As for the dumb-media category, have been tremendously enjoying Tim Roth in “Lie To Me.”  I reckon we, in the social sciences, are a bit more understanding when producers take our science and dramatize it.  Maybe that’s why the “Lie To Me” message boards are so much more mellow compared to the “Numb3rs” message boards.  Still, have always loved Tim Roth, and he is fantastic in this role.  It took me about two episodes before I could stop thinking of him as Mr. Orange, and start thinking of him as Dr. Lightman.  That’s to his credit as an actor, I think. Somebody suggested that I should also check out “House,” since the general idea of a dickish but brilliant English person solving crime appeals to me as a fantastic premise for TV drama.

In other news, I can’t embed Hulu videos.

That’s better, don’t you agree?  I love this picture, because it has so many cognitive and conceptual layers to it.  What’s Statham going to do?  Is he going to punch somebody in the head, or is he going to lift up that bus behind him and throw it at some bad guys?  You just don’t know!  That’s the magic of it.

“Right.  We are only interested if you can come up with a trilogy about teenage vampires and werewolves in love.  Because, you know, nobody’s ever done that before.  And, oh, the target audience is goth high school girls, older women on the subway, people in New Jersey, and morons.  You got that?  Ok.”

Very detailed rules for the card game ‘Durak.’

By the way, this game embodies the Russian mentality better than any film or book or song ever can, precisely because of the following line: “This game has no winner – only a loser, or a losing team if played with partnerships.”  Aint that the truth.

First on the list, Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series.  It’s trashy fantasy, completely pointless, so naturally, I got a huge kick out of it.  I read the first two books, and will probably pick up the others as soon as I can get away with it.  Dresden is a wizard detective in Chicago, solving supernatural crimes (vampires, werewolves, etc) with tacky magic.  One of the tag lines is “Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Phillip Marlowe.”  How can you say no to that?  Keep a couple of these handy for those sad times when Hulu runs out of  new “Legend of the Seeker” episodes.

Next up, we have Howard Zinn.  I had to fight a hipster sociology student at the Butler stacks to get my hands on Zinn’s “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.”  I won, because I was able to distract him by looking over his shoulder and yelling, “Oh my gosh, is that Chris Richards from Ris Paul Ric?!”  Of course he looked, and I made my getaway (hipsters aren’t very speedy, so that part was easy).   The book was worth the trouble.  It’s a delightful memoir, combining humor with potent messages about politics, society, and education.  I’ll read a cereal box if Zinn had a hand in it, so obviously my opinion is biased.  This book is kind of equivalent with Frank McCourt’s “Teacher Man,” only with a more political/civil rights slant.  Zinn’s voice is clear and powerful, and the book is a quick read, which, I am sure, will leave a strong impression.  However, it should come with a disclaimer.  Warning: reading this book might make you vote for a third party candidate in the next election, who may or may not be Ralph Nader.

After that, I picked up Edith Hamilton’s “Mythology,” which has long been one of my favorite books.  It’s a thorough review of Roman and Greek myths, but doesn’t give much attention to Norse tales.  Which is why it pairs so nicely with Crossley-Holland’s “The Norse Myths.”  Both books are great to keep around as a pleasant alternative for when your friends start making fun of you for reading “The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul” for the fiftieth time.

Finally, “The Linguistics Wars” by Randy Allen Harris, which is a light-hearted history of modern linguistics for the layman.  While pretty much everything in the book was quite familiar to me on a more academic level, I still enjoyed the fast read.  It is a fairly humorous, albeit, quite biased survey of the theoretical dispute between Chomsky and his successors.  Personally, I feel that Chomsky doesn’t get fair play in this book, which could benefit from a slightly more thorough explanation of generative grammar and Chomsky’s initial reasoning behind the theory.  Pick it up, but only as an introduction to the syntax and semantics conflict, and be sure to follow up with more academic texts, including some by Chomsky himself (namely, “Syntactic Structures,” or “Language and Mind.”)

The story centers on John Crawford (Statham), an FBI agent whose partner is killed by a Japanese assassin called Rogue (Jet Li).  Three years after that, Rogue resurfaces in San Francisco, and the smackdown begins.  Throw in some classic Triad versus Yakuza plotlines, and you got yourself a highly enjoyable action flick.

I won’t reveal much more of the plot, because this one is worth seeing, so you should check it out.  My only criticism was that there were too many guns.  Typically, that wouldn’t be a problem.  But when I pick up a movie starring The Wushu broadsword champion, I expect a bit more in your face martial arts and a bit less snipering from rooftops.  Besides that, the action was satisfactory, and the plot was above average for this type of movie.  The lack of shirtless grease fighting was disappointing, but not a deal-breaker in the least.