Mini Reviews

Okay, still having trouble coming up with something of substance to talk about. So a few quick reviews:

Smallville I'm not a huge fan of the whole Indian mythology/spirituality sub-plot. But I got over that long enough to really enjoy last week's episode (finally got caught up on my back episodes of everything but Alias). Lots o' action. And some great insight into Lex--esp. the Lex of the future. In his mind he's not evil, he's the "thorn in the flesh" that keeps ol' Supes from being too powerful (y'know Power tends to corrupt, Absolute power tends to ...). Oh, yeah, and an actual sub-plot with Chole and Pete (mostly Pete) that has nothing to do with the green rock, Clark, or someone's impending death. Cue Keanu Reeves: "Whoa."

The finale they're leading up to is gonna rock.

Wire Good, strong album. Nothing fantastic. But a whole lot better than Come Together. Not as good as Conspiracy No. 5 or Time.

Tricky Business In his book about computers, Dave Barry closes with this short story about a couple on the verge of cyber adultery. It was, as I recall, sweet, honest and well told. I do remember being very surprised. So then a couple of years later when his first novel is published I was very intruiged. Intruiged but broke. Finally got the chance to get my hands on it at the library a couple of months ago. It abso-smufing-lutely blew me away. Hilarious, tight plot, great characters, suspense...it was perfect. So, now I get my hands on his second novel. Not perfect.
The plot wasn't as tight, well--the plot might have been, but it got out of control. The characters were just as strong, just too darn many of them. We got little sips of characters we should've had gallons of. Still very funny, and worth more time and effort in reading than anything Robert B. Parker's put out in a couple of years.