Entertainment, Reading, Etc

[crankyoldman]

Kind of crazy lately, but when I'm not working, I'm getting all sorts of things watched/read/played! In fact, part of me regrets starting to have a social life, as all the stuff I like to do tends to be more solitary. It's also nice to watch TV/Movies while sewing. So yeah.


TV/Anime

Warehouse 13

Ok, so I really enjoyed this season... until the finale. I won't go into details, but suffice to say, it sucked and nullified half the reasons I've enjoyed this second season. But positives! There was Bechdel Test passing! Claudia; still awesome, even after boy stuff! Myka and Pete have really settled into a buddy cop thing as opposed to a Mulder and Scully thing for which I AM GLAD. It works for some (see: Bones), but OMG SEXUAL TENSION would just be freaking weird with these two. And can I say how nice it is to see a buddy cop thing with a man and a woman? Artie! Still a hidden badass and grouchy! MORE STUFF ON MRS. FREDRICKS. Pete's hot ex-girlfriend (who I remember from the movie True Lies and how much I wished I could follow her around in that movie instead of Jamie Lee Curtis...). HG FUCKING WELLS AND HER WONDERFULLY AMBIGUOUS SELF. So, hopefully they'll fix ONE of the things they broke during the finale for next season. Or I'm writing fanfic and changing it. XD

RomeoxJuliet

So, I bought the manga right after Otakon, read it, and saw that the show was on Hulu and decided I NEEDED TO SEE IT. Keep in mind, I'm not a huge fan of the source play. At all. I think it's one of Shakespeare's weaker works and wonder why everyone and their mom adapts it. (Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth... now those I like) But THIS adaptation? I approve of. Juliet disguising as a boy and doing a part time Zorro thing? Romeo being the MOST ADORABLE SHOJO BOY EVER? Approve. Know it will end badly (duh, source material) but it's cute and fluffy without being too saccharin and the action-y elements really keep things going well. Also, camp gay Shakespeare as a character? Win.

Gankutsuou (The Count of Monte Cristo)

Keeping with my "classic works being re-interpreted by anime" theme, I started this. Trippy. The visual style is both lovely and a bit much at times. Crossing Dracula with the Count of Monte Cristo and turning him BLUE? Strangely awesome. I'm just taking it all in and trying not to guess ahead too much since I'd read the book. XD Thankfully, Hulu has dub episodes (same for RomeoxJuliet) as well as subs. I just like being able to get up sometimes and not be reading, as I'm watching it on my laptop. Easier to sew and watch this way.

I'm also rewatching The L Word and Queer as Folk, since one's on Netflix Instant and the other's on DVDs and some days I just need some gay drama. Well, other people's gay drama. XD I kind of want to cross them over badly now, but I'm sure people have done that.


Reading

You know what has helped immensely with my reading? My iPhone. Since it's always with me and provides its own light and is visible in the sun pretty well, I have no excuse not to read. Expect some copyright free classics showing up here.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

So. I love these kind of sociology books. And Gladwell does a really good job of making the studies accessible and weaving a narrative. I was introduced to him by Professor Gast (as in, a prof I had that was like if Gast taught a history of tech class at my college) with the book Blink, during the semester where I had time to do some reading. Anyway, this book talks about studies done from a sociological POV on why certain people not only succeed, but become virtuosos and Olympic athletes and the like. There's a lot of factors, but where you're born, when, and even what month can really affect how things will go for you. Fascinating read, I tore through it in a couple days.

The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold

So seventhe got me this book, in an omnibus with the next one, as well as the two prequels. I loved the prequels to this series so much, because I am just like, in love with Aral and Cordelia Vorkosigan. So in love with them I was slightly afraid that their son wouldn't measure up to my love of them (ironic, considering). Well that was unfounded, because he's quite an interesting protagonist. Too often sci-fi books will take that terribly gifted young boy and proceed into adventures with no regard for consequence, except when it's good for the plot. NOT SO HERE. Yes, he gets in and out of trouble, of course, can't have him DIE and does get away with some shenanigans, but some of the KIND OF HORRIBLE THINGS IN BETWEEN remind me that yes, this book is not written by your typical power fantasy nerd. Bujold has a fantastic ability to present many sides of an argument and then leave it up to the reader how they feel. Various characters have conflicting viewpoints and you find yourself weighing different things (like, my feelings about Bothari are complicated and I'm glad they are complicated).

Also, way to handle your protagonist kind of being the Nice Guy(tm) in a love triangle in a way where you actually SEE that he's being a Nice Guy(tm), but don't make him a complete total creep either. People are not always likeable! But it's ok, they're likeable enough. :D I am impress. And wondering why the hell I didn't know this existed when I was in Jr High and desperately needed science fiction that didn't make me hate being a girl.

A+ and I look forward to getting through more of the second one, which I've only just started. So far I am like "OH NICE LESSON THERE ARAL" because yeah. Way to teach your far too clever kid some responsibility AND make a point to your province/area.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Another of novel_machinist's favorites. I trust her taste in books quite a bit, so when I noticed that it was free via Kindle (btw, if ya'll want to make me happy at gift times, I would love Kindle ebooks so I can read on my phone), I pounced!

Oscar Wilde would have been like, the most popular slash fanfiction writer of now. Seriously.

Like, I can't help it, but I find myself going through this book and saying things like "wow Lord Henry, aren't you the semeiest seme to ever seme", "God, Dorian, you're such a twink", "Basil, stop uking all over the place". WHY DID I NOT GET TO READ THIS IN SCHOOL? SERIOUSLY. But it's not just funtimes in trope-land. It's also very witty writing that flows well. You're never quite sure what Wilde actually believes, aside from obviously favoring the menfolk. But we all know that's canon.

God, it's another thing I wish I'd read in High School. Maybe I'll rec it to the intern that likes reading. XD


Videogames

Silent Hill 2

Alright, so this game creeps me the fuck out. I do not like darkness, I do not like these kinds of zombies, I do not like having a protagonist that does not seem to realize how defenseless he is.

Oh yes, I'm enjoying it. Sometimes you need something to scare the crap out of you. And I have a gun now. So I don't have to beat the zombies with a stick anymore. And I am intrigued.

BUT OMG PYRAMIDHEAD.

Final Fantasy X-2

Still in Chapter 1, have been wanting more horror since it's October and I'm in that kind of mood, but I still love dresspheres, and Yuna and want Paine and Rikku to make out.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance

The horrorish game I play when SH2 freaks me out too much. Replay. I love this series. XD I'm going to replay them all, I'm starting with the last and working my way back cause I'm contrary like that.

And now some links, of the other kind of reading variety!

- Interactive Apollo 13 event

- Lying on the internet isn't the problem, it's creeps that invade your privacy: or the real story behind the movie Catfish

- The Lilypad controller opens up new ways to geek out. STILL WANT. SERIOUSLY.

- Hangover cures. Apparently craving eggs after a wild night is a natural thing!

- A welcoming place for all gamers... is not PAX East Possible rape/assault triggers.

- Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath: an unfortunate repeating tale

- The Social Network and the problem of retroactive history writing. Spoiler: if you're a chick, you obviously had nothing to do with anything awesome.

- A dystopian YA novel that sounds awesome.

- What does the Bechdel test really mean?

- The Fundementals of Game Design: an essay

- Study shoes that men are no better at math than women The differences start with social reactions, though.

Comments

[whitemage]

*noms your recs*

1. Oscar Wilde... is an amazing man. At times, he reminds me of a gay Hojo of literature. ... God, don't ask.

2. Some of your links are making me want to do ficlets.

3. I could go on for DAYS about the girls in physical sciences issue, having been on both freaking sides by now. And my life's mission is to keep girls younger than me from believing the lies. B|

Paine/Rikku forever

[yukie]

The phrase 'gay Hojo of literature' just brought to mind some amazing mental images and I'm now wanting to put it on a T-shirt...

[whitemage]

Oh, god, what have I done? XD

[yukie]

The retroactive history writing reminds me of the stuff my friend Ash, a medieval lit major working on her PhD, has told me about Victorian revisionism and the problems it's caused forhistorians.

Many of the Victorians were prudey and closed minded a lot, so they basically wrote anything they didn't approve of - anything that didn't conform to their ideas of how things ought to go - out of everything. So, POOF every literate woman in the medieval era has vanished. The fact that peasant women busted their asses day after day like their husbands, gone. Hildegarde of Bingen is treated as this big exception to the "rule" that NO WOMAN WAS EVER LITERATE EVARRsgskjgfdsg BECAUSE THERE WAS NO NEED BLAH BLAH WHY DON'T YOU BITCHES SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP BAW, and the idea that medieval noblewomen basically ran their fucking houses because their husbands were off wrangling their property? OH MY GOD I HAVE THE VAPOURS.

If you ask most people if they know what an anchoress is they probably don't know. A lot of those women were literate. A lot of nuns were literate. It wasn't unheard of for a noblewoman to be semi-literate - she had to handle the goddamn paperwork and shit after all. But all these little dingalings who want so so so SO badly for 'women doing stuff' to be a modern invention and an exception to 'the way things are/the way things were back in the good old days' - these dorks who have never read an oldschool translation, an UNSANITIZED version of the Matter of Britain, and who think Chaucer just pulled the Wife of Bath out of his nose and she wasn't a reflection of a sort of medieval woman who EXISTED...yeah.

it's like, scared white d00ds want everyone but them to disappear.

Tough shit, whiners. The smarter members of your group - who are the majority, I think - and the rest of the world will leave your asses behind. XD

Also roflmao I didn't know who the hell Hughes was until now. Oops.

[crankyoldman]

I didn't know who Ted Hughes was either, because who cares who he is when Sylvia Plath was a far better poet. Mind, her poetry is not my favorite type, but where it came from and why it was written and the skill involved is what keeps her in the rotation, and SHOULD keep her in the rotation.

And history is always re-written by the victors and the primary audience who is studying it; I think half the reason I loved Russian history so much was I finally got to hear about the space age from the other major power's POV, and it was fascinating.

And the Victorian era is really only good for steampunk shenanigans. It's like they lost their damn fool heads of all reason for a while. Not that we don't have that now to some extent, but it's particularly problematic.

[yukie]

Yeah. I'm not as familiar with Plath as I am with Dorothy Parker, but what I have seen has broked my mind in a good way.

That must have been epic, hearing about the space race form the other side. Someday i'm going to try to read up on that; Canada's contribution to the whole shebang isn't really touched on or bragged about much here XD; It's just "We made the Canadarm and the Arrow project done got dead." Canucks are so overmodest XD; It's kind of sad, like, the olympic hockey wins got people dancing in the streets in Toronto, and the next day there's people squawking about 'blatant nationalism'... Yeah XD; Canada has - a thing going.

XD word in re: Steampunk; I wish that the problematic aspects of the era didn't migrate into the Steampunk genre so readily, though, gah. It's like, please stop sounding like Bram Stoker and Rudyard Kipling. Please. @_@ I think it's just a matter of pale-assed people not NOTICING it (because it's not about them, yo) and just kind of bringing all the Victoriana along wholesale without really thinking about what they're doing.

This is why I tend to lean toward FF6 type magitek stuff instead XD;