So happy to see TED LASSO again. And the first episode was just as good as last year's series. It doesn't always work out that way. I am watching the original Belgian version of PROFESSOR T, which is a bit too much MONK for me. I liked MONK, but I don't need another version. The UK one looked worse.
In the middle of THE BEAST MUST DIE on AMC and too soon to tell but I loved Nicholas Blake books when I read them 50 years ago. Also not sure about WHITE LOTUS yet although the second episode seemed better than the first.
The movie mentioned above is Hungarian and was so interesting. It is available on several platforms and worth your time if you like a puzzle.
Lots of horrible rain, really driving downpours and one of them knocked out my cable box. Will Comcast try to charge me to fix/replace it. If they do, goodbye I think. Maybe I can get along with just my Roku and WIFI.
We people who got our vaccines six months ago now have to be careful. It seems to wane about now and several people I know have had breakthrough cases, and not so asymptomatic. B.V. Lawson has had it twice not. Once before and once after the vaccines, despite wearing masks. All of this could have been avoided it everyone had vaxed up.
No books to report. I pick them up, read 50 pages and put them down. It is probably just me.
So what's new with you?
15 comments:
Watched Defending Jacob. Good but they changed the ending from the book. I liked the book's ending better. Guess I'll have to get the free month of Apple Tv to watch Ted Lasso. Haven't watched a lot of tv other than a few old favorite movies. Nothing opened in the theaters I want to see.
I never have trouble finding something to read. I usually have too much. if I get in a finicky mood I just go back and reread a Ross MacDonald or Michael Connelly. Finished Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby. Good but I think I preferred his previos one better. Now reading The Cover Wife by Dan Fesperman. It's good so far. I'm a sucker for good espionage novels. I have on hand the new Ace Atkins, Jeffrey Ford and a book about the making of Midnight Cowboy.
Like Patti wrote the rains here have been pretty heavy. Especially Saturday evening. I was at an outdoor wedding for a granddaughter but luckily the rains held off until after the ceremony.
Glad to hear your new computer's working well, even if it does take some time to get used to it. And thanks for the reminder about The Beast Must Die. That was a well-written story, I thought, and it'd be good to see what it looks like on screen.
I'm recording The Beast Must Die and will wait at least one more episode before we start to watch it. On the one hand, I prefer to have all parts available, but on the other, sometimes we like to at least try the first episode in case we don't like it and can skip recording the rest. We are finally - after all these years - watching GAME OF THRONES. Not sure why we never got past the first episode before but we're halfway through series one. You can see who will survive (The Imp Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark, Jon Snow) and who won't (Viserys Targaryen). Still enjoying UNFORGOTTEN (this week finally got the first interviews with the suspects). We've added a few more shows as we finished others - series two of the French cop show SPIRAL, the last series of THE KOMINSKY METHOD (not the same without Alan Arkin), THE GULF, New Zealand's HALIFAX: RETRIBUTION (meh).
We watched ZATHURA, a spinoff of sorts from the original JUMANJI, which started slowly but was fun after that. (Six and ten year old brothers discover eponymous board game, find out it's real.) Also watched the original 1959 GIDGET, silly beyond belief, and one of my favorites (which still held up), John Boorman's semi-autobiographical HOPE AND GLORY.
Still reading four books at once - though a different four from the ones I read last week. Enjoying Bill Bryson's memoir of growing up in Des Moines in the '50s, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID, and Jeffrey B. Burton's first K-9 mystery about Mace Reid and his cadaver dogs, THE FINDERS, which is a quick read. Reading short stories by Robert Edward Eckels (mystery) and Clifford Simak (science fiction).
No torrential rain here, just occasional sprinkles. We'll let the deluge stay up north, thank you very much.
A bright sunny day with a soft breeze for beaching yesterday -- and there were dolphins. Dolhins make me happy. so do manatees, which evidently have migrated to our area but I have not spotted any yet. The one thing I don't want to spot is the tiger shark which has been seen in the area; I may have to erect a sign -- NO TIGER SHARKS ALLOWED!
I hope Margot watches the correct THE BEAST MUST DIE. It's also the title of an old horror movie based oon a classic James Blish werewolf story. (BTW, IMDb credits Cecil Day-<Lewis with the original story for the recent series, rather than "Nicholas Blake." Curious.)
Following the beach the whole tribe moseyed over to a tattoo parlar where Kitty got her first tattoo. Christinas and Erin got their first tattoos last weeking -- matching sign language symbols for "Love." Kitty got the same. Jessie and her girls will get the same tattoo when we return from Cape Cod, so everybody will be in the Cool Girls Club. Walt, Mark, and I belong to the Cool Guys Club That Don't Need Any Tattoos.
We just endured the FEAR STREET movie trilogy which jumps from 1995 to 1978 to 1666 and back. Much more mature than the R. L. Stine books my kids read back in junior high -- much swearing, drug use, and straight and bi sex. I'm getting old; that stuff doesn't do for me ny more, if it ever did. I did enjooy a six-minute crtoon mash-up on Disney -- THE GOOD THE BART, AND LOKI. As a punishment, Odin banishes Loki to Springfield, where he lands in the Simpson's yard. Watched a lot of other shows this week but I truly can't remember what they were. Either the shows were not memorable or I am sliding into senility.
Still reading a lot of John Creasey. I've read a good two dozen of his novels in the past year and a half. Just started his Gordon Craigie/Departmen Z series of thrillers, in which Craigie sits back and lets his agents do all the dangerous stuff. I just started THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB and am enjoying it. I also read L. Ron Hubbard's Kilkenny Cats sceince fiction stories -- all pre-Dianetics, thank goodness. I hope to read Stephen Graham Jones' THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS, along with a bunch of old stuff while on vacay.
Enjoy your new computer, Patti. Computers are the bane of my existence. You, however, are not. Enjoy the week. Stay safe, stay sane, stay well.
THE GULF, I should have mentioned, is another New Zealand show, filmed in the beautiful area near where BROKENWOOD is filmed. Five years ago a young boy was kidnapped and presumably killed. But he suddenly turns up alive, but isn't talking or explaining what happened to him and where he's been. In the meanwhile, the cop who was in charge of the original case, is in a deadly car crash where her husband was killed. She is having memory issues (why did she ask for the file on the case just before her accident, and why doesn't she remember doing it?). Tghe first episode was a little dark and confusing, but we'll stick with it for now.
The Beast Must Die was also filmed by the French director Claude Chabrol in 1969. I remember it as being pretty good. In that one the main character is a widower not a widow.
Like you, we're enjoying the Second Season of TED LASSO. All the reviews I've read claim Season Two is better than Season One. Hard to believe...
Congratulations on the new computer! But, as you're finding out, it's a mixed blessing. Yes, more speed. But sometimes the learning curve gets steep.
Western NY is muggy, muggy, muggy. Rain falls on a regular basis so there's no need to water the lawn.
Diane and I wear masks whenever we leave the house. We're getting more wary about going anywhere with the Delta Variant running wild. Stay safe!
I have spent over five hours with Comcast and I won't even begin to tell you what liars and cheats they are. Although I pay every month for technical support meaning they will send someone out as needed, they claim because they sent me a new modem (their idea) on July 1, I have to pay for them to come out and fix my cable box or wait until after Aug 1. So even after agreeing to pay finally, they have not given me a date for a tech visit. I may soon not be watching any of this because I am at the end of the rope.
My mother had a heck of time getting her cable provider in to fix a problem. Lots of phone calls and a rescheduled service call. The issue was fixed, but only after major hassles.
My wife's library weeded a bunch of mysteries, I grabbed a few, and have been reading POPPETS by Mo Hayder. Hayder does a fine job mixing mystery and horror.
I watched the FEAR STREET trilogy and it was OK. Some neat parts but not great. I thought 1978 summer camp film was best of the three. Jeff's above description of THE GULF reminds me of the adaptation of Tana French's novels. I started watching the show a few months ago and never got back to it. That's the issue with having so many streaming services: Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, HBO, Disney... heck, I may have forgotten a couple.
I'm hoping to go backpacking in the U.P. with my son in about a month. I'm now currently hoping to go to Isle Royale in Lake Superior, but I am still researching how to get there and how backpack reservations are handled.
Hope you and the new computer get simpatico. Go ahead and try to be glad about your rain, you and everyone else. We have had no measurable rain here in 35 days, and the heat and drought are terrible, and tiring.
Watched some Olympics. We thought the opening ceremonies were very understated and bland, and the programming has been muddled, it's hard to know what will be shown when, in spite of the guide. I enjoy watching the swimming, but lots doesn't interest me.
Finished A PITYING OF DOVES, by Steve Burrows, the 2nd in his Birder Murder series, and liked it enough to buy the next ones. There are six total. Am now reading THE LAST BOOKSHOP IN LONDON, with WINTER COUNTS up next. I may also read AMAZON UNBOUND about Bezos and his company, which just came from the library.
The weather saps me of energy, and even reading is a challenge sometimes. I'm looking forward to the new Louise Penny and William Kent Krueger novels coming out August 24. Both authors I particularly enjoy reading.
You are welcome to some of our rain. Normally we get three inches in JUly but we are about at 9 1/2 inches so far this year. The reservoirs are normally about 91% full, but we are close to capacity now.
We had a tiny bit of rain here today, just a sprinkle. I had been working outdoors potting a plant and had to run out and close up some bags, move some stuff in, etc. But it has been very dry here also, not unusual at all in the summer months in this area.
I finished ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE by Ian Fleming this week and enjoyed it. I also finished POIROT AND ME by David Suchet, which I had been reading off and on for about two months. That was fun and interesting. Now I am reading THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston, and that is very good too, at least the first four chapters.
After nearly an inch overnight, we are now at 10.5 inches, only the third time in history we've gone over 10 inches of rain in July, and we will probably get more this week. I doubt we'll top the record set in 1886, but we could get to #2.
I am going to check our rainfall for July.
I used to read the Ian Flemings but haven't in years. Would be fun to read and watch them together.
Rick, worry so much about your part of the country. Just a sign of things to come much more often, I am afraid.
Finally saw NIGHT MOVES the film last night, on TCM On-Demand, having meant to for more than a decade. The relentless machismic nonsense of the first near-hour was pretty off-putting, though Jennifer Warner's performance and character improved matters enormously, and the rest of the film helped justify its reputation. But I can see how the opening 45 minutes or so helped keep it from being a commercial success.
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