On My Radar

You may have noticed that I'm crappy at blogging. Or maybe you haven't, since I have such a problem keeping up with it. Here's the thing. I'm boring. I get up. I go to work. I come home. I go running. I maybe crochet a little. I read, I watch some TV, I write. That's my life. I find it impossible to believe that anyone would find it remotely interesting.

So I'm going to try a new thing. (Hopefully) weekly, I'll try to do a little something called On My Radar. My reaction to a new book or current TV show, etc, articles I read, etc, etc, etc.

On my radar this week:

On TV: I am still reeling from last week's Sleepy Hollow finale. No spoilers--but holy crap. I was starting to get a little...not bored, exactly, but impatient with SH. It seemed like a collection of zany adventures, rather than a linear series of stories contributing to a major arc. I'm really glad I stuck with it, because the SH writers just proved they're smarter than me.

On Downton Abbey, this Anna/Bates storyline is killing me. Killing me. It really needs to resolve soon, because I don't know how much longer I can stick it out. Seriously, I find myself getting physically nauseous every time we go to start it up. On the bright side, it has prompted some really intelligent, thoughtful discussions on the interwebs re: the portrayal of rape in fiction, and the sorts of behaviors and fears of victims and their families that lead to sexual assaults going unreported.

In Books: I finally did it. My good friend April, who now blogs over at the Starry-Eyed Revue, has been harassing me for over a year to give the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead a try. But there are so many of those types of books (vampire school! werewolf academy! witch prep!) that I was reluctant to give it a try, afraid I'd find more of the same. I'm glad I did. They were original (at least, I thought so) and engaging, the kind of books I thought about even when I wasn't reading them.

In The Media: Two words: Plague ships! If you're a writer looking for inspiration, you need look no further than the two vaguely parallel cruise ship stories that came out this week, one about a ship full of cannabalistic rats hurtling toward England's coast, the other about a norovirus that swept through a cruise ship full of vacationers and ruined everyone's holiday.

Also, Bieber got arrested. Take heart, good people...he might not be in jail, but he could still be deported!

In Real Life: Still working on the granny square afghan; hopefully I can post some pics soon. I have learned my tolerance to cold is much higher (or lower!) than I thought; the dogs and I can safely run in 10 degree F with no side effects, though I did buy some Musher's Secret, just in case.

That's it for this week--check back next week, and we'll see if I can keep it up!

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