When did I stop enjoying fireworks, How The Wire ruins television, and other musings

I can't remember the last time I went to see fireworks. Certainly the thought didn't even cross my mind this past weekend, which is weird, because I sort of remember actually really liking fireworks. I went way out of my way to go see them in San Francisco when I lived in San Jose eight years ago. But now, the thought of traffic and crowds and... actually, come to think of it, maybe it was that SF 4th of July that did it - the traffic getting out of their was a nightmare. Then a year or two after that I drove down to Santa Cruz with my friend Megan. We had a spa day and went down to the waterfront to see fireworks only to discover that there weren't any in the whole county because of wild fire concerns. I don't think I've tried to go again since.

Speaking of things ruining other things - last night I introduced a friend of mine to The Wire by watching the first three episodes of Season 1. Damn, that show is great. So afterwards we watched an episode of The Closer, which is a show I generally like a lot. But back to back, it was almost painful. Granted, it was a pretty crappy episode of The Closer, but the paper-thin characters, strained dialogue, and sheer Hollywoodness of it all really came through. There was a scene of a community meeting in a gang-ridden neighborhood and everyone looked like they were straight out of central casting. Not a one of them seemed like a genuine person. Compared this to the community meeting scenes in Season 3 of The Wire, and it's just night and day - or rather puppet show vs. actual storytelling. Not to knock puppet shows too much.

I'm thinking of trying to make my own pretzels. There are no good soft pretzels in this town - that stuff at the mall is like twisty breadsticks, not pretzels. I miss Berlin...

I've been playing Overlord 2, which is a very appealing, funny game that I should be enjoying a lot more than I am. I need to play it some more, but I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do so, which doesn't bode well for my coming review.

Speaking of reviews, I've read a couple of really good ones lately, so look for reviews of those this week. Also, I just got Charlie Stross' new novel, Wireless delivered to my Kindle, so that's up next.

Thus endeth my Tuesday, post long-weekend, random musings.