Grinning Fellow

I just watched the finale.

 

Eeeeehhhhhhhhhh.

 

The episode was not divided up well, and it ended up feeling like I was watching two different shows. And, while there were some "interesting" revelations, it was handled in such a weak way that I was horribly underwhelmed.

 

Tigh remains the man, but that's about it.

 

Also, quite possibly the worst cover of "All Along the Watchtower" I've ever heard.

I just wanted to chime in to say it's absolutely gorgeous outside right now. Full on summer-esque weather, without the sweltering heat that will come in the actual summer. After a rather miserable winter, I'm enjoying this weather immensely.

I've been half-heartedly following along Season Three. I pretty much agree with Mark. It's been fairly lacklustre so far, and pretty clear that the creative team is making it up as they go along. Tons of subplots and character arcs were jettisoned in mid-season to make way for lame-ass storylines (the Starbuck/Apollo woe-mance, or anything to do with Helo, for example), while even some of the more interesting plot points (Baltar with the Cylons) quickly degenerated into tedium.

 

I also hated how the best thing about the season (New Caprica) was wrapped up with almost no change in the status quo. Tigh and Starbuck get drunk for a couple episodes (shocker) and then go back to normal. Tyrol grumbles and hits things. Adama speechifies. It's all become so formulaic by now.

 

Am I the only one who thinks the opening text scrawl is a damn lie? "They have a plan", my ass.

Ehh, aside from the crappy poetry, I enjoyed Smoke & Mirrors much more than Fragile Things. I seem to be alone on this one, but I thought there were better stories in Smoke & Mirrors, and

after the first five stories in the latter, it just kind of degenerates into tedium.

Wincing the Night Away is pretty hit-and-miss, I find. The good stuff ("Sleeping Lessons", "Australia", "Turn On Me", "Split Needles") is really, really good, but the album lacks the cohesion of Chutes Too Narrow, I find. It just doesn't sound all that great when played together. It's not bad, though.

Went to The Shins concert yesterday. They are absolutely spectacular live. They had quite a long setlist, and managed to play pretty much eveything I wanted to hear ("New Slang", "Caring is Creepy", a blinding version of "Sleeping Lessons", "Kissing the Lipless", "Know Your Onion!", "Girl On the Wing", "Australia", "So Says I", etc.). The whole show was excellent. I can't wait to see them again.

I finished reading two books this weekend: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, and Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk.

 

The former was pretty good. I think it's a bit overrated, and it certainly isn't one of my favourite novels, but I did enjoy reading it. It took me a little while to get into it, but when I did, it paid off. I did find the narrator to be a bit of a wanker, but I liked the main plotline with Owen Meany in it. A bit overlong, but overall, pretty good.

 

The latter was a lot of fun. It doesn't top Fight Club for me, but this one actually seemed a bit less cynical (even with moral corruption, religious abuse, and nihilistic predestination). I find Palahniuk to be a fun writer (keep in mind that I haven't read Haunted yet), and this book highlighted all the things I like about his writing. One of his better efforts, in my opnion.

I saw the midnight viewing as well. It was a good movie, not great. The fight scenes were nice, the music was oddly appropriate, and it was well-shot in that Sin City style. Gerard Butler was really great in his role, and it was a fun film, overall. Just not that great.

Thread Necromancy, go!

 

Well, I borrowed the series from a friend, and spent the last week re-watching it from the beginning. I think my earlier dislike of it stemmed a lot from the fact I was too young at the time to really get it. Hell, I still don't really get it.

 

However, upon a second viewing, I liked it a lot more. It's still maddeningly confusing, ridiculously pretentious, and with one of the strangest endings ever. That said, it was pretty damn good. All the characters were complex, and it's fun to try and figure out just what in hell happened.

 

Is seeing End of Evangelion required viewing? I've heard almost nothing but bad things about it. However, if it sheds any more light on the ending of the series, I'd probably brave it.

Thanks, dog. I read a few more pages today, and, for all of its density, it's a fairly enjoyable book.

 

Also, when in the book shop yesterday, I picked up Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis and zipped through it. I liked it a lot. It was incredibly depressing, and didn't have much character development, but that was the point. It felt like a modernized, more visceral version of The Catcher in the Rye. I'll likely be reading the rest of Ellis' stuff soon.

I finished reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe today. It was a good book. Not the kind of story I usually read, but I liked Achebe's descriptions. It was all very vivid.

 

I tried to get into Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections today, but it was just too painful. I couldn't get past ten pages. So instead I picked up Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and I'm also not sure on this one. On the one hand, I do like the style, but on the other, it's like Catch-22 with the craziness amped up exponentially. It's really hard to follow along. To anyone who's read it, is it worth sticking with?

Finished reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones today. It was a fantastic read. The plot of the story was both great and utterly depressing. Sebold's style of writing is very, very beautiful, and I couldn't put down the book once I got into it. It was amazing, and I loved all of it (although the ending did seem a bit rushed).

My guess is that it's because they're using the same character with a different actress, and that's deeply, deeply lame.

Since I've been listening to Murder Ballads a lot lately, I was wondering how PJ Harvey's solo career is. I like her songs on the album with Cave, but that's all I've heard by her.

 

Any recommendations?

I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure Nyssa showed up right at the very end of the Baker run (I think she appeared in his second-last serial). Could be mistaken, though.

Lucifer: Inferno

 

Awesome. This series is definitely one of my favourites, and this just re-affirmed it. I love Carey's long-form storytelling, and his pacing and characters are fantastic. I loved the whole duel in Hell, and the political intrigue, and the God Detective.

 

It's not my favourite volume (that I have to give to A Dalliance with the Damned), but it's definitely up there.

The Twin Dilemma was awful indeed. I still think that Colin Baker did show some promise as the Doctor, and his vastly different character was over-the-top, but still an interesting change for the Doctor.

 

But even so, most of his stories kinda sucked.

Recently, I read:

 

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman: This one was alright. Whereas his previous collection, Smoke and Mirrors had some amazing stories balanced out by a roughly equal amount of lame stories, this one had a couple good stories overwhelmed by a lot of lacklustre ones. The first two stories in the book (A Study in Emerald and October in His Chair) were really, really excellent. Unfortunately, I don't think anything else in the collection really lived up to those two. There were a couple pretty good ones, but most of the others were kinda boring. I'm disappointed, as Gaiman's one of my favourite authors.

 

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett: I've never read a Discworld, but this was still an excellent book. I love Pratchett's sense of humour, and his storyline was very good. The more "serious" and philosophical parts of the book were great as well. I enjoyed the whole thing, and will probably pick up more of the series.

 

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: Ehh, it was okay. I really liked the world Stephenson introduced, as well as the various characters. However, when the plot finally started to take over, my interest waned a bit. I know a lot of this book was a discussion on Sumerian mythology, but those parts felt incredibly expository and went on too long. Also, the ending felt incredibly rushed, and was unsatisfactory. Despite this, I'll probably check out some of Stephenson's other books.

 

Now I'm reading a teen-oriented fantasy novel called Lirael by Garth Nix. When that's done, I'm not sure what I'll start on.

The part in Pan's Labyrinth I was referring to was when:

 

spoilers

 

When Mercedes is saved from a gruesome death at the hands of the Captain's goonsquad by the arrival of her brother and the rest of the resistance. I know it was mentioned earlier on in the movie that more rebels would be showing up in the area, but still, it felt a bit too deus ex machina for me.

Saw Pan's Labyrinth a couple days ago. It was indeed quite excellent. I liked everything about it. The acting was fantastic, the cinematography and direction was gorgeous, the plot unfolded very nicely and overall I thought this may have been the best movie I've seen all year (it's a tie between that and my love for Little Miss Sunshine).

 

The bit of deus ex machina towards the end was a bit annoying, but everything else was pure class.

Just read it today, and it was good. I didn't like it as much as The Hard Way or Strychnine Lives, but it was entertaining.

 

Spoilers for "Decayed"

 

I still stand by my theory that Loop is going to kill Lono. As Trace mentioned, there's one Minuteman extra (well, Lono isn't a Minuteman anymore, but I'm pretty sure Graves is not happy that he's the new Warlord). With the reveal that Victor is secretly on Graves' side, I can see Vic (who's clearly acting as the mentor to Loop) manipulating him into killing Lono. Where this leaves Jack, I do not know.

 

So, although it looked like there was going to be a Lono/Loop/Victor/Jack threat coming up to take on Graves and the Trust at the same time, it doesn't look like that's going to go down now. Instead, I think the only one who's going to stand up to Graves (who, I think, is a lot less of a good guy then we were initially led to believe) is going to be the rather unlikely team of Dizzy, Wylie, Branch and Benito.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure Graves has recruited Ronnie to go to Italy to get the painting (from The Counterfifth Detective) from Echo Memoria. I'm not thrilled by this, as I find Ronnie to be frankly, boring.

 

Also, the way he was hyped up by Graves, Shepherd, et. al., Remi Rome was apparently supposed to be the most dangerous of the lot. However, he doesn't seem it. At least, he doesn't seem it yet. But I guess we'll see in due time.

I had a dream a couple nights ago where I was at a comic convention in Toronto, where they were selling Essentiall Batman volumes for $6. I was all psyched to spend a lot of money on sketches and stuff, but then my friend was sad and wanted to leave, so I went too. Then we tried to phone for a ride in this corridor of payphones, but none of them worked.

 

I woke up realizing that I didn't end up buying anything at the convention.

 

Man, I disappoint myself even in my dreams.

Fair point, Christian.

 

However, John's dad has definitely been with the ghostly bunch. I remember he was with the Newcastle Crew in Dangerous Habits.

I thought Ellis used the entourage when all of his dead girlfriends showed up to haunt him that one time.

Finished the second season of Carnivale, and I believe that it's one of the best seasons of television, up there with the third season of Deadwood.

 

As much as I loved the first season, I found it to be a bit slow in places, which is something this second season didn't have. It also kept up a lot of the mysterious and mystical aspects of the show, while still giving the audience enough information to be satisfied.

 

Also, Ben Hawkins, who I wasn't big on in the first season, really grows as a character here and becomes excellent.

 

The ending was great, but still pretty maddening and I am incredibly pissed-off that HBO did not continue the show.