In which sleeping dragons are left to lie
I recently did something very geeky, in joining a Song of Ice and Fire sorting community. Applicants fill out a lengthy questionnaire/meme, and members of the community vote on which of the Great Houses* they belong to. My application can be found here (though if you haven't read the books, the second half is full of spoilers). As you can see, I was selected to be a Lannister (for those who haven't read the books, the Lannisters are a family of wealthy, cunning blondes, the relevant proverb being "a Lannister always pays his debts"). On the one hand, my favourite character from the books (Tyrion, the dwarfish Machiavelli) is a Lannister; on the other, so are most of the principal villains of the series. A little moral ambiguity never did anyone any harm though, right?
I also received an unexpected number of votes for the Targaryens (who, for reference, are the recently-deposed royal dynasty, famous for their dragons, until they died out a couple of centuries ago, and for veering unpredictably between greatness and insanity. This latter may be due to their having married brother to sister for the past 300 years). Whilst it'd be pretty cool to be a dragonlord of lost Valyria, I don't think I'm the type to immolate myself in the hope of instant draconian transfiguration.
Springing from fandom to fandom like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag, we turn to the topic of season three of Heroes, a series never far from my heart. This week's episode saw a number of interesting developments which, for the sake of those poor souls with no bittorrent capacity, I shall address in a cut.
I really enjoyed this episode. It was, I felt, back on Season One form; not the top of Season One form, not a Company Man or a Six Months Ago, and still less a Five Years Gone, but I felt, when watching it, that I was back with that show where the weird shit keeps happening, and where I'm WTF?ing and laughing in equal measure.
Hiro and Ando (and Daphne) were at their best here. The light touch of their run-in with the Vegas showgirl in Run! was on display, but without the annoying sense that it was totally irrelevant to the plot. The Keystone Kops incidental music set off the farce perfectly, and the scene where Hiro tried to teleport as the Haitian loomed angrily into view behind him and Ando was comedy gold. I also really liked the pairing of Sylar-in-a-suit and Mr Bennett.
I'm not yet convinced about Mrs Petrelli coming over all "I am your mother". Maybe it's a bluff (and she's playing on Sylar's Mother Issues, which are second in seriousness only to his serial-murder-and-metaphorical-if-not-literal-brain-devouring issues, which, in fairness, would take some topping). However... now that Sylar has the touch-a-thing-and-tell-its-history power, can he use it on himself? Has he? Was that why Mrs P gave him the power, or what? I call lack of clarity!
And then there was Peter. The early resolution of the Peter/Jesse plot point left me a bit wrong-footed, as did the dispersal of the Villains. With the German dead (tragically lowering the season's Allo Allo quotient), Jesse brainmunched, flaming hands guy back in Section Five (where he's no doubt back to standing, hands aflame, in front of the window all day, demoniacally chuckling) and only the black guy with the vague power left at large, I feel a little confused. Aren't these guys the main villains of the season? Oh well. At least Sylar didn't join with them, as I'd feared he might, ending what could have been a beautiful pairing.
Finally... Dr Zimmerman. "Know you..? I CREATED YOU!" Oh my. Let's hope next week will begin with a twist where it turns out that Trikki (patent pending) has actually gone to the wrong door, to a Home For The Hopelessly Cliche-Spouting, and the real doctor is just an accident-prone obstetrician. If not... then at least the German didn't die in vain.
Click here for an audio version of the first chapter of Neil Gaiman's forthcoming (it's released on Halloween) novel The Graveyard Book. It takes a similar idea to The Jungle Book (a human child, lost in the jungle, is raised by animals and taught the things they know), and gives it a typically macabre twist (a baby's family is murdered, and the baby, lost in a graveyard, is taken in by the dead people and taught the things that dead people know). My only word of warning is that it's the American edition, and hearing Gaiman (an Englishman) reading out Americanisms ("diaper" etc) are rather grating. As the novel is set in England, these won't be in the British edition of the novel. It's a great first chapter, and opens with a wonderful rendition (by Bela Fleck) of Danse Macabre (better known as the theme tune of Jonathan Creek), on the banjo. Even if you're not interested in the story (or are holding out for the full novel), it's worth it just for the music.
I should add, for the prudent and moralistic amongst you, that it's both free and legal.
Other than my interactions with various online media, I remain at college. This week was Business Strategy, the content of which can aptly be summarised by its initials, BS. Porter's Five Forces (which are not, to my chagrin, Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Heart), SWOT analyses, Ansoff's matrix, the value chain... bleh. Why do consultants get paid? On the plus side, we get to watch Dragon's Den (rule of thumb: any course where you get to watch television probably shouldn't count toward anything) and spend the breaks making up stupid products for our own amusement. Thus far, we have muffnuts (a cross between muffins and doughnuts, which will probably be branded as MuffNutz, for the youth market), Icy Mice (mouse-shaped lollipops on string) and CoffBags (like tea bags, but for coffee). Forgive us... we're bored.
* Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, Tully, Tyrell, Martell and Greyjoy. No Baratheons or Arryns, as they "lack a defining feature" apparently. News to me!
I also received an unexpected number of votes for the Targaryens (who, for reference, are the recently-deposed royal dynasty, famous for their dragons, until they died out a couple of centuries ago, and for veering unpredictably between greatness and insanity. This latter may be due to their having married brother to sister for the past 300 years). Whilst it'd be pretty cool to be a dragonlord of lost Valyria, I don't think I'm the type to immolate myself in the hope of instant draconian transfiguration.
Springing from fandom to fandom like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag, we turn to the topic of season three of Heroes, a series never far from my heart. This week's episode saw a number of interesting developments which, for the sake of those poor souls with no bittorrent capacity, I shall address in a cut.
I really enjoyed this episode. It was, I felt, back on Season One form; not the top of Season One form, not a Company Man or a Six Months Ago, and still less a Five Years Gone, but I felt, when watching it, that I was back with that show where the weird shit keeps happening, and where I'm WTF?ing and laughing in equal measure.
Hiro and Ando (and Daphne) were at their best here. The light touch of their run-in with the Vegas showgirl in Run! was on display, but without the annoying sense that it was totally irrelevant to the plot. The Keystone Kops incidental music set off the farce perfectly, and the scene where Hiro tried to teleport as the Haitian loomed angrily into view behind him and Ando was comedy gold. I also really liked the pairing of Sylar-in-a-suit and Mr Bennett.
I'm not yet convinced about Mrs Petrelli coming over all "I am your mother". Maybe it's a bluff (and she's playing on Sylar's Mother Issues, which are second in seriousness only to his serial-murder-and-metaphorical-if-not-literal-brain-devouring issues, which, in fairness, would take some topping). However... now that Sylar has the touch-a-thing-and-tell-its-history power, can he use it on himself? Has he? Was that why Mrs P gave him the power, or what? I call lack of clarity!
And then there was Peter. The early resolution of the Peter/Jesse plot point left me a bit wrong-footed, as did the dispersal of the Villains. With the German dead (tragically lowering the season's Allo Allo quotient), Jesse brainmunched, flaming hands guy back in Section Five (where he's no doubt back to standing, hands aflame, in front of the window all day, demoniacally chuckling) and only the black guy with the vague power left at large, I feel a little confused. Aren't these guys the main villains of the season? Oh well. At least Sylar didn't join with them, as I'd feared he might, ending what could have been a beautiful pairing.
Finally... Dr Zimmerman. "Know you..? I CREATED YOU!" Oh my. Let's hope next week will begin with a twist where it turns out that Trikki (patent pending) has actually gone to the wrong door, to a Home For The Hopelessly Cliche-Spouting, and the real doctor is just an accident-prone obstetrician. If not... then at least the German didn't die in vain.
Click here for an audio version of the first chapter of Neil Gaiman's forthcoming (it's released on Halloween) novel The Graveyard Book. It takes a similar idea to The Jungle Book (a human child, lost in the jungle, is raised by animals and taught the things they know), and gives it a typically macabre twist (a baby's family is murdered, and the baby, lost in a graveyard, is taken in by the dead people and taught the things that dead people know). My only word of warning is that it's the American edition, and hearing Gaiman (an Englishman) reading out Americanisms ("diaper" etc) are rather grating. As the novel is set in England, these won't be in the British edition of the novel. It's a great first chapter, and opens with a wonderful rendition (by Bela Fleck) of Danse Macabre (better known as the theme tune of Jonathan Creek), on the banjo. Even if you're not interested in the story (or are holding out for the full novel), it's worth it just for the music.
I should add, for the prudent and moralistic amongst you, that it's both free and legal.
Other than my interactions with various online media, I remain at college. This week was Business Strategy, the content of which can aptly be summarised by its initials, BS. Porter's Five Forces (which are not, to my chagrin, Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Heart), SWOT analyses, Ansoff's matrix, the value chain... bleh. Why do consultants get paid? On the plus side, we get to watch Dragon's Den (rule of thumb: any course where you get to watch television probably shouldn't count toward anything) and spend the breaks making up stupid products for our own amusement. Thus far, we have muffnuts (a cross between muffins and doughnuts, which will probably be branded as MuffNutz, for the youth market), Icy Mice (mouse-shaped lollipops on string) and CoffBags (like tea bags, but for coffee). Forgive us... we're bored.
* Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, Tully, Tyrell, Martell and Greyjoy. No Baratheons or Arryns, as they "lack a defining feature" apparently. News to me!