I am a TV addict

Currently following,

On TV:

1. The Good Wife, Ch 17

2. Glee, Ch 18

3. 90210, Ch 18

4. Terroir, Ch 56

CSI: Miami has ended and CSI is coming back after CNY... however, I felt something is lacking after Grissom left, like it has somehow lost it's directions.

On DVD:

1. Brothers & Sisters, Season 3

2. Bones, Season 4 (it's finally out on rental)

Books read 2009, Total 67

The total no. of physical books actually adds up to less than 67. However, since I read a couple of books that has 2 separate books bound as one, I counted that as a separate book instead.

66/67. Christmas Wishes: Christmas Letters\Rainy Day Kisses, Debbie Macomber

64/65. The Gift: Home For Christmas\All I Want For Christmas, Nora Roberts

63. Just Take My Heart, Mary Higgins Clark

62. A Single Thread, Marie Bostwick

61. Once in a Lifetime, Cathy Kelly

60. Wings: more than 50 high flying recipes for America, Debbie Moose - CB

59. The Pearl Diver, Sujata Masey - R

58. The Floating Girl, Sujata Massey - R

57. The Flower Master, Sujata Massey - R

56. Zen Attitude, Sujata Massey - R

55. The Salaryman's Wife, Sujata Massey -R

54. Madness: A Biploar Life, Marya Hornbacher -Bio

53. The Omega-3 Connection, Andrew L Stoll MD - NF

52."The Perfect Christmas","Debbie Macomber"

51."Gabriel's Angel","Nora Roberts"

49/50."First Impressions: First Impressions\Blithe Images","Nora Roberts"

48."Divine Evil","Nora Roberts"

47."The Neighbor","Lisa Gardner"

46."Smash Cut","Sandra Brown"

44/45."Be My Valentine: My Funny Valentine\My Hero","Debbie Macomber"

42/43."Wyoming Brides: Denim and Diamonds\The Wyoming Kid","Debbie Macomber"

41."Sooner or Later LP","Debbie Macomber"

40."Homeport","Nora Roberts"

39."Practically Perfect","Katie Fforde"

37/38."Two Of A Kind: Impulse\The Best Mistake (Mira Hardbacks)","Nora Roberts"

36."Ghost Moon","Karen Robards",

35."Body Double (Jane Rizzoli, Book 4)","Tess Gerritsen"

34."Red Lily (In the Garden, Book 3)","Nora Roberts"

33."Black Rose: In the Garden Trilogy (In the Garden)","Nora Roberts"

32."Blue Dahlia(In the Garden, Book 1)","Nora Roberts"

31."Shanghai Girls: A Novel","Lisa See"

29/30."Married In Seattle: First Comes Marriage\Wanted: Perfect Partner","Debbie Macomber"

28."Poppy Done to Death: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery","Charlaine Harris"

27."The Apprentice (Jane Rizzoli, Book 2)","Tess Gerritsen"

26."Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries, Book 1)","Charlaine Harris"

25."If You Live Like Me","Lori Weber"

24."Morning Comes Softly (Harper Monogram)","Debbie Macomber"

23."The Killing Hour","Lisa Gardner"

22."Hide","Lisa Gardner"

21."Looking for Peyton Place: A Novel","Barbara Delinsky"

20."Gone","Lisa Gardner"

19."Chesapeake Blue (Quinn Brothers)","Nora Roberts"

18."Inner Harbor: The Chesapeake Bay Saga #3 (Quinn Brothers)","Nora Roberts",

17."Rising Tides: The Chesapeake Bay Saga #2 (The Quinn Brothers Trilogy)","Nora Roberts",

16."Sea Swept: The Chesapeake Bay Saga #1 (Chesapeake Bay Mysteries)","Nora Roberts"

15."The Surgeon: A Novel","Tess Gerritsen"

14."Knit Two: A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel","Kate Jacobs"

13."The Friday Night Knitting Club","Kate Jacobs"

12."Key of Valor","Nora Roberts","0515136530"

11."Key of Knowledge","Nora Roberts"

10."Key of Light","Nora Roberts"

9. "Say Goodbye","Lisa Gardner"

8. "Blue Smoke and Murder","Elizabeth Lowell"

7. "Meet Me in Venice","Elizabeth Adler"

6. "Tribute","Nora Roberts"

5. "Midnight Bayou","Nora Roberts",

4. "Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity","Michael Lewis" - NF

3. "Out of the Blue","Belinda Jones"

2. "Girl in a Box (Rei Shimura Mysteries)","Sujata Massey"

1. "Where Are You Now?: A Novel","Mary Higgins Clark"

Tidied

I am a magazine junkie and I love to have books around me all the time. Last week, mum and I went to Ikea and bought this pretty pink box to organise my magazines and stuffs next to my bedside table. I need to clear more old magazines and sell them to the karang guni uncle and tell myself not to buy another more.. but.. I always fail to do so (Ha!).

And on the left of the picture, there's a stack of books from the library and 4 on loan from Ron. I'm pretty slow at reading this month as I'm occupied by other stuffs, mainly TV series and DVDs and shopping (!).

I hope to up my total no. of books this year to 70. Managed to read around 66 books last year and it's an improvement from 2008. I noticed that I tend to read more books in the middle part of the year. I hope to read some Non Fiction as well, though I tend to get bored after awhile. Reading is good for my brain and it's one of the medium that can take you to another continent, another era and to the world of imaginations (kind of like TV), but it encourages innovation and spurs one to think further and reflect on our lives and hope and be encouraged that things are more than what is seen usually. It brings you to the world where no one would laugh at you when you believe fairies or a different world existed, or there's a thing known as fairy powder or strength and belief in self would over come all adversity. 

Life is good when you stay away from cynical people.

The Lodger

The Lodger is a great movie! It's full of suspense and the filming style is really the work of an artist. The dark, gloomy set, music and visual plays with the story line and created a film that was interpreted from the point of the viewers. From the start, I suspected who the killer was, but somewhere in the middle, I begin to suffer self doubt and wonders if it's too easy. Well, it was easy for me, but not so for the rest of the cast for they kept getting thrown off course and are deceived & misled by the murderer & clues.

Scenes were subjectivity played and viewers were encouraged to experience and feel what they want to feel. Scared, fear, sad, attracted, pity and even admiration for the murderer. Unlike Saw, blood and gore was not the lead, instead scenes were artistically filmed with intent of the murder that is happening. Through it, the viewers understand through the struggles, dragging of feet & blood trickling down the high heels, that the victim has died.

It's a great film! I watched mainly for Simon Baker (The Mentalist) but was amazed by Hope Davis the landlady. I hope for more art house film noir experience.

Amazon Review:

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Jack’s back, more or less, in The Lodger, a cleverly-plotted thriller-cum-horror story sporting a good cast and a nicely ominous vibe throughout. When Los Angeles Detective Chandler Manning (Alfred Molina) arrives at the scene of a prostitute’s grisly murder, the clues look awfully familiar. Seven years earlier, Manning had helped send to Death Row a killer whose M.O. was identical not only to this one, but also to that of the notorious Jack the Ripper, who terrorized 19th-century London but was never identified, let alone caught. Is this new monster, who goes on to kill several more defenseless hookers, a copycat? Or could it mean that the wrong man paid the ultimate price for the earlier crimes? Meanwhile, Joe and Ellen Bunting (Donal Logue and Hope Davis) rent out a room to a "writer" named Malcolm (Simon Baker), whose weird habits make him an obvious suspect. But there are several others as well, including Joe, who works as a security guard while Ellen nurses her active and rather twisted imagination, and even Det. Manning, a loose cannon type who may be a Jack the Ripper authority but whose life is a mess, what with an institutionalized wife and a daughter who blames him for her mother’s affliction. Adapted from a novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, this tale was turned into a silent film by Alfred Hitchcock way back in 1927 and has been remade several times since. No one will confuse David Ondaatje, who wrote and directed this version, with Hitchcock, and those familiar with the genre will have little trouble predicting how it all turns out. Nonetheless, The Lodger is a good ride, guilty pleasure or not. --Sam Graham

The Closer & Castle

I love watching crime series, enjoyed how analytical and composed the polices detectives and investigators remains in times of danger and how in some episodes, the criminals out smart the investigators and escaping from the arms of justice.

Some criminals are so cocky and mean and so senseless in their violence that I wished they are shot instead of being arrested and further wasting the entire nation's times and resources. 

The Closer is one series that I've enjoyed watching on DVD with hubby. It's old fashioned interrogation and detective works. No mind boggling machines, DNA and computer ( We laugh when Tao swabs a suspect for gun powder residue- very unlike how our CSI teams does it). The interaction between the cast is very believable and human, the jokes are funny and I love how they do it with deadpan humor. There's only 15 episodes in this series and I'm so sad to complete it. I want MORE!

It's into season 4 and I hope hollywoodclicks would continue bring season 5 in.

Another new series to talk about. CASTLE. Chanced it on Starworld (CH18) and I'm hooked!

Here's a review from Amazon:

Amazon.com

One of the best shows to emerge midway through the 2008-2009 TV season, Castle has a cast and a sense of humor that set it apart from the normal police procedural. Nathan Fillion plays Rick Castle, a bestselling author of pulpy crime novels who's called in to assist the New York police when a serial killer begins committing copycat murders based on situations in his books. Castle helps crack the case, then decides to kill off his longtime character and create a new one, named "Nikki Heat," and research her by shadowing Det. Kate Beckett (Stana Katic). Much to her irritation, he pulls strings with the mayor's office to embed himself in the department, and helps her solve a wide range of whodunits, including a woman drowned in a bath tub full of motor oil, another frozen and suspended at a construction site, and a corpse stuck in a clothes dryer. To alleviate the grim proceedings, Fillion is in his element as the wisecracking Castle, while adding another ray of sunshine is Castle's impossibly likeable teenage daughter, Alexis (Molly Quinn), who lives with Castle and his mom (Susan Sullivan), a former Broadway star. Castle's circle of poker buddies includes veteran TV writer-producer Stephen J. Cannell and author James Patterson playing themselves. Like many (or most) he-and-she cop shows, there's an element of "Will they or won't they…?", but the beautiful Katic keeps Castle at bay by radiating cool. Clearly she's a woman who wants to separate herself from her emotionally draining and predominantly male job, so it makes it all the more enjoyable when she momentarily steps out of that mode, such as an impromptu appearance at his book signing. Much to the relief of Fillion fans who feared their man was a show killer after the aborted runs of such shows as Firefly and Drive, Castle was renewed for a second, full season. --David Horiuchi

The writing is good, lots of twist in each episodes and I enjoyed Castle's (Nathan Fillion) quick witted humour and sardonic jokes. And I think Det Kate is so pretty! Actress Stana Katic kinda of reminds me of The OC's Misha Barton when I first saw her. The characters are what make or break a series.

I'm so thankful to know that there's a season 2 because season 1 has only 10 episodes and it ended last Thursday.

There's also a book out - Heatwave by Richard Castle (to tie in with the show)

Here's a video highlighting season 1.

There's another detective series on Tuesday (CH5) at 12am. Titled Women's Murder club. It's not a great show adn it was cancelled only after 13 episodes. Loosely based on James Patterson's books characters, it tries to hard to be a soap series/ police drama. Each episodes are peppered with love stories of each characters and the highlights of the police cases are very few. I'm not to bummed that it was cancelled, but I watched it just for fun.

One down

Yay! I've completed reading Christmas Wishes by Debbie Macomber this morning!

2 more uncompleted books to go...

Current Stall

I wish I can get myself out of this rut and start reading again. I have no idea why but I can't seem to get into the books recently. Maybe it's my choice of books or I'm just more inclined towards TV land recently.

I currently have 3 books on hand that are bookmarked in the middle and I can't seem to move forward with the book. Oooh, I desperately want to finish it. So far there's only 1 book that I have picked and read last month that I'm not interested in and I gave it up totally.

My 3 books:

1. Body Double by Tess Gerristen

This was the book that I read during my flight to Japan and it was so riveting that I couldn't put it down. Unfortunately it's in my cupboard and I have no idea who is the person who looks like Dr Maura and how she died.

2. Once in a Lifetime by Cathy Kelly

Just got stuck and can't moved on, the characters are pretty bland. The book is on my kitchen table.

3. Christmas Wishes by Debbie Macomber

Maybe because Christmas is over? 

I started on another book today in BK while waiting for Purplecreme- Deep South by Nevada Barr

I'm hoping this will help me get over my current stall.

It's all set!

I have been toying with the idea of setting up a book cum TV & Movie blog. Not for reviews but just for my own personal listing and future references.

So I will list books that I have read but I don't think I will be reviewing them. I'm not good at reviewing stuffs, it's more of whether I enjoyed reading it & whether I will read it again. Ditto for movies and TV serials.