(no subject)

So I should have done something useful, liked worked on a presentation, or at least read my adviser's comments on Monster Chapter Draft, but instead, I reread Amulet of Samarkand (found a brand new hardback for a dollar: I like Bartimaeus a lot, and I had forgotten how much I like how Nathaniel is done) and watched "Kings." (Isn't an hour and half kind of long for a television episode? Or is it so long because it's the first one? I don't have much experience with television.) It is pretty silly: everyone wanders around hitting all of the current issues in a "West Wing with a Monarchy" way, and then randomly break into quasi-Biblical speech (or maybe actually Biblical? If I knew my King James Old Testament, I might be able to recognize lines.) I suppose they were trying to cram all the plot points into the first episode, but it was a little scattershot: one minute it's healthcare, and the next it is military pragmatism vs. idealism, and meanwhile we're talking about religion in public life, and OH HAI Evil Corporate Representative of the Military Industrial Complex except no, it's actually about homosexuality. I do not need a distraction like this right now.