Saturday, January 15, 2005

So tonight, I keep catching kids trying to find ways to extend their time on the computer, whether it's using friends' library card numbers to sign on or whatever.  The last one, I just gave up and didn't say anything, because the computers are going to shut off in fifteen minutes anyway.
 
And why, oh why, does it always come as a freaking shock to the kids when I tell them they need to leave the privacy screens on their computers, when the screens clearly have "Do not remove privacy screens" on them?  God...
 
So, let's talk about TV... Medium, the new show on Monday nights with Patricia Arquette, is turning out to be pretty good.  I had expected the show to fall into a "psychic-solves-murder-of-the-week" formula after the pilot, but the second episode was all about her using her powers to help select a jury.  Who knew?  Apparently, the ratings were as good the second week as on the first, so hopefully, it'll stick around.
 
Another new favorite: Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, Tuesdays on BBC America.  Each week, foul-mouthed, pull-no-punches chef Gordon Ramsey turns up at an ailing restaurant and works with the staff to improve its fortunes.  Thanks to Steve (a commercial kitchen vet) for recommending this to me.  It's interesting from the kitchen/cooking standpoint, but I'm also trying to take team-building and leadership lessons from the show.
 
And MI-5 has returned to A&E!  While it's definitely the case that this series has gotten... looser as the seasons have worn on, I'm still getting a bigger kick out of it than most US shows.  (The problem, as I see it, is that they felt the need to make the second season "bigger" than the first.  Now that we're in the third season, I'm almost expecting a musical episode, to paraphrase Jonathan Morris' review in the Judge Dredd Megazine.)  As of two weeks or so from now, the first two seasons will be available on DVD in the US, and A&E seems to be rerunning the earlier episodes on Saturday afternoons, as well.  (The new ones air Saturday night.)  Between this on Saturday and SciFi on Friday, who needs a life outside the house?
 
Let's see... currently reading Guardian Angel by Stephanie Bedwell-Grime.  It's a humorous fantasy adventure about a guardian angel who loses a soul to Hell, and helps set off a sequence of events that lead to Hell becoming the majority stockholder in Heaven.  It's very much fluff, which puts it on a par with most of everything else I read.  Fun fluff, though.
 
Oh, how cute.  The kids all took the privacy screens off their computers when they logged off.  God, I hate this job sometimes...
 
 

Monday, January 10, 2005