Random
Delurking (been very busy lately) with a grab bag of things I might talk more about if I had the time.
Books
-Books read recently: Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, the Farseer Trilogy (Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest) by Robin Hobb, Fate of the Jedi: Allies by Christina Golden, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks.
Comics
-At the one year mark, Batgirl remains pretty solid. The plots are unambitious, but beloved characters are being written in-character.
-Is anyone else finding that they had great expectations for Gail Simone's return to Birds of Prey, but aren't quite sure how they feel about the end product? Also, will somebody please write that goddammed Jim Lee T&A outfit for Huntress out of existence?
-Illustrated release of Phillip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (you can't really call it an adaptation, since they're including the entire text of the book in the narration boxes) is very good, but puts too little in each issue.
-J. Michael Straczynski is apparently so annoyed at how Joe Quesada nuked his work with a retarded retcon in One More Day that he decided to switch companies and... nuke a bunch of other people's work with a retcon in Wonder Woman. Lovely. On the upside, new functional outfit that has pants = vast improvement over previous impractical outfit that would have been deemed too revealing for Hooters. On the downside, it's just as completely unrelated to character-theme.
TV & Animation
-Futurama is back! It's been a bit hit and miss, tho.
-New season of Leverage has started. Still very fun but strains my suspension of disbelief.
-I just realized that Burn Notice has also returned, so I will have to catch up on that.
-I've kind of been on the hunt for things to watch lately. Not that I couldn't keep watching old episodes of DS9 on YouTube from now until doomsday... and I'm overdue for a Noir rewatch... but I'm having a hard time finding anything new worth watching.
-Haven't started any anime since I finished Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Tried a few episodes of Soul Eater and just didn't have any strong feelings about it one way or the other. Isn't there anything fresh and smart out there I haven't seen? I'm so bloody sick of generic shounen anime... after you've seen scores of 'em (not an exaggeration) they get really tiresome... I'm sick of the hot-blooded heroes whose determination produces deus ex machina, the useless and marginalized female characters, the rehashed plots....
Internet
-Why do I have the song "Lollipop" stuck in my head? Oh, right... Sci Fi Debris. Also, does anyone else think that song is a bit creepy if you actually listen to the lyrics?
-This trailer (practically a short film!) for Star Wars: The Old Republic is pretty awesome. Of course, the game itself, being an MMO, with have none of the visual prowess or excitement that trailer promises, but hey, who cares with a trailer that pretty? *eyeroll*
Writing
-Finished a short fic. Should be posted after I clean it up a little. (Writing in the present tense is awkward. You keep switching back to past tense out of habit.)
-Tangential to that, when you write a scene with all female characters, pronouns are not your friend.
-Tangential to that (but not to the first thing... different story), it's quite the exercise to write mutliple pages without once starting a sentence with a pronoun when one of your characters doesn't have a name.
Life in Seattle
-If there is a single taxi anywhere in this city with a rooftop billboard that isn't advertising a strip club, I haven't seen it. And what the hell kind of name is "Little Darlings" for a strip club? That's just creepy.
-Living here, you get used to seeing all sorts of things posted on lampposts. But I really haven't the slightest idea what the stickers with the picture of Hello Kitty framed by the words "LOVE KILLS" are supposed to mean. I'm tempted to add "Hate Saves" to the bottom of one of them, but I don't think anyone would get the reference.