I figured I should finally get around to commemorating what I believe to be quite a major milestone in my life here in Los Angeles. To the utter disbelief of many of my peers, I am now, at last, a fully-fledged L.A. driver, and the owner of this magnificent beast: a 1997 Toyota Camry LE V6. I've been out on the mean streets pretty much every day since I acquired him on the muggy evening of August 29th 2007, and driving here already feels completely natural. Plus it's been a week and a half, and I've yet to receive a street-cleaning ticket! How long can this state of affairs last, I hear you ask. I will keep you updated...

In the foreboding wilderness of post-Veronica television, I have found hope in two other shows that may each go some way towards filling the black pit of despair left by a certain sassy blonde: Weeds and Heroes. I had enjoyed the first season of Weeds immensely, but now that we have caught up with the second season on DVD and the third is showing such promise, I can with little hesitation confirm that I love this show. It's that perfect mix of drama and (often ridiculous) humour that really appeals to me in a television show, both gripping and extremely entertaining at the same time. Arguably I have come to Heroes preposterously late in its life, but I decided to take the leap and purchase the DVD set by way of celebrating the Prince's arrival (seeing as I can now drive to Target whenever I want), and was not in any way disappointed. The show basically distills all the best ideas from the X-Men's forty-odd years of innovation and convolution, and then recontextualises them in a more 'realistic' setting with tight meta-plotting and excellent character-acting. I guess I see it's greatest strength as being this intelligent derivation in which it engages, and I particularly enjoyed the show's preoccupation with causality, precognition and the question of the mutability of destiny. I can't quite decide who my favourite character is, but presently it's a dead heat between Sylar and Ando. I'm really excited to see where they take it in the second season.