Quick TV-watching notes

I’ve been meaning to do an update of shows I’ve been following –What’s great, what’s good, what’s just “meh,” and what truly stinks– but I never seem to get around to it. So, as a placeholder, here are a few stray thoughts about shows on the air right now (and not on hiatus):

My favorite: Covert Affairs. Great writing and characters, and a change from the usual cop or lawyer drama. The most intriguing character this season so far is Kari Matchett’s “Joan Campbell.” Basically, I think she’s the one caught in the middle of all that’s going on and she has a baby on the way. That spells “wild card.”

Good, but not great: The Bridge. A little slow moving, lacks the wit in its writing of other FX shows — Justified and The Americans, for example. Best element for me so far has been Demian Bichir as Chihuahua State Police Detective “Marco Ruiz.” This guy is a very good actor. Hopefully the second half of the season will have a strong payoff.

How did these get renewed? Rizzoli and Isles and King & Maxwell. The first has been renewed for a fifth season, while the latter was picked up for a a second. I just don’t get it. Both have likeable characters, yes, but the writing is weak and the stories… superficial and often dumb. And each could be so much better.

I’ve heard very good things about Breaking Bad and The Good Wife, but have never watched them. Might try to catch up via Amazon Instant Video.

How I rank the networks? Bet you can guess:

1. F/X
2. USA
3. TNT
4. CBS

More when I can get to it.

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With a name like “Veal,” this was inevitable

“Say, you look tasty!”

Janet Veal, Reclusive Cat Owner, ‘Gnawed And Eaten’ By Pets After She Dies

The body of a reclusive British woman was “gnawed and eaten” by her starving pets after she died, according to a coroner’s inquest.

By the time British police discovered the body of Janet Veal, she’d apparently been dead for as long as three months. Her house made for a grim scene, littered with the carcasses of numerous pet cats and dogs that had been confined in the house and died of apparent starvation.

But then investigators discovered something worse: Veal’s remaining cats had survived by feeding on her corpse.

“Certain parts of Mrs. Veal’s body were missing and had… effectively been gnawed and eaten away by the animals,” Coroner Keith Wiseman said in Southampton Coroner’s Court.

Sure they waited until she was dead. Uh-huh. Sure.

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News I didn’t expect to see this morning

“He did WHAT??”

Apparently some in Australia have a different idea of “fun”…

Doctors have operated on a 70-year-old man to remove a fork from his penis.

The patient went to hospital in Canberra, Australia, in agony after jamming the 10cm piece of cutlery into his appendage for sexual pleasure.

I’ll let you click through for the X-ray, with appropriate warnings for the squeamish.

Owwww……

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The Gong Farmer: A Career for WFRP 1, 2, and 3

My friend Graeme wrote up a new career for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, my favorite fantasy RPG. It’s not official, but it’s definitely a career I’d want to play. I mean, a career in which becoming a beggar is considered a step up? Love it.

Graeme Davis

I was recently at an SCA event, where I heard the medieval term “gong farmer” used to describe those valiant and unsung heroes who empty and maintain the Portajohns (known within the SCA as “Portacastles”). Through some wierd mental process, this got me thinking about gong farmer as a WFRP career. In many ways it’s tailor-made for the grubby and malodorous Old World setting.

What follows is a mental doodle as much as anything, but I also wanted to see how easy it would be to create a career for all three editions of WFRP: from the ground up, rather than simply adapting from one edition to another. I wrote it for my own amusement and not for GW or Fantasy Flight, so it’s not to be regarded as in any way official. Even so, I hope WFRP fans out there find it useful, or at least interesting.

The Gong…

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Gripes

So, I nearly get run over twice this morning on my way to the bus to work. First by an idiot bicyclist who comes up behind me and does nothing to signal she’s there. If I had taken one half step to the right at the wrong time, she’d have taken my knee out.

Note to bicycle-riders:  you do not own the right of way. You may feel virtuous for being healthy and saving the Earth or whatever, you may be hugging yourself and kissing the mirror in self-delight, but you are still riding a vehicle that can cause injury. Keep it on the street where it belongs, not the sidewalk. And if you can’t, at least have the courtesy to signal!

The other incident was the usual moron turning right but not looking right, thus not noticing the pedestrian on the curb, because said moron is too busy watching traffic on his left. I really think I should have the right to fire an incendiary round into the gas tanks of said morons

This has been your public-service gripe of the day.

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Okay, so I’m having nightmares for the next week

And you have to suffer with me. Presenting “The Creepiest Collection Of Doll Photos Ever Assembled”

Here’s just one:

Why, yes. I do have a mild phobia about dolls coming to life. Don’t you?

PS:  In case you still doubt dolls are evil.

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And now, the Molotov Cocktail Gatling Launcher

Can I have one? Pleeeeaaaase? I promise to use it only in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

Or a day ending in “y.”

Let’s see, mount it on the back of a truck and….

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