so its fall

and usually, this time of year I get excited about the fall premiere of new and returning TV shows. This year, I haven't been keyed up per say. Indifferent might be the better word. Although, I did read an episode summary of Chuck, I've yet to download Monday's episode. And, I'm happy that Alex O'Loughlin is back on television (Moonlight was such a guilty pleasure), but I haven't seen the rebooted Hawaii Five-O either.

Instead, I've been intrigued by a UK mystery series called Murder in Suburbia. The series follows two female detectives, "Ash" and "Scribbs," as they solve murders in (you guessed it) suburban England. But, the actresses make their characters a delight to watch as they banter with one another. I've also watched part of an Australian series called Rain Shadow that's good as well. Its about two female veterinarians in the Australian outback. Kate is the seasoned veteran and Jill is her new apprentice from the city.

On the movie front, there are only few upcoming ones in theaters that I'm interested in seeing like Red and Secretariat next month and Morning Glory in November. But, I might just wait until they come on DVD.

so I watched Flipped

and it was good. It captured the themes from the book of growing up, falling in love, and becoming a person of integrity. I thought that Flipped was worth the price of admission, but when the credits rolled, I wondered if I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't read the book beforehand. Guess I'll never know unless I find a Tardis to take me back in time. That's my clue that I'm still watching Doctor Who. It's my default show to watch if I don't have any movies from the library to watch. Although, I'm getting more curious to see the 5 season along with the BBC Sherlock series. They don't come on DVD until November so I have to wait a bit, yet.

I did read another one of Regina Doman's books - The Midnight Dancers. Before I read it, I was thinking about e-mailing Doman and asking her to write a book about Paul Fester - a character from Waking Rose. Then I started The Midnight Dancers and found out that Paul was in it. It had a satisfying conclusion, but I was annoyed that the main character, Rachel Durham, didn't see Paul's fabulous qualities until the last 30 pages or so. Of course, I might be slightly biased because I really liked Paul in Waking Rose.

what do I say

I kind of shocked. The town where I live now has an Indian restaurant, and the one movie theater in town is actually showing Flipped this week-end. I'm kind of wondering what shoe is going to drop next, but maybe I shouldn't since curiosity did kill the cat.
So back to the stuff that I know..Regina Doman's books have been entertaining me. Although The Shadow Of the Bear and Alex O'Donnell and the 40 CyberThieves were great, I think Waking Rose has been my favorite so far. Although, there's two more books left in the series to read.
I never thought I'd enjoy watching Inspector Lewis since I usually not a fan of mysteries, but I caught an episode while I was on vacation. The mystery part of it intrigued me, and I thought Lewis' deputy was kind of hot. Ironically, the actor that plays him (Laurence Fox) is married in real life to Billie Piper who played Rose in Doctor Who. So I haven't quite left the Doctor Who rabbit hole. Of course, my escape from the hole might be easier if I wasn't re-watching seasons 1 through 4 and eagerly waiting the arrival of series 5 on DVD. And, I'm also excited for the new Sherlock series coming to PBS in October that was written by (you guessed it) two writers from Doctor Who.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse score is growing on me. I think that's mainly because the composer (Howard Shore) also composed the music for The Lord of the Rings movies. Overall, I think the Twilight Saga movies would be a lot better if they had the same composer doing the scores for all of them. I really liked Carter Burwell's score of Twilight because it had haunting melodies and used unique sounds. New Moon and Eclipse use more traditional sounding scores that you would hear in a epic movies. Not to say they were bad, its just after hearing the score from Twilight, the juxtaposition between it and them bothered me so much that it distracted me while watching New Moon. (I've yet to see Eclipse.)

rafting along

Last month, I went rafting for the day with my family. It was a guided tour and a lot of fun even though I was soaked during the entire excursion. Of course, the wet part mainly came from sitting in the front of the raft for the first part of the trip. And, the second part of the trip (even though I was at the back of the raft) came from falling in the water.
Sitting at the front of the raft, though, was a rush because I could see what was ahead of the river. But, I had to remain alert. My dad and I were the front two rowers so we set the pace for the rowers behind us. It took a few rapids to get in sync, but then we managed to have the same rhythm.
The falling off the boat part happened quick. We were going through a series of rapids (one class IV and the rest class III). The guide in the back was yelling, "All forward, all forward" so I was focused on matching the strokes of the people in front of me. It took watching the video of the trip to see what happened. The boat became unbalanced, and my side was the one that gravity was pulling down to the water. And, gravity won because I was in the water, and when I came to the surface (thank you life-jacket), the guide was there holding out the paddle. I wish I could say that I got back in the boat as quickly as I fell out. I was one of three people (my mom and another passenger on our side of the boat were the others) to get dunked. 3 people + 3 paddles = 3x the maneuvering. But, we got back in the boat and paddled some more as a team.
Since I went rafting, the part of me that likes to connect things together (particularly similar items) has tried to find something in my life that could compare to my rafting experience.
The first thing that came to mind was skydiving because going over the rapids gave me the same rush as falling out of an airplane. And, I had the same feeling of being alive after surviving both of them. However, I was struck more by what my parents and I, a guide, and two complete strangers accomplished as a team. We rafted 13 miles together. And, a lot the times we didn't quite know what was coming (the guide did - although having 3 people fall out of his raft was a first for him), but we paddled when the instructed. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I enjoyed the journey. In some ways, I don't want to directly apply my rafting experience to my life because I think it would water it down. So I'm not going to use it as a cheesy metaphor. Instead, it's a memory - one that I shared with my parents, a knowledgeable river guide, and two other passengers.