Pure Brain Dump

During a discussion recently with a friend of mine, I mentioned that I didn't really have any good topics to write about at the moment, just a whole bunch of little bits of junk that were sort of floating around in my head. And she gave me some very sage advice: write about whatever you want; it's your damn blog.

So yeah, word to the max. Commencing random bits of info.

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My latest obsession: How I Met Your Mother. A TV show. Not even just a TV show, a fixed camera sitcom. I don't know what has become of my tastes. But this show is the most hilarious thing on TV that is not The Office, and it's way less cringe-inducing, which makes it a lot easier to watch. I got the first season on DVD for Christmas and by conservative estimate I have watched it all the way through at least 5 times. There is a really nice level of rapport that the cast has working, especially by the end of that first season. And the new second season has really hit its stride, to the point where I consider certain episodes at the pinnacle of good TV. (I would never have thought anything could challenge Arrested Development's Pier Pressure as the best single episode of comedy I have ever seen, but HIMYM's Slap Bet is right there.)

I also have a wicked man-crush on Neil Patrick Harris, who is almost criminally funny in the role of the crazy womanizer.

The show almost went off the rails for me in the first season with the obvious parallels to Friends and the Ross+Rachael4Life issue with the corresponding characters here, but they managed to avoid the really bad pitfalls and come up with some great TV.

And now I'm on some sort of holy quest to convert every person I know into a watcher. This is exactly like Serenity/Firefly, but I think I'm a little less crazed on this one. You should watch it, though.

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Also for Christmas, someone (Frank) let me go wild in Borders books and I managed to pick up a nice pile of new Science Fiction, which I have been chewing through for over a month now, really enjoying some hardcore speculative future worlds. It's all from the very dense side of science fiction, the kind that normal people hate and that I absolutely love.

This is all to say that I am massively recommending the novel Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. It's the sort of book that I live for: hard science fiction with a realistic base, some really interesting ideas, and a payoff that doesn't completely suck (which is the problem I almost universally find with really ambitious science fiction). It's got a straightforwardness about the whole thing that I really respect - One day the stars disappear, the Earth is surrounded by some sort of shield that causes time on the planet to move incredibly slowly compared to the rest of the universe, and the main characters are left to deal with the fallout.

Even though it is structured in a stylized series of flashbacks, it manages it with such flair that completely forgive the trappings, where usually I would get tired after 3 chapters. And it doesn't hurt that the characters are surprisingly well written and sympathetic, something else that I tend to hate about sci-fi.

It really put me in the mind of Carl Sagan's Contact, which is pretty much the highest praise I can give to a book. It's not for everyone, but if you like this sort of thing, it's definitely the book to read.

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I've started up the World of Warcraft again. I know, so shameful. I have no reasoning or defense, other than the relative cheapness of the entertainment. Your average video game costs at least $30.00 and only offers you limited replay value. By sticking with this one, I'm only incurring about $14.00/month and not wasting money elsewhere.

Also, the new races and areas they added in with the expansion are just great - I've got a new Blood Elf up and running and my hunter has been pulled out of retirement for the long haul up to level 70. If there are any of you out there who still play, I'm on that there server called The Scryers, character name Rohr.

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New Musical Interest that I can't get enough of: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. I really enjoy me some up-tempo rock, and this album has it in spades. Classic exercise/running background music for me. And some of the songs are really sweet too.

I have almost nothing to add, except I really like British imports lately for some reason. I'm just a sucker for accents, I think.

(Other music related confession that ruins pretty much my entire life: I have that Daughtry CD on my iPod. And I sort of like it. A lot. I think I'm gonna go throw up now.)

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Went and saw Pan's Labyrinth over the weekend. Completely amazing. Almost impossible to watch at times - the violence is astounding on occasion, but the movie as a whole is astonishing and immersive. The fantastic elements are almost tame compared to the realistic elements of war, and when you combine it with the amazing acting the result is deeply affecting. I don't think I've walked out of a movie that charged...possibly ever. And I include in that my recent viewing of Children of Men, which I imagined would hold the title for a very long time. I also really dug the open-endedness of the conclusion. In fact, I probably would have liked a little more - some additional shades of gray might not have hurt.

A great movie, though. Top three of last year to be sure. Actually to break it down, my real top 5 movie list in terms of best movies I saw for 2006 (say if I ran the Oscars): Children of Men, History Boys, Pan's Labyrinth, Little Miss Sunshine, and Stranger Than Fiction.