Veronica Mars / Medical Investigation

Now that Rockstar: INXS is off the air, I was wondering what would be good enough to keep Wednesday nights my favorite tv night.

Good news, there's Veronica Mars on ETC from 8-9pm. Veronica Mars starts out like most teen angst dramas but is actually a detective story set in the fictional town of Neptune, CA. Veronica is the daughter of the town sheriff, and is best friends with the daughter of the town's wealthiest family. When her best friend Lily Kane dies in her own home, under mysterious circumstances, Veronica's dad Keith investigates and considers Lily's father Jake Kane a suspect in his own daughter's murder. Due to the Kane family's influence, Veronica's dad loses his job. Worse, Veronica's mom leaves their family. To top it all off, Veronica suddenly falls from grace with her high society high school friends. Her dad sets up his own detective agency, where Veronica works in reception part-time. The rest of the time she's a photographer with the school paper, and conducts her own investigation of Lily's death. One of her suspects is Lily's brother, who used to be Veronica's boyfriend... NOW do you see why I'm so hooked? The writing is tops, letting Kristen Bell play Veronica Mars as a sassy and fearless blonde hot on the trail of truth.

And then there's Medical Investigation, on Star World, from 9-10pm. Hotshot government medical investigators do real-time analyses to save lives during outbreaks. You'd think it was like CSI, only with more live bodies. I watched the pilot episode last week, and was trying to decide whether to hate Dr. Stephen Connor (Neal McDonough) or not. He has the ego of CSI: Miami's Det. Horatio Caine (David Caruso) -- (read: I will do everything in my power to save you, and indeed I DO have the power!) -- but you have no choice but to trust him, because no one else will make the difficult decisions. The other leads are ok, but the standout role in the pilot episode was intrepid NIH press officer Eva Rossi (Anna Belknap). She manages to hoodwink and corral a pesky reporter until the outbreak is contained, and THEN gives him the scoop for suffering her string of red herrings. Alas, according to IMDB.com the show was eventually cancelled. I guess it can't compete with the CSI franchise. A couple of seasons is good enough for the meantime.

Of course, my favorite show CSI immediately follows, to round out my Wednesday nights. (Update: Anna Belknap eventually joins the cast of CSI: New York. Talent too good to waste!)

Rockstar: Denouement

When I think about it, it's a good thing Joy didn't give birth until AFTER Rockstar:INXS ended. As I've said before, the show (and episodes of various CSI's) made my midweek tv programming. The fact that INXS chose JD Fortune to be their lead vocalist wasn't much of a surprise; he'd focused his performances and songwriting toward that end, and got what he wanted. I just thought that it also meant INXS couldn't step too far away from Michael Hutchence's ghost. (Some friends of mine commented that it was the same thing with Journey and the singer they hired to replace Steve Perry, Steve Augeri. He sounded enough like Perry to be able to render the old hits. Compare this to Van Halen replacing David Lee Roth with Sammy Hagar, and the band went from strength to strength. Van Hagar sounded different from Van Roth but good enough to keep record sales up. I actually liked Van Hagar.)

I'm glad Marty Casey didn't win. That means he and his band Lovehammers can go on to carve THEIR OWN niche in their own name. I downloaded their song "Eyes Can't See" and it was great. The great thing about tv singing contests is the fandom it creates for its contestants, and that finalists can get offered contracts outside of the show. I didn't mind that Bo Bice or Constantine Maroulis didn't win American Idol 4 -- they got their own contracts in the end. So I'm not too worried about Suzie McNeil or MiG Ayesa. MiG might even one day win a Tony for musical theatre.

I must say this, though: at the end of the show, INXS and JD Fortune played a new song called "Easy, Easy" and it made ABSOLUTELY NO IMPACT on me. I voiced this in my yahoo group, asking, "Why am I underwhelmed by this? Is it just me?" Apparently I wasn't the only one who felt that way. What impressed me more was the song "Us", but I would prefer a Suzie McNeil solo version (I downloaded the recording session version from the show) as compared to the all-hands-on-deck version by INXS, Dave Navarro and the last five finalists. I guess it's because the band already wrote all the songs as is, needing only JD's vocal as a plug-in. Maybe the NEXT album after this one would actually showcase JD's songwriting skills.

Lilo

Lilo entered our lives last Sept. 22. My niece (and my parents' first grandchild) was delivered by caesarian section, weighing 5.8 lbs and measuring 16 inches long. She was the tiniest baby born that day, but don't let that seeming fragility fool you. Lilo is feisty and adorable, much like her mom, although for the first few days of her life some people claimed Lilo looked more like me (must be the eyes). Lilo was born with a shock of hair, and her daddy's nose. In three months we'll have a better idea who she looks like. When I held her for the first time I marvelled at her precious perfection, and fell in love.

Joy and Tristan brought her home from St. Luke's last Tuesday; in preparation the entire house was vacuumed and sprayed vs. insects. Our dad hurriedly went out and bought a new ceiling fan from Home Depot and had it installed in the living room before they arrived. We had flowers and fruit from all over. We saved the newspapers the day she was born so she'd have her very own time capsule. The entire condo building buzzed with the news, and our phones rang incessantly with congratulations.

When Lilo's hungry and starts crying she turns beet red all the way to her tootsies. She doesn't like people manipulating her arms; it's a struggle to put mittens on her (without the mittens she'd end up scratching her face). She's actually much stronger than you'd think. In fact, she scored an 8/8 on her Apgar test (the one that measures the senses, reactions and reflexes).

Tristan takes Lilo out in her stroller (a gift from Annie) to sunbathe for a few minutes in the early mornings. She luxuriates in her late morning baths. And when she's asleep she makes faces that make us all laugh. With a new baby in the house everyone's learning curve is steep: I can now add sterilizing bottles, preparing milk formula, burping and changing nappies to my auntie skills.

Lilo can now consume two ounces of breast milk/formula plus a half ounce of water every couple of hours. We all take turns feeding her, so that Joy can rest. Let me tell you, the amount of time and attention given an infant is exhausting, but when Lilo looks at you, you forget everything.

I even forgot to post a blog entry for more than a week!