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Books:
I quite enjoyed Gary Tigerman's The Orion Protocol (316/are). It was a sci-fi/thriller with just enough plausibility in it regarding the conspiracies relating to the government and NASA to make you go, "Hmm." or at the very least, "Huh." (I suppose if I were younger and more impassioned, (and if these were factual events) I would get outraged over them, but really, with conspiracies my attitude now is, "Yeah, so the government doesn't want to tell the truth. What else is new?")
Anyway. Basic plot of the book is that when the astronauts landed on the moon all those years ago, they discovered that someone had beaten us there. An abandoned alien mining station was investigated, and of course, kept secret. (The reason being that the government doesn't want widespread panic. Apparently the Brookings Report [an actual document from the 60s] recommends that evidence of extraterrestrial life be suppressed by government agencies. [although reading the wiki article, it appears that Tigerman made the Report more nefarious than it truly is. Ah well, artistic license.])
Anywhat. After discovering that there is a much more advanced civilization out there, the Orion Protocol was developed - also secretly. In fact, so secret, that not even (every) US President knows about it.
In the novel, there's a newly elected President, who has one of his staff members try to unearth what exactly the Orion Protocol is.
Interesting coincidence: the President in the novel is never named (simply refered to as "Mr President" or "the Commander-in-Chief", etc), BUT! He is described as fairly young, quite athletic, very well liked, tall and skinny, and he ultimately believes in doing the job for the people, not being a politician.
Also amusing- at one point, his staff member asks him if he wants to continue hearing some news, and he responds, "You bethca". Heh.
AND! John McCain is mentioned (by name!) near the end (appearing on a CNN discussion program). Just how much does Mr. Tigerman really know? [eyebrow]
Anyway, it was an entertaining read.

CDs:

I wasn't super impressed with either music selection this go around. Although one was better than the other. That was Kill the House Lights by Thursday.
Thursday is somewhat punkish, sorta metal, angsty rock band, that wasn't supremely great, but did manage to grow on me.
The other band was awful. ...In fact, I can't remember what the other disc was. But I do know that when I put it in, it started off good - kinda distorted/Sonic Youth type of sound, but then the second song was exactly the same. But worse. And when I got to the third track, and it too was super-distorted noise, I skipped through all of the tracks, and found that ALL of them were. Yeah. Um. No. It's a shame I can't remember what they were called so I could warn everyone away from them, but it's not likely that you'd stumble across them anyway.

DVDs:
There Will Be Blood delivered on it's title, although I expected more. The movie itself was compelling/almost greatness, just like pretty much everything that Paul Thomas Anderson has done. Daniel Day Lewis totally deserved his Oscar. I felt that the movie could've been about 20 minutes shorter and that probably would've made it absolutely perfect, but overall still a great movie that I'm glad I watched.