utenzi

Today is Black Friday , the big shopping day here in the US. I didn't leave the house for anything but some paddling on the lake. Yet I did do a little shopping on the computer and bought a House . The 4th season DVDs actually. Amazon is selling the first 4 seasons for $12.99 each which is 78% off. The 4th season is actually the worst bargain of the 4 because that was the year of the TV Writer's strike. As a result, that season only had 16 episodes instead of the normal 24. A full third less material! But that was the "Amber Season" and as such by far my favorite. She was a true gem and not just the fossilized tree resin her name would suggest. So that's the only season I'm bothering to buy.

I was watching a rerun of House the other night and it struck me that the guest star (Christine Woods) reminded me a lot of the actress (Robin Tunney) that plays Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon of the CBI in The Mentalist . The pictures of the two actresses are below. The episode of House that I was watching was Dying Changes Everything , which opened the 5th season. That's the 3rd time I've seen that episode and each time it impresses me. The title also struck me as funny, in the coincidence way, because I happened to be reading a novel titled Everyone Dies that day. The book, written by Michael McGarrity, was pretty good. I'm reading his current novel now, Dead or Alive. The titles aren't thematic, it's just another coincidence that both are death related. Most of McGarrity's titles have a New Mexico theme, which is the location where his detective novels are placed.

I've been barraged lately by Email ads for Mother's Day gifts. ProFlowers is the worst culprit. They've been sending me at least 2 Emails a day for the past few days and a couple a week for the month leading up to now. *whew* And in a weak moment I eventually succumbed and bought this. 16 pink tulips and 16 blue iris in a clear glass vase. Kinda pretty if you like that sorta thing. I wonder if Judy ever used Internet florists? She's rather hooked into the local shops due to working in the industry for a few decades. Before that she was a cytotechnologist, if I recall correctly. Anyway, pink and purple are colors that my Mom likes so hopefully she'll forgive me not making a house call this coming Sunday. I can't get out of work on either Friday or Monday and I hate driving that far for just a day or so. And besides, my parents are going to be in Atlanta on Sunday anyway so it'd be a very short visit. And speaking of House calls, what do you think of recent

I've been spending the evening reading--with a little chocolate to keep me company. Earlier I made a chicken dish from some breasts that I bought Thursday and didn't want to spoil. I had 8 Romano tomatoes that were getting overly ripe so I chopped them up and tossed them into the pot with the sauteed chicken and a can of tomato paste, some diced bell pepper and onion and had a quasi chicken cacciatore dish as a result. Not great but it was edible. The chocolate I'm having with my reading--I love the nuggets 'cause you can unwrap them one-handed while reading--is a lot tastier than the chicken was. Today, there were a lot of episodes of House on USA Network HD. From now on I want to watch them in semi-order so I just recorded them all. I've only watched about half the episodes that have aired in the past 4 years and would like to catch up by Xmas time. There's 8 episodes I've not seen from the first season, 13 from the second season, 22 from the third season

Mad Men and 30 Rock took their respective categories. No huge surprises there though personally I don't think that 30 Rock is the funniest show on television. It is pretty good though. I can't believe that 2.5 Men keeps getting nominated. Is there blackmail involved? Mad Men is a great show in many ways but I stopped watching it two episodes before the end of last season. While the acting is superb, the writing is at least as good as the acting, there's incredible production values and fidelity to the time period---but not a single character on the show is likable.  At least on House you have Cameron, Foreman and Wilson to like and Cuddy to sympathize with. As the first season of Mad Men wore on, the writers systematically made each and every character flawed past likability. It might be realistic, but it's not my cup of tea. The food thing? I dunno. Maybe I should try eating the stuff again. I've spent two weeks just drinking soda and eating only candy, kid&

I finally pulled the plug on my pay channels. When I started up my satellite service I received a nice starter deal that gave me the pay channels for a mere pittance but the past 3 months I was paying full price. Ouch! That's something like $45 a month just for those channels and I was only watching a few shows and maybe 8 movies a month. That's nearly $5 a movie! I'd be better off with Netflix. Anyway, today I canceled those channels to bring my bill down to a more reasonable $50, which still strikes me as high, but HD is so pretty on my LCD television that I'm willing to break from my parsimonious tradition and pay what it takes to keep those lovely shows coming. Hell, even Hogan's Heroes is fun in high def. And I've been going nuts watching USA Network's syndicated House shows this past week---who needs pay channels when you have House in HD?