First, a bit about LAST week. Playing for Keeps, the superhero podcast, came to a thunderous end last Thursday. If you’ve been hesitating to start it, wanting to wait until it was done, well, it’s done, so enjoy.

Drew and I went to see Jumper Saturday. It doesn’t have much to do with the book. Among the things we don’t find out are: how people can have a high speed teleporting car race through the center of Tokyo without anyone noticing, what happened to the other Jumper, how many Jumpers are there, why don’t their paladins wear plate armor, why don’t you always make some false jumps to throw off the trail before making your final jump so psycho paladins with machines that can open the jump scars you leave can’t follow you, why don’t Jumpers get wealthy by “jump” starting a new business teleporting people and goods around (as the ‘jumpers’ in Kevin O’Donnell Jr.’s “McGill Feighan” books did). After awhile, the movie ends somewhere in the middle of the story.

I did like the original Stephen Gould book, though. I haven’t read the sequel.

The writer’s strike is over, but we won’t be seeing new episodes of anything soon. Heroes has been picked up for a third season, which means, no more Heroes until the fall.

American Idol is down to their top 24 and I’m not really excited by many. I felt too many of last year’s contestants showed no spark of originality in them at all, the winner included. At least Blake Lewis reinvented Bon Jovi in an amazing way, but that turned out to be a fluke. I’ll still be watching, even though the whole idea of a showcase for amateur singers, somewhat bent last year by two professional backup singers, and now destroyed by people who have been successful professional singers in the past, kinda makes me wonder if the show has lost its reason to exist.

Tuesday is Jericho. Last week, the US Army, Cheyenne version, came and quieted the war between Jericho and New Berm. Because I am borderline retarded, it didn’t occur to me until I rewatched it that the whole series is about 9/11. Well, DUH! you scream. You figured that out from the first commercial break from the very first show last year. Me, well, it took me a little longer.

What if the government was using a terrorist attack in order to have an excuse to turn the US into a totalitarian nation? And instead of waiting for an appropriate attack, made one of its own?

insert paranoid 9/11 conspiracy theories here

Just because you’re paranoid, remember, doesn’t mean they’re not after you.

Anyway, moving on to Thursday, and Lost. Last week, we learned that Sayid, in the future, off the island, becomes a paid assassin for evil “Other”, Ben. Wha-HUH? Butbutbut… Yeah, we know Ben can leave the island whenever he wants. The boat people want Ben. Everyone wants Ben. Who the hell IS he? Thursday, you’ll find me in front of the TV.

No more Battlestar Galactica or Doctor Who until next month. Grrr. I want them now.

I finished Perdido Street Station over the weekend. So what to read next… well, Amazon sent me a little letter wondering if I might enjoy reading Iain M. Banks’ “Matter”? Well, of COURSE I would. I also got “Feersum Enjin” again; that book was a victim to my Great Monterey Book Purge and I hope is enriching some library patron’s life back there. I could have sworn I kept back all my Banks books, but apparently not, and I have been slowly buying them all a second time.

In between, I’m rereading some older books. Midway through Julian May’s Pliocene/time travel/psychic elves from space epic, “The Many-Coloured Land”. I was such a big fan of this series back in the day. I even wrote a filk song about it. Oh yes, I was a HUGE filker. All I can remember now is the chorus: “The Pliocene is a lonely place without you, Genevieve.”

I would love to have all my old writings. I think I stored them on those Bernoulli disks I have in a box, but I remember I password protected them, lord knows why, and now I have no idea what the password is. Or how the heck to read a Bernoulli disk. That was formatted for the Mac SE/30. So: because I wrote on the computer, all my songs and unpublished stories are gone, gone, gone. Well, the stories weren’t that great. I’m a better writer now.

Probably going to the Bronx next weekend, so not much gaming or TV watching. Well, there will be Guitar Hero, I think :) And whatever Korean soaps Genj has for us. But there may be something happening with Drew Tuesday which could shake up all those plans, so who knows?