and pick up the second in the series, Silent in the Sanctuary. England in the 1880's isn't my area of historical expertise (not that I have a historical area of expertise but there are some periods I know better than others) so I couldn't tell you how historically accurate the books are, but they certainly were a fun romp. I just hope the romance doesn't get dragged out ad nauseum.

Books read in March:

The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez. Deft but not groundbreaking.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. Twisty. Dennis Lehane knows how to write a thriller.

Flashforward by Robert Sawyer. Interesting take on time travel.

End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenary Grimwood. Reminded me a bit of the best of William Gibson.

The Coma by Alex Garland. A little hallucinatory, is he in the coma imagining it all?

In Big Trouble by Laura Lippman. Not the first Tess Monaghan mystery but my first introduction to her. Now to read the rest of the series.

Next by Michael Crichton.

Science Friction by Michael Shermer. Science vs all sorts of things. Michael Shermer has a knack for explaining complex theories.

Babel 17 by Samuel R Delaney. The power of language was never better expressed in a novel.

Killing Time by Caleb Carr. I wasn't too impressed. The female character was so one dimensional that it took me completely out of the story which was a bit ludicrous anyway. The dangers of the internet, gene splicing and time travel.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. I really enjoyed her essays on reading.

April:

• The Man Who Never Missed by Steve Perry. Kind of a combination James Bond/dystopian future book.
• Temptation by Jude Deveraux. One of the few romance writers I unabashedly enjoy.
• The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker. 1970 dystopian novel. I could see the '60's influences on the book, the turn the future (2000) took wasn't one that I'd run across in other dystopian books.
• Black Order by James Rollins. A Sigma Force novel. I was forced to go out and buy more in the series. A thriller along the lines of Robert Ludlum without the exclamation points.
• The Know It All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the Room by A J Jacobs. Not so humble but engaging.
• Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Gladstone
• Queen Isabella: Treachery Adultery and Murder in Medieval England by Alison Weir

Currently (re)reading: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W Tuchman. I'm reading these in chronological order! Completely by accident, I assure you. A Distant Mirror follows Enguerrand de Coucy VII, a French noble married to the daughter of Edward III (Isabella's son) also named Isabella. She was quite the pet of her father too, so it's hard to believe the historical tales that Isabella of France was the She-Wolf of legend. It's a nice change of pace to be in France this outing.

Television - is continuing to annoy me. WARNING! PROBABLY SPOILERS!! Booth's life is hanging in the balance on Bones, done in by a mere stalker? They'd better not kill him off. I hate that kind of cliffhanger. Cheap tricks. I still love Dr Sweets though.

Brothers and Sisters is back on Sunday nights but I was too annoyed at having whatshername turn out not to be the bastard child of the patriarch to watch.

House spends an entire episode entertained by strippers only to realize at the end that it's Amber whose life he's trying to save? What's with all the strippers anyway?

On NCIS, Ziva thrown by killing a serial killer that very nearly killed her. Really? She made some statement about how the Mossad were not all assassins but considering how pragmatic her character has always been about death and dying, it didn't track.

Ed Green gone on Law & Order. [sob]. I love Linus Roache and Jeremy Sisto though. I'm getting used to the new guy.

Lost. Geez, Lost leaves me lost most of the time. As long as Locke, Sayid and Sawyer are on it, I'll probably watch but I have no idea what the heck is going on anymore and really? I don't care. The plan all along was to kill off Rousseau? Huh. The real question is why won't they kill off Jack? Why? That would be pushing the envelope.

Starbuck is the Angel of Death? Tyrol's haircut. Hate it. WHO IS THE LAST CYLON? I want to know.

Knitting? What knitting?

Comments

[Nancy, aka Bookfool]

Well, of course you have books and knitting projects in your earthquake kit. You wouldn't be "prepared" without them.

So, what did you think of Coma??

And who, pray tell, is that lovely little furball? Did I miss a post?

[Marina]

At least there's a Part 2 next week for both Bones and House, so maybe both Booth and Amber will live.

I'll be celebrating a late Mother's Day on Sunday, watching the best of Ed Green marathon. Got the knitting and the bonbons all ready for that ;-)

[Amy]

I'm hanging in there with Lost as well. Loved the Dead Author's Blog take on the episode where Jack has appendicitis:
http://deadauthors.livejournal.com/5544.html

[Chris]

Wait, what's with that cute little kitten?? Heh, I just reserved several of those books from the library. I love it when people list their books read!

[Jennyellen]

I've been tagged! Wheeee....what fun. Guess I better skip on over to my blog and start meme-ing.

So with you on Bones and Brothers & Sisters!

And enquiring minds want to know about the precious little kitty! Is it yours???

[Michelle]

Maya is the last cylon!

I still think it's Gaeta.

[melanie]

Wow, you've read lots lately! I don't know how much I'd read if I had such an adorable kitten to play with -

[Jeanne]

Ack! No BSG spoilers! Stop! Stop!

[Bridget]

Wow, you've gotten a lot of reading done - good for you. Some of those sound interesting, I'll have to take a look.

Love the kitten picture!

[Elspeth]

California Taxes, ooh, ah. I guess my closest book is "That's Not my Lion", so maybe only a bit more interesting. I agree with you about the exclamation points!! and cable reruns, how else would I randomly get involved in "A Haunting" reruns? I wouldn't put it on a Netflix list if I had Netflix, that is. I am sorry Green is gone on L and O, and/or I think his ending show was really really bad (why not just kill him off, or give him a TV special like Chris Noth got when he went off to Staten Island). I don't like Anthony Anderson at all and think his character on LO is horrible as well. I'm done with LO, yet again.

[Tim Rooch]

Precious little furball is Portia, who will remain precious, but not little for long. She's mainly Maine coon and Norwegian forest cat and they get BIG. She's sitting on Tim's chest. He took the photo with the camera he bought with money his folks sent for his birthday.

Portia is nine weeks old. We adopted her from a cat rescuer, the same woman who let us adopt Halo, a full-grown calico, who is also a total sweetheart. Not so many pictures of her yet. Tim's kitten-smitten.

The two get along now. At first, Halo (10 pounds of solid muscle) was afraid of Portia, but Portia has won her over and they play well together.

As for the names, Halo was named when we got her and answered to it.

Portia was named Lucky Girl, because her mother abandoned the litter on a porch and they were rescued and bottle-fed. We thought that was a little too precious, so we gave her the name of the clever, kick-ass heroine of "The Merchant of Venice."

Thanks for posting her pic.

SiL

[Jocelyn]

I am SO with you on the endnotes; what is with that?! I'm also entirely in your camp on the Bones issue -- in my opinion, shooting main characters and leaving their future as live characters in doubt is a cheap way to end a season. I do like Dr. Sweets, though; his character is getting much nicer (they couldn't possibly be planning to replace Booth with him as the foil to Bones' scientific self, could they? Nah...

[carrie]

"What's with all the strippers?" Really, House must be reaching for content. Or else he just wanted to watch strippers, and there's something in his contract... =)

[Brigitte]

Um, I'm with Chris. What's with the little itty bitty kitty??

I'm going to miss Ed Green too, but I do like the new guy.

Thanks for the book recommendations!!! Definitely going to look into The Distant Mirror.

[Opal]

I was sad to see Ed Green go, but I adore the new guy. I really loved K-Ville. So it's nice to see one of the cast members back in action.

[Lorraine]

Is that your brother's kitten?

I'm reading alot of crap fiction lately, so if you were to open my head, there would probably be a cauliflower instead of a brain.

[tara]

I never get those verify codes right the first time. Geez.

[Julia]

Wait, you read essays about reading? My head just exploded.

[Sonya]

Portia is such a pretty kitty!

How in the name of wool do you get so many books read?! And knit. And work. And, I'm assuming, sleep.

Whatshername is not the bastard child, but there's a new bastard child! I think Kevin has a secret crush on Ziva. I got no freaking idea what's going on on Lost either.

Definitely footnotes. I hate flipping to the back.

[deb]

Love Dennis Lehane and need a new book to sink into. Thanks for the tip!

[Birdsong]

Whew! You sure are a prolific reader; if I could keep up, I would never find time to knit or spin:) I am with you on the footnotes, and the exclamation points!!

[Elspeth]

I finally watched House - I admit I was a bit frustrated by the drawn out nature of this episode. And then why would Amber be on the bus with him? It makes no sense. But I suppose I'll watch next week, there isn't much else on these days.

[Jenni]

those nasty migraines! You need to quit having those!

[Aarti]

I don't know if my comment posted before- so many steps!

I am in the midst of one of my Plantagenet waves of obsession and therefore picked up one of Thomas Costain's books about him (sadly not the one about the Edwards, though). I love reading historical books and then putting 2 and 2 together to see how everything is related- it makes it like a puzzle :-)

I also have the Silent in the... series. I hope the heroine doesn't annoy me! hehe.

[mrspao]

I like the memes :) I always get your code wrong