I finished watching season 2 of The League of Gentlemen last weekend. It didn't have quite as clear a through-line as the first season, so I think it stumbled a bit in the first couple of episodes, but then it picks up nicely. I was wondering if it was just that it had been a while since I'd seen the first series, so I'd forgotten how weird it is. But there aren't as many of the little random bits (like the thing with the scarecrow in the first series) and I really like that kind of random weirdness, so I don't think it was just having a long gap between watching the seasons. Anyway, the season's plot eventually turns out to involve the mysterious meat-ring run by the butcher. And there's a cliffhanger ending, which is always exciting.

Oh, and that reminds me, for no clear reason... a while back I got through season 3 of The Shield. And it redeemed season 2, which I'd been slightly disappointed by when I saw it. Basically most of the storylines are ongoing fallout from the evens of season 2.

Mugga's also introduced me to the wonders of Chris Morris in Brass Eye and Jam. Describing either one is a little tricky. If you've ever been offended by anything at all in the world, Morris is probably not for you. Brass Eye is a little easier to take; it's sort of what The Daily Show would be if they took months to write a single episode. And if, instead of doing faux-serious interviews with small-town weirdoes about their pet causes, they did faux-serious interviews with public figures. Oh, so if you like Da Ali G Show, you might like it, since this is pretty clearly where his premise comes from. If it gives you any idea, an MP introduced legislation into Parliament to ban a drug that was made up by Morris. He was a little pissed off about it afterwards. It's brilliant.

Jam is much, much stranger. In every way. I suppose it's technically sketch comedy. But the material frequently involves dead children, dead animals, rape, torture, and child abuse. Like I said, if you can be offended, this'll probably do it, so while I enjoyed it, it's certainly not for everyone.

Oh man. Woody Harrelson's on Letterman. And he's on other things as well.

Because of very, very stupid circumstances, I've had no phone or internet at home for a few days. This is not because I haven't paid bills, which would be stupid but would at least make sense. I was trying to change providers and they can't connect me because in order to do that, they have to get into a electronics/utility closet. To get into this closet they have to get into my neighbor's condo. And they're never around. I don't mean they keep strange hours; I mean they're not here at all for weeks at a time. This is, needless to say, a tiny bit frustrating. I've also had a cold. Which has mostly faded into a cough, but now I'm exhausted. Sunday I slept till noon. Then I took a nap in the afternoon. I planned to go to work today, but slept through the alarm and woke up up just before noon. So basically, I've slept for about half of the past 24 hours, which makes me think I needed a little more rest. (And no, I didn't even take any drugs last night, so that wasn't the problem.)

The good news is that, with nothing else much to do, I've just gone through the site and fixed a lot of fiddly stupid things like broken links and typos, so at least something got accomplished. There are some links I can't look up and fix until I have the internet again, of course. And lord knows when that will be. This might be the stupidest problem I've ever had, which is saying something. Moving on.

I read Sock, by Penn Jillette, which was a lovely gift from TWoP's good fairy. I liked it more than I expected to, and I expected to like it. I think it sounds weirder than it actually is if you summarize it. I mean, yes, it features stream-of-consciousness narration from a sock monkey, and yes there are song lyrics in almost every paragraph. There's a reason it's narrated by the sock monkey; it's not just a wacky device. I don't think there's a particular thematic reason for the song lyrics, but they're fun. And it's about a murder investigation, but it's not a mystery. I feel like at least one review I saw treated as if it was a mystery, and complained about it on that basis, which is missing the point in a pretty major way. The point of the book is, well, some screeds from Penn about faith and politics and society and sex and Ed Wood's genius. Which I can't get enough of, so that's fine with me. It's quite funny and quotable, and hey, there are a lot of fine song and movie quotes in there. Which are used pretty cleverly, and much to my surprise, I recognized most of them. Or at least, I think I did.