What I'm reading
Finishing up Utopia by Lincoln Child. A good, not great thriller by the coauthor of the brilliant The Cabinet of Curiosities and Still Life with Crows. This one is about a high tech amusement park in the middle of the Nevada desert taken over by terrorists/thieves. I'm enjoying the behind the scenes details about the daily running of the park, but the plot is same-old-same-old. Good characterizations help.

Starting The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Yeah, I know, everyone else has read this by now. A informal book club of folks from church is reading this, and I thought it made a good excuse to get it done. Generally I hate to read "popular" books, but since I am totally enamored of Michael Gelb's How To Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, I thought it'd make a great tie-in.

Also finished Blue Suede Clues by Daniel Klein. This is the second in his Elvis Presley as detective series. Yes, the King solves crime. This is a wonderful series, both for fans of Elvis and fans of hard-boiled mystery. This one is less humorous and darker than the previous book Kill Me Tender, but a great read. This one has EP dissatisfied with his movie career, torn between Anne Margaret and Priscilla, beginning his addiction to pain-killers and trying to figure why an old army buddy was framed for the rape-murder of a Hollywood extra. Someday, I would love to write mysteries as good as Klein's.

What I'm Watching
Man About the House The original British inspiration for Three's Company. The show is even lamer than the American version, and much less made of the male character pretending to be gay, but it is amazing to see how much of an exact copy that Three's Company is. The landlord's are the Ropers; he's undersexed, she's oversexed. The male is Robin Tripp, in the US one, Jack Tripper. Like the American version, he has a randy friend Larry. One of the girls is named Crissy, thought here it is the cute brunette, and not the dumb blonde.

Green Acres: The First Season Box. Ok, guilty pleasure time. I think this is the cleverest, most hilarious show of the 1960s. Not just a fish out of water series about sophisticates among rubes, the humor here is downright surreal. The creators play with ALL of the audiences expectations and throw in every off the wall concept imaginable. I think this is a precursor to shows like Laugh-In and Monty Python. Don't miss this!

Lara Croft: the Cradle of Life. Didn't expect to like this one at all, but I really enjoyed it. Sort of a female Indiana Jones/James Bond hybrid. Lots of globe trotting (Greece, England, Africa,Hong Kong), beautiful photography, a fun if standard plot, a great villain, good action set pieces, a little romance, and even some cool CGI monsters just for the hell of it. Oh and Angelina Jolie looks great in silver body suit.

Not the Nine O'Clock News. Another British original of a popular American version, this was made into Not Necessarily the News for HBO.
This late 1970s early 1980s show is a scattershot sketch comedy piece, featuring early performances by people now considered tops in British comedy: Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones. Excellent, anarchic, and very very funny.