Week in Review, Nov 12 to 18

This is a packed Week in Review from an uncharacteristically busy week in my life. It was a challenge to fit all of the following content into a week that also included one restaurant meal with family, one night out at a friend's place, one brew day, one restaurant meal with friends, one restaurant meal as a first date, and one curling game followed by wings and drinks. Not that I'm complaining--I wish all weeks were as excellent as this one was!

The Week in Books

One of the first things I did when I learned that I was soon to be a single guy again was to place an Amazon order for the first seven novels written by Kurt Vonnegut. This was inspired by a couple of friends who strongly recommended that I start reading some of his work. I made the decision to read them in order of publication, so I started with his 1952 debut novel, Player Piano in August. Player Piano was an entertaining and effective warning against the dangers of automation, told with a smart satirical voice. Plot and character-wise, it reminded me a little of my favourite movie, Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

I started on Kurt Vonnegut's second novel, The Sirens of Titan (1959), in early September. Unfortunately, I stalled on it early on, not because I wasn't enjoying it--because I was--but because I wasn't in the mood to read, and then shortly thereafter Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth became my reading priority. So, after finally completing Dawkins' book last weekend, I leaped back into The Sirens of Titan. Vonnegut's second novel is impressively different from his first, told in a much different voice--frequently reminding me of Douglas Adams and his The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, actually--and featuring much less endearing, much more flawed, yet still equally interesting characters learning how little free will human beings actually have. The novel is seemingly disjointed at first, but it all comes together brilliantly in the end. I'm having a very hard time deciding which of the first two Vonnegut novels is my favourite so far; I'm definitely looking forward to diving into Mother Night (1961) next.

The Week in Music

Dashboard Confessional's Alter the Ending was released on November 10, but as is usual with new music, I learned this a week late. This is certainly no The Shade of Poison Trees, which was the best Dashboard album since The Swiss Army Romance for me, but it's still pretty good. I appreciate the Deluxe Edition's inclusion of a second CD with acoustic versions of all twelve songs, as I've never liked Dashboard's full band stuff nearly as much as the acoustic stuff. Highlights for me after the first many listens are "Get Me Right," "Belle of the Boulevard," "The Motions," and the title track.

The Week in Video Games

In this day and age of almost life-like 3D graphics, am I interested in a new 2D side-scrolling Mario game? Fuck, yeah, I am! The last few days of this week have been all about "New Super Mario Bros. Wii," easily the best game to grace my Wii since the awesome "Super Mario Galaxy." I am still early in the game (completed 4-1), but I have faith in Nintendo's magic touch with Mario games to keep it interesting throughout. The first few worlds do a great job of introducing many of the new twists to the 2D Mario formula, and I am already encountering challenges in the collection of all of the star coins and finding the secret level exits. Daisy is pretty confused about why I keep swearing at the television. Ultimately, this game is a beautiful refinement of what made Super Mario Bros. 3 the greatest NES game ever made, with a fair bit of Super Mario World thrown in for good measure. And then there's multiplayer!--which I haven't had a chance to try yet.

My only other recent video game purchase, Bioware's "Dragon Age: Origins," has been sitting more or less unplayed on my computer for two weeks. I took an hour or two to create and fully customize my first character, an Elvish mage named Tosc, and then started playing and was immediately turned off by the fact that my mouse's scroll wheel is not functional in the game, and that is a pretty critical element for controlling the viewpoint of the action. This is a known compatibility problem with Microsoft IntelliPoint products. I'm now in wait mode for it to be fixed. Or one of these days I'll "borrow" a non-Microsoft mouse from work...

The Week in Television

Last week's show purge gave me some breathing room this week to fit all these remaining shows into my busy schedule. The only TV content from this week that I didn't have time for was the new Doctor Who special, "The Waters of Mars." I should have time to watch that this coming weekend.

Thursday, November 12th
Loved: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (5x9)
Liked: 30 Rock (4x5), Fringe (2x7), The Office (6x10), Parks and Recreation (2x9)

This was another funny Thursday night. I wasn't a huge fan of The Office's "Murder," because it was one of those too far out there to be believable episodes, but it certainly had lots of laughs, and the movement on the Andy and Erin front was excellent. Parks and Recreation had an above average night with "The Camel," getting good laughs out of Andy and Ron, and especially Tom with his shapes. "The Problem Solvers" episode of 30 Rock was solid, featuring some great scenes with Liz and Jack, and making unusually good use of the terrible twosome Tracy & Jenna as the new polite Canadian castmember forced them to reconsider the ways they use Kenneth, much to Kenneth's chagrin as a guy that wants to be used. "Mac and Dennis Break Up" was my favourite episode of Always Sunny this season, hilariously focusing on the terribly unhealthy, but somehow functional relationships within the gang.

The best part of Fringe's "Of Human Action" was the ending, where we finally received confirmation that Nina Sharp and Massive Dynamic are big fat lying liars. The rest of the episode was solid, albeit unremarkable.

Friday, November 13th
Loved: Stargate Universe (1x8)

"Time" was the best episode of Stargate Universe to date. Initially, I was a little turned off by the dramatic device of showing so much of the action through the "eyes" of a Kino, but after the first big reveal of what the fuck was going on, it all made sense and worked perfectly. I also appreciated that the ending displayed a stunning amount of faith in the intelligence of the audience.

Saturday, November 14th
Loved: Legend of the Seeker (2x2)

Legend of the Seeker's "Baneling" was an excellent follow-up to the season premiere, developing the ongoing Stone of Tears storyline while also maintaining a much stronger episodic focus. This episode also featured some of the best action sequences of the series to date. Thankfully, the addition of Cara to the team is working out very well so far. There was nothing on TV this week that I enjoyed more than Legend of the Seeker, but I'm a fantasy geek of the highest order. It is also the show that I look forward to the most each week (Dexter is very close, though), at least until Lost returns.

Sunday, November 15th
Loved: Curb Your Enthusiasm (7x9), Dexter (4x8)
Liked: The Amazing Race (15x8)

Dexter and Trinity took a road trip in "Road Kill," another strong episode. It's pretty tough to discuss this episode without spoiling it, so I'll leave it at that. I say this every week, but I still don't know how there can be four episodes left in the Trinity storyline; but I'm pretty excited to find out. In the most important subplots, Deb learned something surprising from her wounds and Quinn is still digging for dirt on Dexter while being played by the reporter. There's plenty of material in the subplots for four more episodes.

"The Table Read" brought the entire cast of Seinfeld back to Curb Your Enthusiasm again, including hilarious guest appearances from Bania and Newman. Jason Alexander got some big laughs again with his undisguised hatred of Larry, but the highlight was Michael Richards meeting Leon. In a very amusing subplot, Larry is tormented by the text messages of a nine year old fan. I'm really looking forward to next week's big Seinfeld reunion finale.

Monday, November 16th
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x8), Heroes (4x10)
Meh: House (6x7)

The Big Bang Theory's "The Adhesive Duck Deficiency" was again good but not great. I didn't need to see Leonard, Wolowitz, and Raj get stoned and get the munchies; although pot humour hasn't previously been used on this show, it is overly tread ground in comedy in general and is tiresome to me. Fortunately, the Sheldon and Penny half of the episode was much stronger, with Sheldon having to play reluctant hero after Penny hurt herself in the shower.

Heroes' "Brother's Keeper" proved that it is possible to include all of the main cast in a single episode, although some characters may get little screen time (Noah) or a terrible subplot (Claire and Tracy). The meat of this episode was about finding out what happened to Mohinder nine months ago, getting some background on Samuel, and finally reuniting Sylon with Sylar while also letting Nathan know that he has been dead all season. The important stuff was reasonably well handled.

Wednesday, November 18th
Liked: Glee (1x10), Modern Family (1x8), South Park (13x14)

"Ballads" was a much better episode of Glee than last week's "Wheels," with a number of strong musical moments, and some major plot developments in the Quinn and Finn storyline. And Rachel's crush on Will brought the funny; the "Don't Stand So Close to Me" / "Young Girl" mashup was easily the highlight of the episode. But where's Ken Tanaka?--he's been MIA for two episodes in a row and that is a damn shame!

Modern Family's "Great Expectations" was frequently funny, but still probably my least favourite episode to date. Ed Norton's guest appearance as a washed up 80s musician was too ridiculous for this show. The funniest stuff came from Phil's talking head moments, especially his rattling off a list of gifts that Claire could have bought him, and Mitchel and Cameron meeting their friend Sal.

In season finale "Pee," South Park provided a cautionary tale about the danger of too much pee in the water park. This was a completely ridiculous parody of 2012 and other disaster movies, perfectly executed once you accept the premise. Meanwhile, Cartman makes a mathematical discovery that the population growth of minorities will cause the Mayan apocalypse.