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So I assume everyone has heard about this horrible incident in New York. A temporary worker at a Wal-Mart was trampled to death, and a woman suffered a miscarriage.

What can you say about this? Disgusting? Shocking? Not all together surprising? Actually, what surprises me is that things like this don’t happen more often. I’m a bit surprised it happened THIS year, because consumer confidence is so far down and supposedly people aren’t supposed to be shopping as much. Whatever – it’s very, very sad and disturbing and a really depressing commentary on society. Especially the part where the shoppers in that particular Wal-Mart booed and continued shopping when informed the store would be closing because SOMEONE HAD BEEN TRAMPLED TO DEATH.

I did not go to any stores on “Black Friday.” This whole concept of Black Friday is a stupid gimmick anyway. It’s right up there with Sweetest Day as far as retailer-induced consumerism. I did order one item online, a wireless SD card for my camera from Buy.com. But I’m not sure if it was even a Black Friday deal, or just on sale. Hopefully, no one will be trampled or suffer a miscarriage in the effort to ship my online purchase to me next week.

All right, let’s just get right down to it: I did not like the season finale. Sure, there were some little individual parts that I liked, but overall I thought it was ridiculous. I must admit that a lot of this is probably colored by my recent reading of most of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and the way that Ball & Co. are departing from them in such annoying and irritating ways. But even if I look at the finale in a vacuum, there were things I just did not like.

1. Bill’s ridiculous walk through the sunlight. Meaningful, romantic, heroic gesture? Um…sort of…except totally impossible. He would have burst into flame before he even got to the property line at his place. End of story.

2. Bill’s miraculous recovery from his walk through the sunlight. Again, would not, could not, just does not happen. Although I will admit that I loved his reunion with Sookie, her desperate hug of him after inviting him back into her house, and the tender way that he kissed her amazingly bruised face. I’m really starting to like Stephen Moyer a lot.

3. Maryann. WTF? What they’re doing here is taking a character from a later book, a maenad, and giving her a personality and qualities that she just should not possess. In the books she’s very much a powerful, wild, supernatural creature. The only thing that may save this new interpretation of her on True Blood is the fact she’s being played by Michelle Forbes, who equals awesome in any role. So I guess I’m willing to wait and see.

4. Sookie kills Rene with a shovel. Sookie would not kill someone, not even someone who was trying to murder her. Well, at least not until much later in the books…but that’s a spoiler for another day. No, she would have disabled Rene and then turned him over to the law. So this whole decapitation thing was fun, but I thought it quite out of character.

5. Tara. Go away! Anthony Robbins-ized Tara is even worse than demon-possessed pain in the ass Tara. GO AWAY! At least we didn’t see her annoying mother this week.

6. Jason believes in miracles and joins the Fellowship of the Sun. Yes, he’s stupid, but come on, True Blood…is he really THAT stupid? This storyline doesn’t track with the books at all, but congratulations to you: you have found a way to make Jason annoy me EVEN MORE.

7. Lafayette: murdered. DAMMIT! OK, OK, this was going to happen eventually (it is a plot point in later novels). But why did they have to do it as a cliffhanger to end the season? I wanted to see MORE Lafayette (and I don’t mean in a “naked and dead in the backseat” way). I hope he at least appears in flashbacks next season.

8. Other stupid, miscellaneous shit: Vermont legalizes human/vampire marriage. Jessica reappears to mess up Bill’s relationship with Sookie again. Sookie’s new retro 80s perm. Too little Eric/Pam/Fangtasia crowed. Eggs Benedict. Bill playing not-very-good ragtime on his piano (maybe they couldn’t get clearances for some Joplin, but isn’t a lot of that in the public domain now?).

So what did I like, then?

- Arlene’s sobbing, hysterical entrance with the bouquet of flowers. Poor, poor Arlene, but how funny was that?

- Pam’s impeccable knit (Chanel?) suit. This matches her description in the books a lot more closely. Pam is the bitch I’d want on my side.

- The look on Arlene’s kids’ faces as they’re watching the homemade fangbanger porno. Totally hilarious and so help me God, I hope I never find my daughter watching something like that!

- Andy Bellefleur finally gets slapped down, hard. Asshole.

- Bill’s reunion with Sookie, even though it was impossible. From the polite way he rang her doorbell, to the uncertain expression on his face when she answered the door, to his “Well, technically, no” to her cry of “You’re alive!” Man, he’s really cute for a dead guy.

- I can’t seem to confirm it anywhere, but didn’t the preacher at the Fellowship of the Sun temple look and sound like John Hodgman? I’m having fun imagining it was him, so even if it wasn’t, that’s still a positive about this episode for me.

So about those books. I’ve read like four or five of them now. They’re pretty easy reads, written on what seems like about a 7th grade level. I can usually get through one in an evening or two. They’re sort of enjoyable, if fluffy, although I’m starting to get annoyed with them. That’s because…spoilers to follow…

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…Sookie breaks up with Bill around book 2 or 3, and as of book 5 she still isn’t back with him. She has had a fling with Eric (who doesn’t remember it, since he had curse-induced amnesia at the time) and she’s been spending way too much time with werewolves and shapeshifters. In fact, the books spend a LOT of time on shapeshifters of all types, and I’m getting pretty bored with it. It’s called the “Southern Vampire Mysteries,” and I want to read about vampires. Not werewolves, werepanthers, etc.

A Tara character shows up in the later books, but she’s much different than the one we get on the show, and her part is much smaller. There’s also a lot less Jason, and a lot of stuff about Fellowship of the Sun, which is kind of entertaining. But once more, WAY too much stuff about shapeshifters of all types, which I’m just not into.

So, until next season, which is promised for “Summer, 2009,” that’s True Blood.

I have this weird thing about wind – I hate it. I think wind is the number-one, most annoying meterological phenomenen. I can deal with just about any other weather condition, but wind really gets under my skin.

Rain? No biggie. It can be a hassle, but you an always wear a raincoat, carry an umbrella, etc. Snow? Another non-issue. When it snows, you can wear a hat and gloves and a scarf and keep nice and warm. If it gets on you, you can even brush it off before it melts (usually), so you won’t even get wet.

But what can you do to avoid wind? Not a damn thing other than not go out in it. If you drive, it whips your car around. If you wear a hat, it blows it off. Wear a warm coat, and it makes it flap around. It messes up your hair, makes it harder to walk, makes anything your’re carrying flap around in an annoying way or causes you to drop it outright. In short, wind sucks, because you can’t defend yourself against it!

I know I’m sounding like a crazy person now, but I’ve actually thought about this a lot. I had plenty of opportunity! From 1st grade through 9th, I used to walk to and from school (about a mile). Believe me, I had lots of chances to compare the relative merits of weather conditions. When I went to college, I lived for three years in a dorm that was out on the edge of campus, which meant I had to walk across the cursed, flat tundra of Northwest Ohio in order to get to all of my classes. It was easy to decide that the demonic wind that whipped across that depressing landscape got under my skin more than rain or snow or heat or even hail!

I hate the wind, and I’m just glad it’s not windy today.

Morrissey is currently on tour, and he’s still fantastic. This is from a few years ago, but he’s just as amazing as ever.

Ugh. True Blood was doing so well, but this week, apart from a few high points, really didn’t score well with me at all.

First of all: Sookie with Sam. Hanging out, sharing meaningful glances, and finally macking. GROSS! No sir, I don’t like him, and Sookie doesn’t really like him either: she was just being a whiney little bitch because Bill didn’t come flying when she was almost strangled at the bar. Did she miss the part last week where he told her he had to go on trial? That he didn’t know when or if he could come back? Dumb hillbilly.

More annoying: Tara and her stupid mom. I am SO glad these annoying characters do not appear in the novels (more on that in another post). Tara’s mom is a real bitch for kicking Tara out, that’s gratitude for ya, but who can really blame her? Tara’s just so unappealing. Except, apparently, to this mysteriously-rich “social worker,” who just happens to be the naked woman who was standing in the road with a pig. What does it all mean? What’s she really up to? What will happen to poor, tortured Tara? Why would anyone care?

Annoying leading to awesome, leading to annoying, leading to awesome: hippy bitch Amy stakes our beloved little Eddie, confirming that she is indeed the skankiest hippy-ho in the history of television. But Jason, the man-ho equivalent of her skankiness, suddenly wakes up and seems to kick her out of the house. Except, well, he doesn’t. And despite his promise that they weren’t doing V again, they do V again. And go on a ridiculous run around the golf course from Caddyshack, complete with sprinkler system. I have to admit, Jason is pretty good-looking and can even make a pair of tighty-whities look kind of sexy. But where this whole thing veered back into awesome territory was when he threw Amy into the air – and she floated away. BECAUSE RENE WAS STRANGLING HER! Ding-dong, the witch is dead.

Bad cop, worse cop: the whole “Andy Bellefleur is a judgemental prick who only sees what he wants to see” thing is really getting overplayed. Yes, we get it. He’s thrilled to be able to pin all the murders on Jason, even though we now know that Jason didn’t do it. Yawn. And the sherriff (whose sole redeeming quality thus far is the fact that he’s played by the completely awesome William Sanderson) will eventually see that Jason couldn’t be the killer, and put Andy in his place, etc., etc. Again: yawn.

When good girls go bad: I love me some Lafayette, and they totally had me with him painting his toenails at the bar. I mean: unhygienic? Yes. Fabulous? YES! But it was so cliched for him to dress up in “straight” clothes and go threaten the congress-critter. Even if it was justified, it was all telegraphed from three miles away. I expect more from my HBO dramas, honestly.

When good girls go bad, 2: though it was broadly played, and almost slapstick, the entire interaction between Bill, Pam, the newly vamped Jessica, and Eric was my favorite part of the whole episode. Why? I don’t know. I think all of the emotions playing over Bill’s face, from his initial horror and grief and guilt, to exasperation and a dawning annoyance, had me really entertained. Stephen Moyer played it well. He’s actually one of the most understated performers in the cast, which is probably why I dream about him EVERY NIGHT. Also, Eric is a hottie. And Jessica? Annoying, but in a funny way — not a Tara way.

So next week is the season finale. It looks like the season was designed to mirror the first book in the series, which they’ve strayed from a bit. It will be interesting at least to see how they tie things up, and then where they go with the show next season (HBO has already ordered a second season). Regarding my references to that book: Yes, I have recently read the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, called “Dead Until Dark.” I’m planning a separate post to compare the book with season one, but I’ll probably wait until after the finale has aired next week. Short summary: the book is much better than the show, but at least now I know there’s some good source material available. Whether Alan Ball chooses to use it is another matter.