If I Had A Sidebar

Ripping off, er, I mean, borrowing an idea from Tom the Dog, I'm going to discuss several of the nice little pieces of pop culture I've been enjoying - luckily, tomorrow, paycheck + tax refund = purchasing obscene amounts of comics and pork rinds. So, since I don't have a real life yet (although ladies, trust me, I'm available, and I can give up the pork rinds), here are my substitutes:

Reading: Just finished Bob Spitz's biography of the Beatles, and let me tell you - this is probably one of the best biographies I have read. If you think you know the Beatles (and there are two guys who do), this book does a really thorough job in presenting the dynamics of the Fab Four, and it reads like really good fiction. Yes, you may think you know what's coming, but quite frankly - it is a good, thorough read. Definitely recommended.

I'm also enjoying weekly installments of Hound of the Baskervilles through Stanford's Discovering Sherlock Holmes series. Trust me, folks - Holmes rocks.

Netflixing: First, saw Serenity last weekend on DVD, while visiting Mom in Chicago. Now, let me get this straight - Firefly, a quality show, gets canceled, but American Idol stays on the air. What brand of crack are Fox network executives smoking?

My personal wish - Serenity spawns a series of made-for-DVD movies, which means - never gonna happen. Nope. Nada.

Also caught Doctor Who: The Claws of Axos - when I first saw it in high school, I thought it was pretty darn lame - rubbery monsters, bad sets, but now, I can recognize it for a pretty strong edition in the Pertwee era. Nothing horrible (although I really wish Terror of the Autons would come out on DVD - much better Delgado story), but this story only proves that DW did for British science fiction what Dark Shadows did for American soap operas.

(In addition, one of the bonus features talks about why American videos don't play on British VCRS, and vice versa. Pretty interesting stuff.)

Decision To Be Made: Whether to encourage the organizers of the SLACO Conference to take a field trip to learn more about the zombie menace.

Crushing on: Cynthia Watros, but of course, I have to admit, I like bad girls.