Kylie

I look forward to reading your thoughts on this, Brian. I won't really be able to participate this weekend. I'm visiting my parents so I've been spending time with them and catching up on sleep. But I enjoy reading everyone's progress.

Hey Devi, will you wave to me out of the window as you fly over NSW? Have you decided which books you'll be taking? It's so much fun deciding which books to take on holidays.

Ditto! Ooh, excellent! I loved this book.

I think this is a massively under-rated movie. It's one of my favourite sci-fi flicks.

I've been watching Alias from the beginning. Currently about one-third of the way through season 3. It's just as good as I remember.

Five-wicket haul. A little gratified to see that Australia isn't the only team that wastes reviews (didn't England learn from our last performance?) I thought it was a bit unnecessary to review that last wicket. The tail had well and truly done its job and England had posted a very respectable score, so I thought they could have saved that one.

Myself, I thought it couldn't have gotten off to a better start. I caught the breakthrough wicket last night, which I thought happened just before the end of play, but evidently I missed at least couple of other wickets? I can't believe I keep missing all the action! I missed the first three wickets and then was glued to the telly while no wickets were taken for hours. Then I just missed the end of last night's play and the beginning of today's play, so I have effectively seen exactly 2 of the 9 wickets taken. *rolls eyes*

I agree. I don't think the secret being leaked had anything to do with the publisher wanting more sales. The secret was always going to come out eventually, so huge numbers of the book were always going to be sold. I don't think a few more months or even a year (can't imagine the secret lasting any longer than that) would ultimately make any difference.

If I had a dollar for every time an Aussie had taken a wicket and then found it was a no-ball...Fair dinkum! How hard is it to keep at least part of your foot behind the line?! It's my number 1 pet hate with the Australian team (as well as the number of extras they bowl in general). If I was the coach, it would be the first and last thing we worked on...Every. Single. Day.

Le Tour de France

Yay, Frankie! Those one-star reviews bug me too (I shouldn't have read them!). When Raven mentioned the bad reviews, I figured people would just be complaining because it's Rowling, but I was surprised to see that they were actually offended because she used a pseudonym! They act as though she's the first writer to ever use a pseudonym. And it's not like they were tricked because they haven't even read (and probably hadn't even heard of) the book.

Bah! I fell asleep on the lounge just as it was starting and slept through the whole thing. Probably just as well.

I'm certainly glad the test has made it to the fifth day. I went out last night and missed the entire day's play, so I'll be glad to catch the end of it tonight (today). I'm glad to see it will be a reasonably close game. It's never fun when one team smashes another, even when it's your own team that wins. On the subject of walking, I must admit that while I hold cricketers who walk in very high esteem, part of me also thinks that a cricketer should always wait to be dismissed by an umpire, simply because it seems to be more respectful to wait for the dismissal. Is that crazy? I was wondering, do any of you actually attend cricket matches? I'm not sure where you all live in relation to where the test matches are played, but do you ever go out of your way to attend an international game or even a county game? I think I've only ever been to one state match here (our equivalent of your county games), which I feel a bit ashamed of. I should be more supportive of the less popular teams. I'm now dating someone who isn't a cricket fan at all, but he's amenable enough to attend a game with me one day, just to see what it would be like. I'm thinking I should perhaps take him to a 20/20 match, which would obviously be more likely to retain his interest (and hopefully convert him!) than making him sitting through a test day, where potentially very little could happen.

I'm impressed that the secret lasted three months, although I wish it could have lasted longer. I remember Rowling saying that she wanted to do this (and I remember us discussing here whether she could get away with it), but I figured perhaps she had changed her mind or realised it couldn't be done after A Casual Vacancy was released. It certainly seems that she threw us off the scent by releasing this book so soon after ACV. Good on her! I just checked Goodreads and it has 88 ratings at an average of 4.02, which is a reasonably impressive score. No reviews have been written there since Rowling was outed. I'll be very interested to see how quickly it starts selling now.

Yep, pretty shocking decision. I wish I could say that an Aussie would have walked, but as Chesil said, I'm afraid those days have gone.

I didn't see the Australians batting. Didn't they have the match review system in place?

Great batting debut by Agar. Now he just needs to take a few wickets. I don't usually get to see any international cricket on TV here, but I noticed halfway through watching Le Tour de France that we do actually get the Ashes coverage here. I'm thrilled!

Thanks Tim. I reckon I'll enjoy it...once I talk myself into tackling it. I received a book in the mail yesterday: Thinking in Numbers by Daniel Tammett.

Thanks Raven. I've merged the threads.

I've merged the two dystopian threads (you mustn't have looked very hard, Raven ). More recommendations for post-apocalyptic books can be found in this thread.

Heh. Were they trying to cram the entire plot of the movie into the title? I caught part of Sunset Boulevard on the telly the other night. It's been such a long time since I last saw it, and I recognised some similarities between the movie and an episode of The Twilight Zone that I recently watched. My partner happened to look up the movie and saw that it was indeed the inspiration behind a TZ episode. *feeling smug*

Have you all seen the trailer for GTA V? It looks so awesome! I'm not as much of a gamer as I'd like to be and I've been considering selling my PS3 for a while because it hardly gets used, but I'd love to play GTA V!

I bet you didn't even notice I was gone. (Or worse, you could have been relieved that I was gone!) Flowertown looks like it could be interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Huh. I didn't know Hitler was an artist himself. I thought he just stole everyone else's stuff. I still plan on reading Card's books and watching the movie; I just won't be paying for it.

Bahahaha! I'll add it to my list of movies to watch. I think there is a list somewhere of all the show and movies discussed on Gilmore Girls. I want to do a movie challenge similar to the book challenge, although I think movies/shows would be more difficult because they seemed to watch some pretty obscure stuff!

Hi Tim! Just catching up on your thread—I've been so far behind lately, so please excuse me for talking about stuff that might be a couple of months old! It's a shame you didn't like Wool. I have it on my wishlist and will still read it one day (anything dystopian goes onto my wishlist by default), but at least I'll know not to have high expectations for it. I gather you won't be reading the sequel then? I recently learnt about Orson Scott Card's homophobia too. Very disappointing. Apparently the makers of the movie are distancing themselves from him because they're afraid it will have a negative effect on sales. Too right. I was planning on going to see it, but I'm going to boycott it now. I have a copy of Ender's Game (the book) and I'm glad to know that I only bought it secondhand. The show gets better and better, especially in seasons 6 and 7. There are plenty more moments ahead for you!