All this AND four days of the best meals I've had in ages...

[magratpudifoot]

4/26/12: I am stickying this so I can update the book list with reviews as I finish them.  That way, maybe I'll actually READ them instead of stacking them up and forgetting how excited I am about them.
Also, I don't know exactly what the item id in the URL corresponds to, but look at this one.  Dude.  I'm pretty impressed with my timing.

Behind the

Comments

[magratpudifoot]

Aw, I'm sorry you've been sick! I spent the first three months of this year sick as a dog and wonked out on various meds, so I feel for ya. (For the curious, the skin infection is almost completely gone, but there's just enough left on my hands that I'm still not comfortable volunteering at the animal shelter like I had been planning to do since January. Don't want to pass this shit on to baby squirrels and bunnies.)

I *did* finally get to see I, Claudius a couple of years ago! I will never be able to look at John Hurt the same way again, but what an incredible miniseries... I'm looking forward to the book, but, since I have so many others in my queue that I am slightly more excited about, it'll probably be ages before I ever get to it. But still, I own it now, and that's a step in the right direction.

They had the complete DVD set of the first season of B5 at the FoL sale for $5, so there was zero chance that I was going to leave it there. I've seen enough bits and pieces of later seasons to be interested in the story, and it's been long enough that I honestly don't remember what was even happening in those bits and pieces, so I think I'm in a good place to give it a shot.

As for worrying about me passing judgment on what you've been watching lately not being "good" enough...three of the things I've been enjoying most lately are Penguins of Madagascar (a Nickelodeon show based on a series of CGI movies that frequently lacks any contribution from female characters at all), StarKid (which puts me, as a fan, in a social circle of primarily 13-year-old girls), and HOP (which may have been written by Brian Lynch - a brilliant writer and one of my current favourites in any medium - but is still, at the end of the day, a movie starring Russell Brand as a CGI Easter bunny). That all makes the above list of my book sale loot look like I'm trying to overcompensate.

And Doctor Who... See, I'm in this really fragile emotional state where I am simply not reading anyone else's opinions about the show, so it's probably just as well that you haven't been writing about it. It's a combination of all the overwhelming shit in my real life, the fact that I haven't been watching (or rewatching) the show at all lately, and the conflict I'm having between my deeply-held belief that all of the Doctors are The Doctor and Whovians and Wholigans should all be able to get along and respect each other's opinions...and my deeply-held belief that Steven Moffat should never have been given control of the series and that people who have chosen Eleven as Their Doctor don't understand what Who is all about. (I guess this is a familiar conundrum for you, where Moffat = Davies, but I've only just recently had to start dealing with it, and my way of dealing seems to be to just NOT TALK TO PEOPLE, whether they agree with me or not. [shrug])

[captainchaotica]

Yeah, with I, Claudius...funny thing is, that's the FIRST thing I saw John Hurt in! Although, I use that as a good thing when I see him somewhere else, in the sense of "Oh, there's that guy whom I strongly remember from something I like. Sure, he was a complete LOON, but he was _good_ at it..." :P
And 5 BUCKS for the whole first season of B5? DUDE!

The thing I've gotten into of late is "Axis Powers Hetalia". You may have heard of it, at least tangenitally, as it is ALL OVER THE INTERNET, but the basic premise is that the main characters...are countries.

Yes. Well, to be precise, they are the _anthropmorphic personifications_ of the countries of the world. (The actual places still exist, of course.) They're all at least somewhat good looking, and several of them have some cute little gimmick or prop. They all also act as much like their stereotypes as possible--including, in the dub, cheesy accents.
On the surface, this results in a great big chaotic mess of insulting-but-somehow-good-natured HILARITY, mixed with all kinds of squeeness and fanservice. And it's really kind of a shame that the dub is also the more offensive/darker version, because it's also DROP. DEAD. FUNNY. Ohmygod, just the narrator alone...

"Of course, the Polish troops didn't _really_ ride horses into battle against the German tanks--right, anime fans. Poland was invaded by Germany in 1939--right, American fans. (brightly) Poland is a _country_! In _Europe_!"

BUUUUUTTT...under all the cute and humour, there's both darkness and tragedy inherent in the whole thing (after all, they were present for _their entire country's_ history--and history is NASTY), and tantalising hints from time to time of exactly what these characters _are_, how they work. The original manga gets positively _Discworldian_ at times, with its occasional exploration of what causes these beings to exist, what hurts them, and what would happen if they were gone...
(They also break all kinds of conventional supernatural-being wisdom by (a) actually _needing_ to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom like regular human beings, and (b) NOT being secret at all. Everybody knows what they are and doesn't freak out!)

But for the most part, the series has the characters acting out history in silly, cartoony, metaphorical ways (including battles being one avatar smacking the other over the head in an annoying "DOES THIS BUG YOU? DOES THIS BUG YOU?" kind of a way, or alliances being written as marriages--oh, and most of the characters are male, btw) with cute guys flirting and ship-teasing and being occasionally part naked...but _also_ with all KINDS of fascinating cultural/historical tidbits thrown in along the way. The amount of times I have had to LUNGE for the pause button to read everything...

So, it's silly and full of stereotypes and fanservice...but also a weird, clever high concept with a clear LOVE of history behind it. The fans range from the scary, giggly hyper fangirls who sometimes, frankly, ick me out (THEY'RE the main reason I'm kind of afraid to "come out" as a Hetalia fan)...to the intelligent ones who get inspired to look up _real_ history and foreign cultures because of this...or make a mod for _Civilization 4_ based off of the series. Yes. This exists. I've been playing it. :)

As for Who, you don't have to worry, as I don't HAVE much to say at the moment. The ending two-parter didn't completely suck, but I was also kind of underwhelmed and just...meh? I haven't said what I thought about the very last episode yet because I don't _have_ many thoughts, other than "Ooh, the power of whatever brought somebody back AGAIN!". I haven't gotten to Season 6 yet, but I can tell you that so far, I _would_ reccommend SJA Season 4.
Eleven will never be My Doctor, but, aside from a few hiccups, I don't have any serious _problems_ with him...but I agree with you on Moffat. Of course, I also didn't like Davies. I'm not sure _who_ I would choose to run the show, but at this point I've pretty much given up on getting the kind of writer _I_ want--somebody who will write it dramatic and modern without fangirling or stupiding it all up.

Anyway.

...Notorious