Posts in Category: TV
My Terry Pratchett Obsession, Reading and TV
(Warning: A lot of links in this post. Proceed at the peril of your own time. Or someone else’s if that rocks your boat ;-) )
So I finished Jingo, book 21 of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. It’s my 3rd book in from the series in 2 weeks (Pyramids and Unseen Academicals. I am not reading the series in any particular order but then they only vaguely refer to previous books so it’s not a big deal). So yeah, I’m sort of obsessed with Discworld. The series combine two of my favourite genres of stories: Humour and Fantasy. Well I like SF too but it’s been so long since I read SF that it’s been long. So yeah.. But I digress.
Anyway, the best part about the Discworld series is the combination of real world issues with an astonishing blend of humour and poignancy. The humour, in many cases is straightforward but on so many occasions, it just creeps up on you and you’re like, hah, that’s so funny. And then the subtle underlying message hits you that you do a double take.
In addition to reading, I’ve also been trying to watch some TV shows. Primarily The Big Bang Theory which is a brilliant comedy sitcom by the makers of Two and a Half Men. It’s about a bunch of scientists and a cute blonde who is their neighbour. The “scientists” are hardcore nerds and the many of the episodes are themed on “nerdy” concepts. I get a lot of the nerdy jokes and can’t decide if that is a good thing or a bad, I mean with many folks considering me to be a nerd on first meeting (I don’t think I am a nerd because I’m not intelligent enough :-( )
Coming back to reading, I have a huge pile of books left to read (sadly no Discworlds left), a lot of them from Devanshi, and a lot others that I’ve been picking up obsessively but haven’t gotten round to reading. The problem, as I see it is, that whenever I look at a book I want to read, I just want to read another Discworld book and that just evaporates my mood to read. So now I’ve decided, no more Discworld (I plan to eventually own all the Discworld books) until I reduce the unread pile by at least a significant amount (let’s see how long this “resolution lasts.. Hah). Oh and I need to buy a couple of books:
(The second before I watch the movie with the lovely Rachel McAdams)
I think I should dedicate a shelf in my bookcase to all the unread books and then finish them off one by one. An upcoming trip should provide sometime for reading two of the books. Perhaps I’ll also make a list of all the pending books in a next post.
Lastly, I’ve been vaguely following all the iPad hype and thought it would be nice to have one to read my comics (electronic format obviously) but then thought it might not be so nice because of a few reasons:
- Too expensive
- Probably does not support CDisplay
- It’s still the first version so will have a lot of limitations/bugs
- It’s ecosystem is too closed for comfort or usage
- It’s too expensive
Well, that’s a long post. Long by recent standards so I’ll close this now. More coming later.
Ps. Yes, I use a lot of parenthesis.
Heroes Episode 20 – A Critique
Warning: This post will likely contain spoilers though I will try to keep them to a minimum.
The previous Heroes episode, #20 – “Five Years Gone” along with #19 – “.07%” made a lot of plot lines clear and also gave a sort of future direction to the series. Sort of because due to the time traveling Hiro, the future can potentialy be affected so it can be “retconned” (okay I don’t know the right word but you get the meaning right? ;) )
That brings me to the main point I want to put across here. Episode 20 depicts the time traveling Hiro and Ando going 5 years into the future (Hiro again makes an error and lands there). The world is very different and the people are very different, having changed a lot in the past 5 years.
But that is the main problem with messing with time and the future. Now either Tim Kring (The series creator) will use Hiro’s ability to change the future by changing the past which is the present in actuality (did someone actually understand this sentence?) and thus “retcon” the future into a different future.
Additionally, with so many characters in Heroes, hence so many parallel story threads, the entire storyline can get confusing for viewers. While it has been fine so far, I hope it does not happen in the future and the director keeps a firm grasp on the various threads and the time traveling stories.
Oh and Tim, please please please bring Isaac back to life. He was one of my favorite characters, especially with his conflicts and struggles.
Thus speaketh