So much to see!

With the fall semester drawing to a close and the only two shows I watch regularly (Smallville and Heroes) going on hiatus, I'm going to be missing my regularly-scheduled entertainment fix over the Christmas break. I've been hearing a lot about Joss Whedon's ill-fated Firefly series and its acompanying film Serenity. Friends have told me I need to see it, but I lacked the interest and - more importantly - the time required to watch it. That's where the internet steps in. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog formally introduced me to the mind of Joss Whedon. After enjoying that as much as I did I decided I'd add Firefly and Serenity to my mental "To Be Watched" list. Then Aaron and Will over at the Axed podcast did an entire episode on Firefly/Serenity this week. Also, as most of you know, I've been addicted to Twitter for over a month now. It's an amazing site that you need to check out if you haven't already. I've been talking to lots of very cool people there. Late last week, I started talking to the hosts of the Chic Geek Podcast. I listened to all of their episodes in a matter of three days and enjoyed them immensely. Faith and Ky are really funny and made me genuinely interested in checking out a few things I've been holding off on. I think I'm going to do a full review of their show as part of my all-but-abandoned "Podcastin' " ongoing blog post series, so be on the lookout for that. Aside from giving me the final push towards watching Firefly/Serenity, the Chic Geek girls have convinced me to look into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its popular spin-off Angel, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (T:SCC), which is supposed to be the best show on television right now, according to Faith, as well as Steve and Derek of SHoE (who also run a Sarah Connor Chronicles podcast called SkyNext).

So I'll be keeping quite busy over this break. Of course I hope to be working; in fact I need to remember to call my place of summer employ tomorrow to make sure they still need me over Christmas. However, if that goes through, I usually work early in the day, from 7am-3pm. That leaves plenty of time each day for catching up on good TV. Of course to watch T:SCC, I need to see the Terminator films, which I'm ashamed to say I've never seen. I know. Go on, ostracize me. But before you do, know that I watched The Terminator mere moments before writing this post and LOVED it. I'm going to get started on Terminator 2 in just a few minutes. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines isn't directly related to T:SCC, so I'll probably put off watching that until after I'm all caught up with everything else. I've only got a month of freedom to watch 7+ years' worth of TV and movies, so I don't want to waste my time.

Here's the order in which I plan to watch all this stuff. If you have any suggestions for how I might amend it, feel free to comment.

  • Terminator -- DONE
  • Terminator 2 -- DONE
  • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles --SEASON 1 DONE, S2 IN PROGRESS
  • Firefly
  • Serenity
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Angel
NOTE: Edited to reflect the completion of items on the To-Watch list.

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Windows Vista: Not That Bad!

I took the plunge. I installed Windows Vista yesterday. Not as my primary OS; that would be madness. I'm dual-booting XP and Vista. For those not familiar with the term, it means that when I turn my computer on, I get a choice of which OS I want to use. I've been trying out Vista since yesterday afternoon and I must say it's really a pretty good system. Great, actually. I have no major complaints. My only issue so far was that Vista asked me to confirm almost every action. When I installed or ran a program for the first time, I had to confirm that I trusted the software. Got annoying. But it was pretty easy to disable that through Control Panel. Since then, it's been smooth sailing. I'm actually considering switching over to Vista permanently. I won't make that decision until I've been able to fully try it out and decide that I'm absolutely certain it's a good move.

The main complaint one hears about Vista is that it hogs system resources. Admittedly, I haven't been able to test that out to its fullest yet because I don't have much room on my Vista partition to install lots of software. Thus far I've only installed Firefox, Chrome, iTunes, and AIM. The basics. Plus any Windows Updates, because this copy of Vista is a little old, so it needs to be made current. At some point today I might install Photoshop or another program that requires a lot of system resources and then we'll see how Vista fares. But so far, it's actually consistently faster than my XP partition. Plus, because of the way I have things set up, I actually have access to all of the documents and files that are in my XP partition even when I'm running Vista, so I'm not really handicapping myself. The only problem is that I can't run programs off of my XP partition for use in Vista, and there isn't enough room on my hard drive to install everything in both XP and Vista. Maybe I'll try and use my external hard drive for that.

Anyway, overall I'm enjoying Vista very much. I'm inclined to agree with my good friend Shannon, a full-time Vista user and the only person I know who is totally fine with it. I'll keep you posted as things develop. Before you go, a screenshot:


(Click to Enlarge)


I know, only 1GB of RAM. It's disgraceful. But by Christmas (if not earlier) that will be expanded to my motherboard's maximum of 4GB. And it will be glorious. That's when I'll REALLY know if Vista is worth my time. If I like it enough with 4GB of RAM, I might start uninstalling stuff from my XP partition and switch to Vista as my primary OS.

Incidentally, I'm really excited for Windows 7, the next OS from Microsoft. That's set to drop in late 2009 or early 2010. Beta versions have leaked onto BitTorrent and I am more than a little tempted to try them out. The trick is finding a legitimate version that WON'T turn out to be a lovely piece of malware. If Vista doesn't work out for me, I just might have to grab a copy of Windows 7 and dual-boot it along with XP. We shall see. Any good/bad Vista experiences anyone wants to share? Use the comments box!


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New Star Trek Trailer Looks SWEET

I saw this before Quantum of Solace a couple of weekends ago and I was totally blown away. While I'm still not down with the idea of the Enterprise being built in the 20th century instead of the 23rd, the awesomeness of this trailer is making it easier to forgive that. It's a re-imagining of Star Trek. I've gotta say Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes) really looks the part of Spock. Very much looking forward to this movie.



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Feeling Mildly Important

It's really cool when you get recognized by someone you respect. Lately I've taken to contacting the people at my favorite podcasts to weigh in when they ask for feedback. It started over the summer when the 10th Wonder Podcast read an email used some photos I sent them (Episode 58 "Two Things"). A couple of weeks ago, they also played a voicemail I left them (Episode 66 "Eris Quod Sum"). Around the same time as the voicemail, I emailed the Axed Podcast, and while they didn't read it on the show, they were courteous enough to reply to my email and even check out this blog. In fact, they mentioned my email in passing during their most recent episode, which came out today.

The main reason for this post, though, is that in today's episode of my very favorite podcast, Starkville House of El (Episode 109 "Abyss/Bride"), they read an email I sent them late last week (just a few minutes before they recorded the show, actually). It's pretty cool when stuff like that happens.

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Gmail Themes!

According to ZDNet and other sources, including Felicia Day's Twitter, Gmail began offering themes to a limited number of users (Felicia included, apparently) today. I am not yet one of those lucky users. I really hope they make it available for all users very soon, because I really want to try it out. I like the themes they have for iGoogle, so hopefully the Gmail themes will be equally cool. Here's hoping.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/wp-trackback.php?p=1182

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Superman Leaving Action Comics?!

I am angry right now. I've just read an LA Times article at SupermanHomepage.com stating that Superman will no longer be the star of Action Comics:
Dan DiDio participated in an interview over at the LA Times website, where he dropped this bombshell in regards to the future of Superman comics... especially "Action Comics"...

    DD: [W]e're going to be making changes in Superman's world as well. Superman has been the star of "Action Comics" for its entire run, essentially, and he will be leaving it and handing it over to new characters. The only time he hasn't appeared in the book, I believe, was after "The Death of Superman," in those years. So this is a lot of fun for us. I think that's going to get people excited and scratching their heads and wondering what's going on. In his own book, "Superman," there will be a dramatic turn as the hero leaves Earth and it seems like he's leaving for good. We'll follow his adventures in space more so than his adventures on Earth, and that's a big and exciting thing. We're also bringing back one of the old-time favorite titles of DC Comics, "Adventure Comics." It will be back with a new No. 1 and with new stars but old stars at the same time. It'll be pretty easy to guess who will be the stars of "Adventure Comics" if you know who the title was most identified with...

    GB: Well, which era? Sandman, the Spectre, Dial H for Hero, Superboy...

    DD: [Laughing] And who did Superboy appear with?

    GB: Ah. The Legion of Super-Heroes.

    DD: So this is a lot of fun for us. "Action," "Adventure," and "Superman," these are some of our premiere titles, some of the titles with the longest history. To affect a real level of change on these titles is exciting for us. It makes our oldest and most enduring titles fresh again.

Read the complete interview at the LA Times website.
I'm pretty upset about this. First of all, Superman is my absolutely undisputed favorite superhero ever. He made his debut in Action Comics #1 in June 1938, 70 years ago this year. Separating Superman from Action Comics is just unthinkable. Especially with Geoff Johns writing it and making it my favorite comic book at the moment. It's the book I look forward to the most every month. I really don't want to see second-string characters taking over a first-string book and ruining it. The main reason I got into comics was because of Superman. From there, I've branched off into most of the rest of the DCU, but Superman remains the driving force behind my comic fandom. If they do this, I will be severely disappointed. My only hope is that this happens, if at all, after Geoff Johns' run on Action Comics ends in 2010. Then the Superman arc will at least have a definite ending and it won't hurt quite as much.

Then there's the matter of where they'll be going with Superman Comics once Action gets invaded by the second tier of the DCU. Superman in space? Really? I mean, you can do that when it's for a couple of episodes of a TV series, or even for the lenght of a movie, but to have it be a big part of an ongoing series? As long as it's just your typical 4-7 issue arc for trading, I'm fine with it. But somehow I don't get that vibe from the way DiDio phrased it. Superman works best protecting Earth (specifically Metropolis) and interacting with his supporting cast: Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Kara, even Steve Lombard, Ron Toupe, and Cat Grant. As long as it's a relatively short arc with a definite plan laid out, I might enjoy it. But if they plan for this to be the state of Superman for the foreseeable future, I will be pissed. 

So many things to consider. I'm sure they'll reveal more in the coming months. Hopefully by the time I'm at New York Comic Con this February, there will be more details readily available. If not, I just may get in line at one of the DC panels and pose the question to the parties involved. For now, I'm going to continue enjoying the New Krypton story, because it is mind-blowingly amazing. I should really start reviewing comics on here. It'd be fun, plus it'd help me realize what I really think about them. When I sit down to try and express my feelings about something in writing, it becomes much clearer to me and I gain better insights into my own thoughts. Is that weird? I don't really care. 

And now, a random awesome YouTube video brought to my attention by my friend Alex:





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