Your Friends and Neighbors

Back to the thumbnaily grind for a bit, and I'm fighting my usual urge to fill backgrounds with any old shit just to fill a blank space.

Watching:
24 season 8- I'm only two episodes in, but by christ you can tell Star Trek: Voyager's Brannon Braga is writing it: not a single character is spared from having to talk exposition to another, and it's not good telly. Jack is as entertaining as ever when spared this chore, obviously, lasting almost a full forty minutes in episode one before he axe-murders someone and throws the dude's bud down a stairway to his death as an afterthought. He barely notices it's happened and I'm probably imagining the look of disappointment on his face when he realises that the other guy is dead already.
Accidentally On Purpose - I've stopped watching a lot of shite in the current television season (Brothers, Hank, Flashforward, Heroes), so I'm at a loss as to why I'm still watching this. It's akin to being stabbed in the eye with a corkscrew... is the kind of thing I'd say for humourous effect, but of course it's nothing like that at all, it's just a not-very-funny sitcom that I can always choose not to watch that features an actress who left Ugly Betty to do this instead. I can't decide if that's failing up or failing down, because failing sideways isn't really failing as much as it is a steady career.
The Middle - also not terribly funny, but it does have the distinction of being one of the few new shows where I can remember the names of at least three of the cast through what I laughably refer to as my 'attention span', although Neil Flynn is a no-brainer as he was probably the most bearable part of Scrubs and it's pretty funny watching him play a part that requires him not to project an air of barely-restrained and deeply inappropriate hostility at all times, and I'm not actually sure if Eden Sher is the daughter or the eldest son, but I'm taking my victories where I can. I could Google that, but I'm not going to. It's funny in places, in fairness, and not to get too Norman Bates but there's something about Patricia Heaton's unnecessarily passive Mom that just begs to be repeatedly kicked up the arse - and in fairness life usually obliges, so possibly that's deliberate.

Reading... erm...