I resisted the urge to title this post, "Missed it by *that* much." Mostly because I reckon the movie adaptation of Get Smart didn't miss by much at all. In fact, I laughed, I grinned, I left the theatre in a damn fine mood...and isn't that what entertainment is all about?

To be honest, I went to see Get Smart with low expectations. I loved the TV series and I couldn't envisage anyone else in the roles of Max and 99. I didn't want to see pale imitations, I didn't want the screwball original humour messed with, or to be drubbed over the head with the lines owned by Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. And you know what? They weren't, it wasn't, they didn't.

This was an homage to the TV series, set in the present and with the original characters translated into the present. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway were brilliant casting choices. Instead of a bumbling agent, this Smart was a skilled analyst but with no field experience. And 99 was a kickass agent who hated being teamed with the klutz. They had a real buddy chemistry and watching the movie I got the impression everyone was having a ball. Most of the humour -- or the stuff I found funniest -- was in the dialogue rather than the slapstick. Loved James Caan as the president and The Rock (forget his actual acting name) was excellent as SuperAgent 23.

I've not enjoyed many of the recent spate of adaptations of TV series. Can't think of one off hand that I've enjoyed as much as Get Smart, and it put me in a warm 'n' fuzzy reminiscence about the TV series. I almost went to check the cable programs to see if it's currently showing, but I didn't. I think, along with Hogan's Heroes and F Troop, it's the kind of comedy best left in the past. I don't want to dim the memory of how uproariously funny I found them then. I suspect none might have aged well unlike, for example, MASH which has so much poignant human emotion underlying the humour.

I'm the same with some of the romance in my keeper collection. I have a whole stack of Johanna Lindsey and M&B's from the 70s and 80s that I kept because of my unabashed love for them at the time. I want to maintain those feelings and so I won't pull them out for rereads, nor will I get rid of them. They're my touchstone to that time and to my introduction to romance.

Oh, and in case you're wondering... Yes, the cone of silence and the shoe-phone do make an appearance. How could they not?

As soon as I saw a promo for the Thoroughbred Legacy mini-series, I knew I would have to check it out. Even though I don't usually read Silhouette Special Edition, this is about horse-racing and a mystery and, according to the blurb I read, a range of locations from Kentucky to Australia to Dubai.

I've been a sucker for a horse story ever since I could read -- or perhaps ever since Black Beauty made its mark on my horse-loving psyche -- and this one sounds as though it's tailormade for me. I just hope it's well researched because I'm such a zealot when it comes to getting the horsie bits. And, yes, I know that is all kinds of wrong because I could name a zillion special interest areas that I have no authority in.

Only other trouble is, I don't know where to start the series. There are, count them, FOUR Thoroughbred Legacy books released in July. Do not tell me I have to buy ALL FOUR to ensure I have the right BOOK ONE, but I can't for the life of me see any identifying of which book comes first. And it would really irk me to have to buy all four only to find that the series is not for me.

Anyone else think this is a slightly odd marketing idea? Or perhaps it is marketing genius, allowing readers to get hands on all books in the series quicksmart instead of having to wait months to build the entire collection. It's very easy to miss a book or two when they're released one book at a time over 6 months or even a year. Hmmm.

Desire has done the same with the first two books in Michelle Celmer's new trilogy. Both books released in June, but the stories are not told on a parallel timeline. One book precedes the other, but how is a reader to know which comes first? Would that bug you, finding you'd picked up and read the second book first? It would me, but then I know I'm ever so slightly anal about such things.