Yesterday I had a schedule gap before meeting up with the spouse and, for whatever reason, made the boneheaded mistake of leaving my Kindle at home. I’ll spare you the ad nauseum of how much I love the Kindle but I guess I just forgot to put it in my bag. I was looking at about an hour to kill so I decided to finally download the Kindle app for my Droid Eris.

Within about a minute, I was logged in and reading Feed (by Devon Monk). Dude. FUCKING AWESOME. 1. Do I love tinyscreen? No. Changeable fonts help but I don’t really love the backlight. 2. Nope. That pretty much covers it.

I spent the hour soaking up zombie-hunting goodness and then read some more on the Eris at work today during my lunch break. The best part is that when I got home tonight, I turned on my Kindle and syched it and then picked up EXACTLY where I’d left off on my phone.

In short, I love technology. The Kindle is still my favorite reading option but the Droid app is wicked handy in a pinch. Very nice option.

Related, Feed is ENGROSSING. It started a little slow but within a couple of pages I was hooked. I’m about halfway through it now and can’t wait to read the rest. Though there will be a break for a new ep of The Closer.

1. Drink when Jane sounds hysterical.

2. Drink when Maura can’t relate interpersonally.

3. Drink when Jane disagrees with her mother.

4. Drink when her partner gags.

5. Drink when you hear a Boston accent (actually you should do a shot because it doesn’t happen all that often).

6. Drink when Jane acts hysterical.

7. Drink when Maura uses big scientific words no one will understand. Unless you’ve been a drug rep or taken anat & phys.

8. Drink when Jane disagrees with her boss. I’d be hammered already in this episode.

9. Drink when the whole ‘girls can be cops too’ trope comes up. Ugh. Double shot if “affirmative action” is used.

10. Drink when you hear any of Jane’s “quirky” ringtones. DOUBLE Ugh.

1. Set up some ‘agency’ to help suspend disbelief

2. Introduce backstory in a ‘necessary’ way

3. One outlandish element

4. Good action/good story/interesting characters that aren’t beating you over the head (too much- the bathroom scene was  a little ridiculous)

5. Then they even explained away outlandish element in a believable way! This was double-bonus as I’d already enjoyed the show enough to actively ignore it!

Definitely a win. Fun entertainment.

This pilot was a hot mess.

It started out with a nicely ominous montage of a crime. And then went downhill rapidly.

P.S. WTF is it with every show set in Boston needing to have some vaguely Irish music for its theme. I mean really.

Right off the bat we get the nosy family and I’M A TOMBOY WHICH MEANS I DON’T KNOW HOW TO ACT AROUND PEOPLE. Grr. Don’t love it but I can live with it. Then the puking homicide detective. Really? He wouldn’t have known dead bodies make him puke before the promotion? And they would promote him anyhow? WTF.

Then we get the creepy dude who’s always the creepy dude and it’s a dead ripoff of Silence of the Lamb so can we PLEASE STOP DOING THIS, what with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins having pretty much KILLED IT? You won’t do it as well. Please stop trying. Also, WTF with giving the guy EXACTLY what he wanted? And her dude partner having to stick up for her all the time? I mean, what kind of shitty tomboy IS SHE.

Oh, she’s the kind of shitty tomboy who’s a TOTAL CUNT to her mother. WTF was THAT?!

Meet our quirky and interesting Coroner who is very quirky and interesting! She doesn’t wear jeans! She has a turtle! She’s quirky! And interesting! Feh.

Of course there’s a guy so BOTH female leads must be interested because penis = attraction. Seriously, people. WTF.

Then she’s the dumbest cop ever. WTF. Leaves the car, running through the woods yelling, apologizes for DOING HER JOB and tackling what should have been the bad guy. Dear guy cop, if you don’t want to get tackled you should tell the other cops that YOU’RE IN THE FUCKING WOODS. Suck it. I’m actually totally annoyed that she was all sissy about having done it and then APOLOGIZED. IT WAS HIS FAULT. YOU ARE THE WORST TOMBOY EVAR.

Also, the tantrums. Because seriously, this female cop who needs to be better than all the guys because she is the only girl was seriously throwing TANTRUMS about people not telling her stuff. Stomping her feet even. And then when they finally tell her, she whips out some bullshit “this isn’t in the report but I know it because I’m so much smarter” crack the case crap. WTF. WHY WOULD THAT NOT BE IN THE REPORT.

The van. I’m not even sure what to say about getting in the van other than, really WTF.

And the finale – let’s not forget that – where she TURNS HER BACK on the twitchy bad guy to cut herself free rather than SHOOT THE FUCKER because he’s twitching. Really? I mean, WHAT THE BLUE FUCK. I’m pretty sure that if someone tortured and almost killed me and then tried another shot at it and I’ve got a gun, I’m capping his ass before I worry about the duct tape. For reals.

I get that they were trying to be all ‘establish character’ shit but MAN was I disappointed in the ENTIRE SHOW. Spouse actually said “We don’t have to watch this anymore do we?”

I’m willing to give it two more episodes but DUDE. CHOCK full of SUCK.

I have seen a lot of kvetching with regard to “oh noes, wimmen are victims.” To this I say: our media is a reflection of our society. Women are more often victims of crime (violent and not) and to pretend that would be otherwise with monsters who prey on the weak would ridiculous. Do I love it? No. But should it make you think? Absolutely. In fact, in this particular episode, Sookie WASN’T a victim and Tara was doing her best to fight back in a really really bad situation. Is it perfect? Of course not. On the other hand, show me someone fighting – someone trying – and I’m willing to go along for the ride. None of the women on this show are PASSIVE. That’s what I like about it.

Unrelated, I fucking love Lafayette. I heart Lafayette with the fire of a thousand suns. If the entire show consisted of Lafayette’s cooking in that bar I would still watch.

In other TV news, finally saw the Haven premiere. It could be good or complete crap – I’ll wait my decision on a couple of more episodes.

Tonight is new Closer AND Rizzoli & Isles! I’m inordinately excited about summer crime TV. I didn’t know that R&I was based on a crime novel series until I caught a very brief interview with the author on NPR this afternoon. Something to check out if I dig the series.

Yesterday’s movie marathon included TiMER, which was cute and interesting and I really enjoyed it. I also watched Daniel Tosh do standup (hilarious), Bright Star (Keats bio-pic-ish) which was very good and Suspect Zero which was…better than I expected. A bit predictable but all in all a decent film.

There are a lot of problems with police shows – the foremost being we’re INUNDATED with the fuckers. If there’s anyone in the country who doesn’t know their Miranda rights by heart I have to believe that it’s willful ignorance. There’s also quality. Between Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, The Wire and The Shield – it’s been done and it’s been done damn well. So what does that leave you with?

If you’re a network, you’ve got to go to character. You need badass writers and great actors who can sell it. If you don’t have the cable safety net (and far less stringent censors) you’ve got to make up for the fact that your show isn’t going to be all that “real.”

The Closer is a great example of this. Create a magical squad that doesn’t have exactly the same rules as the beat cops, add a quirky leader and you’ve got suspension of disbelief. It’s the same reason I can stand NCIS – the ‘military’ association means I can pretend that Abby would get away with 1/4 of the shit she actually does and I don’t care because the character kicks ass and I WANT to like the show. The actors are so good that even when they’re bad, I can forgive some shoddy (and predictable) writing.

There are a bunch of good shows (versus the first string of police shows which I’d classify as GREAT) that get away with this. The Closer and NCIS get really good ratings. The Mentalist, Psych, Law and Order and Saving Grace all have a gimmick that allows them to be outside the straight up police procedural. That’s just one of the things I think is going to kill Rookie Blue.

I watched the first two episodes. I love Missy Peregrym. I dig the fact that it’s set in Toronto. Unfortunately it’s trying to be Hill Street Blues and, man, that ship has SAILED. By this time the average tv viewer knows as much about police procedure as some of the actors on these shows, I think. So you can’t be serious and “real” and then try to throw in these ridiculous love triangles (which I could see coming a mile away) and laughable shit like a new officer not knowing what “on the job” means. Dude. *I* know what that means. You just made your main character seem like a moron. Not a good sign.

I like what the show is trying to do but unless the writing gets sharp and I mean FAST I don’t think it’s going to have legs. You’ve got to be smarter – or at least cleverer – than your audience. Rookie Blue isn’t.

2. The Sony earbuds currently on sale at Target kick ass. That is, if you don’t like the noise-canceling flavor which I don’t because I like to hear a motherfucker sneak up on me. So yeah. Inexpensive but NOT cheap. Great sound, great looking, long enough cord that the Zune can sit on my treadmill or in my cargo pants pocket and not cause any drag. PERFECT.

3. Foursquare is surprisingly interesting. I’m intrigued by what others find relevant in terms of creating a venue or leaving a tip. I am STOKED about using this in Seattle.

4. I miss my Doc Martens. I saw some of the not-fake-but-not-real zip up the side variety and it made me want some lace ups. Alas there seem to be none in this area.

5. Email on the phone is made of win, especially when you get to use the coupon that got EMAILED to you without PRINTING IT. LOVE.

6. I really, really, really want this health care bill to pass and be overwith. Because honestly, the reform CANNOT be worse than the current system. Absolutely cannot. And as the BBC pointed out: the Tea Party movement believes that making insurance companies ACTUALLY PAY for sick people is UNAMERICAN. All emphasis theirs, not mine. Ironically.

7. My Twilight drinking game is kind of spectacular.

8. I’m starting the Serious Wardrobe Culling this week.

9. The Tudors sheds more like on torture methodology than I ever needed depicted.

10. Spring, according to retail, must occur only in the first two weeks of February as I searched HIGH AND LOW today for a raincoat and found NOTHING. WTF.

Got a notice from Verizon last week that I was due for a phone upgrade. I LOVE my LG ENV2. Love it. This is the phone that, not even two weeks ago, survived three hours in the freezing slush of the work parking lot and possibly being run over by a coworker. LOVE that phone. So I wasn’t really inclined to change when I had a perfectly acceptable and functional phone, right up until a friend mentioned that she kept her really good phone as a backup and upgraded to a new gadgetier phone. That planted the seed. Then I made the trip to the local Verizon dealer to scope out the offerings. The only thing really catching my eye was Droid.

The store didn’t have either droid model in stock (Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris) so I went home and checked out gizmodo and cnet and the usual suspects about the two models. I know people love the iPhone and, no lie, it’s a sweet device, but AT&T provides absolute shit service up here – so much that the tourists CONSTANTLY bitch about it. Not only that but it’s not exactly CHEAP.

I got to mess with the display models at the store and while the Droid has some really nice bennies, the slide out keyboard frankly feels cheap. Like plasticky might-break-if-you-drop-the-phone cheap. The Eris doesn’t have the same battery life but it comes with an 8 gig micro card and is upgradeable. It’s also got Google with voice search and sweet market apps and frankly, the keyboard didn’t mean that much to me – especially because it felt like a crap feature. So. Droid Eris.

Dudes, I LOVE THIS PHONE. I spent a ridiculous amount of time finding and discarding apps, customizing the look, and setting up all my contacts with Google so that I can access my rss feed, my twitter account, my gmail, and pretty much everything I love on this phone. I’ve got Pandora, a great calendar (which is shareable) and this AMAZING app called Ringdroid. Ringdroid lets you take any audio file and customize a ringtone from it. It is THE BALLS. I now have a ringtone that says “I swear to god I’m going to PISTOLWHIP the next asshole who says SHENANIGANS!”

LOVE.

So pretty much all my free time has been sucked up with searching for neat shit on my phone and tweaking my apps. It’s sad. I know.

I’m also a good chunk of the way through Middlemarch, thanks to audible.com. I bought the audiobook because I couldn’t bear reading it and it’s turned out to be surprisingly good. I’m leaning toward the test of a good book being it’s ability to show interesting parallels between its time and now ( whenever “its time and now” happen to be). Also (unsurprisingly) it’s full of great social commentary. So there you are. Go classics!

Last night we had a homemade mini-pizza party with post-apocalyptic virus film chaser. It was kind of fantastic.

In TV news:

Mercy knocked it out of THE PARK this week. I’m always surprised by how much I enjoy this show and that they’re willing to be (sometimes) shockingly honest while at the same time (sometimes) screamingly funny. I laugh out loud during every episode and I also see something that makes me think. I love that. One of our friends who was a career nurse ALSO has great things to say about it and that seems to be a rare thing in med-drama circles.

I’ve been working early shifts which generally means going to bed early, but our DVR was otherwise occupied on Thursday and wouldn’t record The Mentalist. I wanted to go to sleep but it was all Cho, all the time and I just couldn’t pass it up. The writers do such a great job on that show – I knew whodunnit as soon as the culprit was introduced but I DIDN’T CARE because they did such awesome character stuff.

Chuck continues to be awesome. Kristin Kreuk is 1000% less annoying than when she was on Smallville and I’m digging the new team dynamic. Having Superman aboard isn’t hurting things one bit.

Castle is consistent and engaging. I found out during the Superbowl that it’s a local-friend fave as well.

I haven’t caught up on all my Thursday and Friday shows yet.

Work is good! It looks like I’ll continue on mornings/days full time. I’ve been enjoying my tasks and team work so I’ve got zero complaints. Life in general is pretty kick ass.

We’ve enjoyed the town and love living here. That bodes well as we never felt that way about Saginaw. I’ve also nailed down some full-time work, which kicks the year off famously.

I also finally finished East of Eden today. Despite my earlier Farrah-induced prejudice, I really loved this novel. I wouldn’t have read it at all but for my GoodReads group, so I’m thankful for that. I’m looking forward to rereading it just as soon as I get through some of my TBR list. It was incredibly timely and does a fantastic job of looking at nature vs. nurture and the complexity of family interaction. Loved it.

During my shift tonight I also read the latest Sookie Stackhouse book. I continue to admire how Charlaine Harris pulls off the books in the series without becoming repetitive or dull, and I enjoyed it as much as I’ve enjoyed every other book in the series. While I loved season 1 of True Blood, it really doesn’t hold a candle to the charm, humor, and intensity of the novels.

Next up from Chicks on Lit: Middlemarch. Given my own personal dislike for George Eliot, I’m hoping this turns out as well as East of Eden.

I’m not much for resolutions, but mine for this year is to live each day like it’s my last. Enjoy every minute. More reading, more yoga, more great conversation.

1. Closing shift – virtually no traffic on the way there or on the way home. My only complication in life is people who don’t know how to drive in the snow and/or mountains. Takeaway: if you can’t, DON’T.

2. Glee! I love Glee.

3. Criminal Minds! I love Criminal Minds. The last couple of episodes have been crazy intense. Such a good show.

4. Mercy! It was back tonight after a hiatus and I am surprised by how much I MISSED it. I have a hard time describing for people why I like it so much but all of the characters are messed up in their own way and no matter what happens on the show, I feel GOOD when I’m watching it.

5. I don’t work until 1pm tomorrow which means AMBIEN.