What the hell? One day it was warm, the next day it was actually fall. I’m pretty sure last weekend was the last time I could have worn shorts but I foolishly didn’t take the opportunity. The Toronto International Film Festival really marks the end of the summer movie season, doesn’t it?
And by the bye, The Bourne Legacy wasn’t a pile of crap. Kind of weird pacing in the start but it was okay enough.
I’m kind of obsessed with playing Dust 514 right now. It’s a multiplayer game set in a distant science fictional future where you get to shoot other people. It’s also got aspects of role-playing games in it and I’m a complete sucker for the Skinner box reward structure of the genre, what with all the numbers and flashy virtual items you get awarded for doing stuff. I cannot say more than that, since the game is still in closed beta and I’m bound by the pesky Non-Disclosure Agreement.
I can say that I’ve discovered a second level to the game beyond mere violence and statistics. On the game’s online forums I’ve now started dropping as much homoerotic innuendo as possible into my posts. All the misspellings and competitive posturing can get rather tiresome so now I’m seeing how many times I can insert phallic imagery into my replies.
For level 2 of this meta-game I think I’ll see how well I can make subtle connections between fighting other players and having sex with their avatars. “Have you ever been penetrated by another player’s hot lead injection and been disappointed that you couldn’t return the favour?”
Well, we’ll see how it goes.
The first month of my project is over. It seems that for the month of August I’ve read 2 books and 61 comic books while watching 8 movies and 6 episodes of different TV shows.
I’d say it’s been a light month for books since I remember at least one week in recent memory where I started and finished three in between Sunday and Saturday. Believe it or not, August has also been below average for me in terms of comic books read. They’re quick and easy to read so you can easily get through a bunch in just an hour, plus they’re bite-sized so you can finish one while boiling an egg or something. I’m not watching as much TV since dramas tend to be my main genre and there aren’t as many of them during the summer. As for movies, I think it’s been pretty normal for me.
Anyway, only time will reveal any larger trends in my habits. Still, I rather like this business of keeping track and may continue past the end of my experiment.
See below if you really want to know exactly what media I consumed.
| Books | Movies | Comic Books | TV Shows |
| 2 | 8 | 61 | 6 |
| Red Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson) | Warrior | Gokuko no Brynhildr 21 | Suits s2 e8 |
| Detective (Arthur Hailey) | Cabin in the Woods | Sket Dance 204 | True Blood s5 e10 |
| The Avengers (rewatch) | Otogi no Machi no Rena 49 | Futurama s8 e9 | |
| The Lion in Winter | The World God Only Knows 197 | Doctor Who s3 e6 | |
| Cleanskin | Nickelodeon Red (reread) | Doctor Who s3 e7 | |
| Bedevilled | Legion of Super-Villains 1 | Futurama s8 e10 | |
| A History of Violence (rewatch) | X-Factor 241 | ||
| Premium Rush | Avenging Spider-Man 10 | ||
| Fallen Angel: Return of the Son 3 | |||
| Fallen Angel: Return of the Son 4 | |||
| Dark Avengers 178 | |||
| Seigi no Mikata v2 c6 | |||
| Seigi no Mikata v2 c7 | |||
| Seigi no Mikata v2 c8 | |||
| Seigi no Mikata v2 c9 | |||
| Seigi no Mikata v2 c10 | |||
| Godland 32 | |||
| Godland 33 | |||
| Godland 34 | |||
| Godland 35 | |||
| Godland 36 | |||
| Courtney Crumrin 3 | |||
| Courtney Crumrin 4 | |||
| The Unwritten 38 | |||
| The Unwritten 39 | |||
| Btooom! V8 c47 | |||
| Btooom! V8 c48 | |||
| Btooom! V8 c49 | |||
| Gokuko no Brynhildr 22 | |||
| Sankarea 31 | |||
| Fairest 6 | |||
| Saucer Country 6 | |||
| Scarlet Spider 7 | |||
| Scarlet Spider 8 | |||
| Fables 120 | |||
| I, Vampire 1 | |||
| I, Vampire 2 | |||
| I, Vampire 3 | |||
| I, Vampire 4 | |||
| I, Vampire 5 | |||
| I, Vampire 6 | |||
| I, Vampire 7 | |||
| I, Vampire 8 | |||
| I, Vampire 9 | |||
| I, Vampire 10 | |||
| I, Vampire 11 | |||
| Justice League Dark 1 | |||
| Justice League Dark 2 | |||
| Justice League Dark 3 | |||
| Justice League Dark 4 | |||
| Justice League Dark 5 | |||
| Justice League Dark 6 | |||
| Justice League Dark 7 | |||
| Justice League Dark 8 | |||
| Justice League Dark 9 | |||
| Justice League Dark 10 | |||
| Justice League Dark 11 | |||
| World’s Finest 3 | |||
| World’s Finest 4 | |||
| Demon Knights 12 | |||
| I, Vampire 12 |
Thanks once more to Scans Daily, see now the shocking revelations of Archie Out of Context. Click on the link if you dare enter into the den of depravity that is Riverdale.
Where have you been, darling Billy?
Dear god, I practiced that tune more times than I can remember on the piano. With the span of years separating me from those times, however, I’ve come to reconsider my grudging resignation to playing the piano and wouldn’t mind messing around on one again. However, now I don’t have a piano to practice on. Isn’t that just how it goes?
Oh, and in answer to the question, I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption. Yes, I know it’s two years old. I don’t care. It’s new to me and it was a lot cheaper than when it was new to everyone else, plus it’s way more fun because a lot of the bugs have been fixed by now. The breadth of actions you can do in this game are astonishing. For example, you can tie a woman to some train tracks, but there won’t be any snivelling heroes to interfere and you can pretend to twirl your moustache while you watch a train run her over. You can also do that to anyone who tries to steal your horse, though it’s not as satisfying, but if you punish the no-good horse rustler more appropriately by lassoing them and dragging them to their death as you gallop over the plains you end up losing honour points. I think my favourite thing right now is to hogtie everyone in a saloon and stand around listening to them shout impotent threats at you, then calmly walking away to hunt some deer or something.
Also, when I’m not playing that I’m playing the beta for Dust 514. Also fun, but in a different, kill-other-players-who-are-trying-to-kill-you way. I’m not sure how much leeway the beta’s Non-Disclosure Agreement allows me to say so I’ll just leave it at that.
So yeah, video games. Yeehaw.
On The Onion AV Club there is a discussion about the first film that participants have seen. I couldn’t contribute anything in my case because I honestly have no idea what my first movie is. I have seen hundreds upon hundreds of movies in my life and would be hard-pressed to tell you which specific movie was my first ever. I’m not even sure if it’s something I saw on video or at the movie theatre.
However, this realization also brought to light the fact that I have no idea how much media I consume beyond the vague estimate of “hundreds” in the case of movies. Therefore, I have a new project for myself: between now and the end of August of next year, I will count what and how many novels, movies, tv shows, and comic books I consume. I’ll even list what I’ve consumed in a given month.
Luckily August has only started so I still remember what I’ve consumed so far. Anyway, this project should be very instructive.
Books: Started reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Comic Books: Gokuko no Brynhildr #21, Sket Dance #204, Otogi no Machi no Rena #49, The World God Only Knows #197
The esteemed sages of DC Comics ask that eternal question which has plagued countless philosophers for millennia:
Yes, why is Lois lashing a wooden puppet of Superman? Buddhist apocrypha holds that the Sakkyamuni Buddha pondered that very question under the bodhi tree. Husserl was said to have stared at this comic book cover when he got bored of staring at his copper ashtray.
So what was the reason for this shocking act of kryptonite bondage?
It was simply Lois attempting to drive an evil spirit out of Superman’s body and into a wooden simulacrum. That clears up that mystery.
I usually grab the free tabloid Metro for the morning subway ride since for some reason I like green more than orange but today I picked up 24 Hours for the first time in months. Thus I was shocked to discover seven different typos, one egregious enough to turn a sentence into gibberish. I only skimmed through the daily and didn’t look through every article so I can only assume there were more flubs than what I spotted.
This is really quite unprofessional, being a free daily doesn’t absolve the tabloid’s copyeditor of the responsibility of producing a daily newspaper that won’t make certain readers feel like they’re being stabbed in the eyeballs.
Yes, call me a grammar Nazi if you wish, but now I’m sticking with Metro especially since they stopped being so Americo-centric with their crossword clues and have gone perhaps overboard with the Canadiana – I’m now having to dredge up half-remembered historical trivia from Grade 9 History.
Though let it be noted that I would prefer to be known as a Grammar Stalinist.
Okay, I’ve had time to sleep on it and I have to admit that The Dark Knight Rises is better than I thought it was. It’s already the next day and I’m still thinking about it. I’m reading online reviews and discussions about the themes and characters, so evidently the movie is one of those slow-burning ones where it takes you a while to fully digest everything. I’m revising my opinion upward.
I just saw The Dark Knight Rises. It’s an interesting little blockbuster.
All in all, I would say I liked it. I think the second was superior but I also think this film is better than the first. However, in the years since The Dark Knight I’d forgotten how melodramatic the dialogue in Nolan’s Batman films could be. It also had a somewhat clumsy thematic link to the Occupy Movement, the story being based mostly on the No Man’s Land arc from the comics, where Gotham City is cut off from the rest of the United States and anarchy rules the land.
I do think a stronger thematic connection could have been made between the villain, Bane, and Batman, particularly since they are both figures who deliberately disregard established social structures, but perhaps it’s better that link shouldn’t be returned to when it was used so well in The Dark Knight (the link being violence and insanity in that case).
The movie was good, not great, which makes it sound somewhat disappointing for what’s supposed to be a summer blockbuster, but then again, I can’t remember the last time I exited a movie theatre thinking, “That was awesome!” Perhaps I’m just picky.