Monday Round-Up: What I'm Reading/Watching -- I've Sold My Soul to BBC and Steven Moffat

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.



The new school year hit fast and hard -- it kind of blindsided me. In addition to my other work, I have a new roster of high-school aged writing students and I'm teaching at my younger daughter's school. It's a small private democratic school, inspired by the Sudbury model. Plus my teens and I need to get back to focusing on their home education.

My older teen's primary goal is to teach herself to be a screenwriter. My younger teen's secondary goal is to prepare for a career as a programmer and video game designer. Mainly by playing a plethora of video games, plus he tries to squeeze in a bit of reading, writing, math, and stuff here and there. :-P This is secondary only to his overriding life purpose which, as we all know, is to prepare for the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse. Coincidentally, this also involves video gaming. Strategic training.

Been Watching:

I haven't watched any movies this week. I know, I deserve to be banned from the world of movie buffs. :-P I've been wrapped up in television shows, a few books, and y'know ... life and stuff.

Woo-hoo! We blew our whole budget on Daleks!

I went nuts over the premiere of Season 7 of the awesomeness that is Doctor Who (and don't you dare tell me I'm too old to be a Doctor Who geek -- I will track your ass down and kill you in your sleep).

C'mon, Rory, don't be a putz! DON'T POKE THE DALEKS!

Sadly, cable T.V. isn't in our budget right now, but I was able to track down a link to see the first episode, Asylum of the Daleks.

Rory tells it like it is.

I'm sad that this season is the swan song for my favorite actor & character in the series: Arthur Darville/Rory Williams. Even if the writers sometimes have Rory act like a total goofball.  My son and I almost spontaneously combusted when he went around playing with all the sleeping Daleks.  How would guy who did stuff like that survive Anywhere In Time and Space, let alone become The Last Centurion? I'm just sayin'.

I missed Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, which I hear is not quite as good. But hey, it's dinosaurs on a spaceship! Much cooler than snakes on a plane. The only thing that could make it cooler is if BBC had wrangled a cameo by Samuel L. Jackson.

Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking dinosaurs.

Get your terminology right!

I also finished the first season of Sherlock and started the second. I received the second season DVD, from my wonderful daughters, for my birthday. Sarah calls the title character "an unholy cross between The Doctor and Sheldon Cooper." Sounds about right.

 

My older daughter and I also started Breaking Bad -- I've only seen a few episodes, so I'm not sure how I feel about the series yet. Is it meant to be a drama? A very black comedy? Is it going to turn into a tragedy? Do I want to see the whole series? I don't know yet.

For when I finish Sherlock, I have Luther at the top of my Instant Watch Queue. Lady Sati recently called this to my attention, reminding me how much I like British crime and detective shows and pointing out the insane hotness of Idris Elba.

Oddly, until recently -- with a few exceptions -- I didn't like T.V. When I was young, television was almost invariably stupid and mind-numbingly boring. I'm amazed at how much smarter and more entertaining so many programs are these days. Thank God T.V. sucked when I was young. Otherwise, who knows? I might never have become a hardcore book lover.

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Been Reading:

Crazy School (Madeline Dare mystery series #2) by Cornelia Read (Review Coming Soon) 

From Goodreads: Madeline Dare has finally escaped rust-belt Syracuse, New York, for the lush Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. After her husband's job offer falls through, Maddie signs on as a teacher at the Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers. Behind the academy's ornate gates, she discovers a disturbing realm where students and teachers alike must submit to the founder's bizarre therapeutic regimen.

Blue Asylum by Kathy Hepistall (Review Coming Soon) 

from Goodreads:  Amid the mayhem of the Civil War, Virginia plantation wife Iris Dunleavy is put on trial and convicted of madness. It is the only reasonable explanation the court can see for her willful behavior, so she is sent away to Sanibel Asylum to be restored to a good, compliant woman. Iris knows, though, that her husband is the true criminal; she is no lunatic, only guilty of disagreeing with him on notions of justice, cruelty, and property.

The Cradle Robbers (Mommy Track Mystery Series) by Ayelet Waldman (Review of this Series Coming Soon)

from Goodreads (B&N Review): In The Cradle Robbers, the sixth Mommy-Track mystery featuring a lovable defense attorney turned stay-at-home mom and part-time detective, Juliet Applebaum is faced with her most heartrending case yet: a mother whose newborn baby has been stolen.