newnumber6

Happy Easter to all of you that celebrate it. I don't celebrate it religiously (that is, as a religious event), but I do enjoy the familyness... however, for me, Easter is _next_ weekend, the awesomeness that is Greek Easter, and so this weekend I didn't do much different than what I normally do, and so this is a fairly normal update.

So, today I finished Fallout 3. Mildly fun, althoguh I was somehow expecting more from the reviews I'd heard and hype about it being the best game of the year. (minor spoilers behind the cut, but mostly just discussions of specific issues, and good points)
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TV. Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead was on last night, and... ehh, it was okay. Felt like an average episode (and really, with normal episodes being something like 50 minutes, and this one being a whopping 58, lets stop calling these 'extra long specials'. It barely qualifies. When they said instead of a full season we were getting 4 extra long specials I would have hoped that they were at least 1.5 times a regular ep), and nothing really all that special. On the other hand, it didn't make me want to throw things at the screen, so for a RTD-written episode, that's a success. (Minor spoilery comments behind cut) ( Read more... )

And the other big TV is the last 2nd season episode of Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronciles, and possibly the end of the series entirely. And if the last part is true, then DAMN YOU. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL. I so want to see where they go from here. Good ep, and giving me a lot of what I wanted to see when the series was announced. (spoilers) ( Read more... )

Dollhouse was also pretty good. Only other thing I've been watching lately besides Heroes (which is still lame, but getting a _tiny_ bit better at least in the general writing category) and a few "whatever's on" shows is Lost, and it's pretty good this season but I don't find myself with a need to talk about episodes in my updates. I dunno why. *shrug*. So that's it for TV.

Finally, a meme, several installments worth. I've put off these for a long time, usually because I didn't want to post _just_ them, or a post I was already posting just got too long. But, it's about time, so here we go...

Interview Me Meme
1) Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me!"
2) I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3) You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4) You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5) When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. And thus the endless cycle of the meme goes on and on and on and on...


Btw, if I asked for questions from you and you gave them but they're not here, it might have been one of those instances where LJ didn't send me the comment notification. If you're really interested you'll have to reply to this and either ask them again or link to them. So, here we go...

From thebitterguy...

1. Were there any comics of note in the '90s? I mean, was the entire decade not a wasteland of graphic novel mediocrity? ( Read more... )
2. If I shot Ben Browder in the face, would you cry? ( Read more... )
3. Do you consciously not use tags on your LJ? Or is it just something you never got around to doing? ( Read more... )
4. I see you just re-read the Wild Cards books. Have they aged well? ( Read more... )
5. Is runaways readable in floppies? I've only read the first run as hardcovers, and got the Whedon series as floppies. I found the Whedon's not very engaging until I read them as a single story. ( Read more... )
From soleta_nf...

1. What do you love about Toronto? ( Read more... )
2. What do you dislike about Toronto? ( Read more... )
3. Is the current economic situation affecting you personally very much? ( Read more... )
4. What's your favourite comic book movie? ( Read more... )
5. Who is the next Canadian Barack Obama? ( Read more... )

From calliopes_pen...
1. If you had the chance to travel with the Doctor, which Doctor would you want to travel with? And where would you want to go first? ( Read more... )
2. Are you superstitious at all? If so, about what, in particular? ( Read more... )
3. If vampires were real, what would you do? ( Read more... )
4. What is the one job you would never want to have? ( Read more... )
5. If you were trapped on a deserted island, what one book would you want
to have with you? ( Read more... )

And that's it. See you all out there in Post-Apocalyptica, people.

Edit: Oh, and this seems to have exploded everywhere since I originally posted this post, but I figure it deserves spreading even more since I'm against censorship and bigotry and this has elements of both: Amazon.com is censoring it rankings and search results, specifically targetting non-pornographic GBLT books as 'adult' content (while leaving things like Playboy fully searchable).

This week I got one book:

Young X-Men #1 (Pretty predictable all in all)

Full reviews as usual at my comic reviews site for anyone interested.

Work was okay, but I'm a little wiped from the comic walk.

Random short news bites of recent interest to me: Anthony Stewart Head's apparently going to be in a new Merlin series on NBC next year (he's not playing Merlin). There's talk of a Firefly DVD set rerelease with more commentaries. Kristin Bell and Rob Thomas are re-teaming up apparently for the pilot of a new show called Outrageous Fortune. There'll be an Office 'spinoff' next year. Steampunk movie? The director of Victoria: The Golden Age's next project is an adaptation of a novel described as 'set in a Victorian-era alternate universe in which mankind has been exploring the solar system since the time of Isaac Newton, revolves around a brother and sister who team with a band of renegade space pirates to save the world from destruction at the hands of a madman.'

Not a whole lot _to_ be watching. I've already posted on the TV pilots I've seen, and those are really all the ones I'm particularly interested in seeing early. The others I'll just wait until they come on TV.

So what else is there during the summer? Well, I haven't downloaded any of the new Dead Zones, 4400s, or Flash Gordon to check out, and they haven't started airing here, so all that's left is reality tv, which I don't particularly feel like talking about, reruns, which don't deserve much talking about, and a handful of new (or new to me) stuff.

1) Masters of Science Fiction. Limited run anthology show of adaptations of short science fiction into one hour episodes. Stellar idea. Wonderful. There are hundreds of short stories out there that would make awesome one hour episodes. Hell, you could even do one ep that's a bunch of short short science fiction, each a few minutes in length (like "They're Made Out Of Meat").

Execution? ... Well, they've aired four out of six produced, and it looks like that's all that's going to be aired. ( Read more... )
So its a little disappointing that they took a great idea for a series, and so completely wasted the opportunity.

If I were going to do this, and I had an order of 6, just 6 to do? Off the top of my head (and cutting off ones that were already adapted reasonably well several times or are likely to have major rights issues because they're tied up with movie properties):
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I've also been working my way through Classic Who. See, aside from some very dim memories of childhood, I started Who with the first Doctor, Hartnell, and watched up until the start of Pertwee. After that, the station that was airing them didn't think it was cost effective to buy anymore episodes. So, I've been gradually trying to finish up Pertwee. I'm not done yet, but I'm close. ( Read more... )

Commercials I hate! There's this sprint commercial where they sing out "ladies and gentlemen," followed by various flight instructions, all being sung as though by a choir, while the scene shows people interacting on their PDA or some. But the singing really irritates the hell out of me, and it's on all the bloody time. It's gotten to the point I have to mute it when I hear the first bit of it. DIE DIE DIE, whoever made that commercial, and allowed it to be produced.

Now to books. First:
Finished: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (Reread)

I've read it several times already so no new comments really. I still quite enjoy it and it sweeps me up into the story every time.

Started: Scatterbrain by Larry Niven
and
Accelerando by Charles Stross.

Scatterbrain is a collection of short stories, excerpts from his novels, and some essays, a lot of which is concentrated on 'process'. Still, a lot of it feels like adds for his other books. I think I'd feel cheated if I paid more than $2 for it, but since I got it discount, I am enjoying some of the insight he gives on the process of his writing, and particularly the process of collaboration.

Oh, speaking of $2 books, I found First Meetings in the Enderverse by Orson Scott Card for $2 the other day and so I snapped it up. It's just a few short stories, one I already have (Investment Councilor, with his first meeting with Jane), the original novella format of Ender's Game (which I'd never read before... it was okay but I much prefer the novel), and two short stories dealing with Ender's parents. Wouldn't have bothered at full price, but it's nice to have at a discount.

Now, on to a meme! Books and reading meme from soleta_nf...
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And finally, to move off of reading and on to writing, I've finished the basic writing of the workshop thing I'm working on, the one with steampunkish elements. It clocked in at about 9600 words. Oops. I guess I got a little carried away. Anyway, I still need (badly) to edit (it's awful, but I think it can be made less awful), and I still love the basics of it even if my implementation sucked.

I'll also probably whittle a shorter version down for workshop posting (since they tend to expect shorter submissions), and leave the longer one as an optional, but I'll post both.

The tentative title is Steampunk Allie and the Omniscope.