From my GR review:

I loved this. Loved it. Humorous, sharp and clever – unabashedly picking apart the idea of free will, destiny, religion and divine intervention with fantastic action and dialogue. One of my favorites:

“The bullet, having thoroughly enjoyed this hole-punching business, proceeded to punch holes in the windows of four nearby cars, finally coming to rest on page 328 of a dog-eared copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, which is 186 pages further than anyone else had ever gotten.”

It begins with a reporter who’s spent her professional career following Apocalypse cults and reporting on them for a Christian publication and spirals into the actual mechanics of the impending Apocalypse and how she’s managed to trip into it. There’s a spectacular Antichrist, Angels of dubious allegiance and intelligence, plenty of Twilight allusions and frankly, it was one of the funniest breakneck reads I’ve had in ages. I loved it so much I plowed through it all in the same day.

Rather than the staples coming out next week, she gets to be FrankenDog for an additional 7 days.

In unrelated news, there is a trip to DC afoot! I am very excited as this is our first real travel since the NOLA conference *and* it’s to another awesome city where I *also* know awesome internet peoples. I love the web, y’all. It is no lie.

There’s also this weird thing where, when explaining internet friends to people who do not have internet friends, it feels like it devolves into a history of how I am an internet nerd. Probably these days I should just say I met people on Facebook?

I’m not a particular fan of Nicholas Sparks and I know we’re all meant to swoon over the very first letter from Garrett but I’ll admit that the letter which really resonates for me is the one from Catherine:

To all the ships at sea, and all the ports of call. To my family and to all friends and strangers. This is a message, and a prayer.

The message is that my travels taught me a great truth. I already had what
everyone is searching for and few ever find. The one person in the world who I was born to love forever.

A person, like me, of the outer banks and the blue Atlantic mystery. A person rich in simple treasures. Self-made. Self-taught. A harbor where I am forever home. And no wind, or trouble or even a little death can knock down this
house.

The prayer is that everyone in the world can know this kind of love and be healed by it. If my prayer is heard, there will be an erasing of all guilt and all regret and an end to all anger.

Please, God. Amen

Especially the bit about a little death. If your house can withstand that, you’ve built something good.

Yes. Really.

I remember when the show first started, I caught a couple of episodes and was pretty meh about it. It fell off my radar until right around the finale maybe? At that point, my lj buddy Roniabirk was HOLY SHITTING all over the place about how awesome it was (season 1? season 2? I feel like it was maybe season 2). At her urging, I went back and watched the entire season 2 including, no lie, one of the most holyshitterific finales I’ve seen and lo- the show made it onto my DVR queue this season.

It is one of my favorite shows because you literally never know what is going to happen. No one is safe. There is clever dialogue and age-appropriate pop culture references. There are (of course) pretty people (it IS the CW). It’s darkly funny and as previously mentioned, excellently paced. It is some of the most fun on TV.

That said, one of my other favorite things about this show is the recaps done by Jenny at Forever Young Adult, in no small part due to the ohshitometer which is possibly the best invention in television reviews of all time. Fair warning, that recap is for the most recent episode. The recaps are just as clever as the show, chock full of non-target-audience-age-appropriate pop culture references and a drinking game guide in every one.

So yeah. You should be watching. It’s about 10 million miles better than Grey’s Anatomy.

Ides of March was solid, but I kind of feel like Clooney gets nominated for taking a shit these days. I mean, it was good but I don’t think it was better than State of Play (which got NO love when it came out). Evan Rachel Wood is pretty fantastic in a small part and everyone else is basically exactly as good as you think they’d be.

Shark Night. Oh, Shark Night. Where do I even BEGIN. This is the kind of movie that is best enjoyed with a pitcher of alcoholic beverages close at hand and a group of friends intent on shouting at the screen because it can be a drinking game on FIRST VIEWING. Drink when what you think will happen, happens!  It is positively chock full of every terrible movie cliche and stereotype and the two of us alternated predicting the next scene/action and shouting at the tv. It is hilariously awful and I can only assume the actors were playing it that way knowingly, otherwise I am VERY concerned for this Katherine McPhee tv show coming up. Also, when you rent the DVD (and you really should) you MUST watch through the credits for the cast-made RAP VIDEO. NO I AM NOT JOKING. Yes, my soul died just a little bit because Spouse insisted we watch it all the way through. It is a cherry on top of the godawful.

We watched The Debt the other day and I don’t think I wrote about it. I heard a review of it at some point that said “It feels like it should be better than it is” which is absolutely and utterly accurate. That is not to say there weren’t some great performances, because there were, or that the story wasn’t interesting (it was) but it was missing a little je ne sais quoi that would have made all the difference.

In the first week of the new year, we found out Piper had cancer. Mast cell cancer, which is vastly to be preferred over the osteocarcoma that our dog Lola developed. This week Piper had surgery to remove three lumps and the vet couldn’t locate her lymph node which seems to make a good case for it not being involved. All the lumps were subcutaneous, so there was no cutting of muscle tissue.

Piper has drugs and has had humans home with her all day for the last couple of days, so it’s safe to say she’s not that unhappy in her current circumstances. In two weeks the staples come out and in the meantime she’s taken JUST FINE, thankyouverymuch, to using a step stool to get on our bed. Also, peanut butter and bacon treats.

Midnight in Paris. I’d heard a lot of great things about this movie, which I would call solidly good. I’m not a huge Allen fan, as every single protag seems to always be him, but Owen Wilson made what could have been a ticky and annoying character mostly charming and affable. Rachel McAdams plays a perfect asshole. Perfect. The supporting cast did what it needed to do to support, but the bottom line is this movie is a love letter to Paris. I’m okay with that. It put me in mind of The Paris Wife (for obvious reasons) though I preferred that book to this film. If you’ve ever been to Paris, or ever wanted to go, you’ll probably enjoy this film.