And it's not even a movie.

Honestly - if you're gonna do a post-Next Gen thriller about Romulan politics, brisk action, and cold blue vengeance, this is how to do it. And if Abrams' flick is literally half this good, it'll be the best Trek flick since '91 by a country mile. What's really odd about Countdown is how well it seems to fit: it doesn't ignore or undo the Next Gen movies in any way (except for bringing Data back from the dead); it fully absorbs their emotional temperature and extends it, as if to say "yeah, those stories sucked. But the world is still viable for storytelling." What I'm about to say could not possibly have been the writers' intent, but... it actually even eats away at the logic of rebooting the Trek franchise altogether. Why go back in time, when the stories in the existing continuity can be this good? Ever forward, as the guy who played Chang said in that Dragnet movie.

Well frick. I'm all kerfuzzled now.

On the other side of the nerd spectrum I finally got around to watching the second episode of Dollhouse, in advance of this week's ep which is reputed by all to actually be "the one that is good." Well it better be. The premise remains as baffling as last time (why do these clients need the dolls? why?), but I'll tell ya what the real missing link is here: this is the first Joss Whedon series (actually, possibly the first Joss Whedon anything) without a single bit of humour about its own idea. There are comic characters on the show and the occasional one-liner, but there is absolutely no self-importance-deflating self-reflexivity around the ridiculousness of the concept. I can buy vampire slayers and space cowboys, as long as they occasionally realize how lunatic their concept is. This crew? Boring as a trip to the dentist. At this point I feel a fascination coming on - I am downloading further episodes, even now - but for now it's the fascination of seeing how and what and frick is going on here, that something this lackluster made it to air.

Man. When television was good. Remember? X-Files and Buffy and Six Feet Under and E.R.? And now True Blood and Dollhouse and... E.R.? (OH MY GOD, THE REUNION EPISODE. OH MY GOD.) I'd take a warmed-over episode of Alias over this shit any day.

Posted by tederick at 5:59 PM in comix & joss & tv
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I have an uneasy relationship with Lost this season. Longtime readers will remember that I've had similar periods before, so I almost feel foolish about it; at the end of most episodes this year I feel relieved, "See, that wasn't so bad," as though some weight of crapulence has descended on the show and is only barely being lifted on a weekly basis. Something about the storytelling just rubs me wrong, right now. With the long-questioned flashback structure negated at last, the show seems rushed, and vacant, and hard to follow. There's too much going on. Jack - who is still, as far as I'm concerned, the hero of the series - has been sidelined to day-player status until this week's episode, when he finally seemed to become the lead again; but in doing so, we went no further than that, or no deeper. It's as though with 4 seasons of character relationships set up, the writers have decided "Well, you know enough about them now; let's just see them act, rather than be." If each season prior has defined itself with a core thrust - the island, the hatch, the Others, the freighter - and this one is "the time travel"... well, it's either unaccountably daring that they have reformulated the structure of the show to so closely approximate the time-jumping island on which our characters reside, or it's just plain madness. Each episode comes with held breath. I wonder how the season as a whole will feel on Blu-Ray.

This piece, in which Ebert eulogizes Gene Siskel on the 10th anniversary of his death, is predictably lovely.

To further cover off the backlog, I didn't like Dollhouse really very much at all. The pre-show expectations hold true: this show is not appealing. It doesn't have a premise. It doesn't have a main character, and it doesn't have, really, an idea of any kind at all. Or at least that's how it feels, given how spectacularly badly thought out the pilot was. Can someone explain to me: why, if your daughter was kidnapped and you needed a hostage negotiator, you would (instead of hiring an actual hostage negotiator) hire someone who had been mentally programmed to think they're a hostage negotiator? Was that covered somewhere, and I missed it? I don't understand what advantage the Dollhouse presents, in any of the engagements depicted in the first episode. If you wanted a high-price whore to spend your birthday weekend with, why go to the additional expense and trouble of a mind-programmed prostitute, rather than a real prostitute? Just so she can race bikes? Why send a tactical operative into a safehouse who has never actually held a gun before, but only thinks she has? This pilot is proof that you can't actually develop an entire series concept in the bathroom while waiting for the fish course to arrive. Oddly enough, with a 13-episode order and a million-and-change bump on viewership from Sarah Connor an hour before, it might survive to the summertime, and lord knows, that first season of Buffy was crappy too. But it wasn't stupid. The first episode of Dollhouse is stupid.

Posted by tederick at 8:54 AM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & ebert & joss & tv
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I picked up Batman #686 this week and then promptly yanked the Dark Knight from my pull list altogether; I am so goddamned glad this whole mess is over. Between R.I.P. and Final Crisis, all Morrison achieved was to utterly obliterate any kind of artistic integrity in the non-Green Lantern DC titles, making last year's Marvel One More Day fiasco look relatively well-thought-out in comparison.

But, at the end, with "What Ever Happened to the Cape Crusader?", we're going out on a high note. Here's Neil Gaiman, pinch-hitting for the now certifiably bugfuck crazy Grant Morrison, to remind us how comics are meant to be written, and how they're meant to be read. "What Ever Happened" is posturpedic support for the Morrison-weary, a comfy training bra for raw and sensitive minds. It undoes nothing, retcons nothing, and yet it stands as such a stark "here is how it's meant to be done," with casual formalism, beautiful art, and genuine enthusiasm for the storytelling process, that it reads (rightfully so) like Here Is Writing, And Fuck The Rest Of You. And as such, is much-needed.

We gotta wait till March 18 for the second part, in Detective Comics where it belongs, rather than the main title. I'm rather excited about that, which is nice.

At the same time, the misbegotten Angel series both came to an end this week, and did not; I must admit that issue #16 last month did an appreciably good job with the climax of what had been a dozen issues or so of utter garbage, but issue #17 sorta queers the deal by being so clearly a This Book Made Money, So We're Keeping It Going. Lord, IDW has to work on their property management, or Joss Whedon has to work with Dark Horse exclusively, or something. What could have been a terrific 6-issue story got teased out into a 17-issue-with-two-spinoffs mess. Greed: it's a deadly sin for a reason.

Posted by tederick at 12:16 PM in batman! & comix & joss
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Folks, last week was crappy. Between my work computer self-destructing and me getting sick, I basically lost a whole week. An entire five-day span slipped into utter nothingness, as though it had never been. That's a surprisingly disconcerting feeling. But it's over and done now, and one trip to the Central with Sarafina later, I am aces. What a difference a date makes.

Yesterday I sat in on Demetre's casting session. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, but casting is a damn strange business. It's nice to sort of get to toe-test the filmmaking universe a bit without actually having to commit to spending every second of my day and night worrying about a project that's going off a week from now, but sitting in a casting room you become very uncomfortably aware of why the world is the way it is. You actually can't just go by objective performance merits; you have to consider whether the girl's boobs are too big, or whether your lead character can be ethnic, or whether the gay guy comes off too gay. You become so instantaneously hyper-aware of every goddamned cliché, stereotype, and unwanted subtext that could possibly flood its way into your picture just by picking any one person who is not statistically identical to you (6 feet tall, male, 32, white). It's amazing anything interesting ever gets made at all.

Nerd alert: toys for new Star Trek movie to be in same scale as Star Wars figures, plan your fights accordingly. (Captain Christopher Pike vs. J'Quille the Wiphid, FTW.)

Nerd alert 2: I am sick beyond words of hearing about Dollhouse. I feel like I've been hearing about this crappy show with no definable premise for half my fucking life. Just get it on the air so you can cancel it already, Fox! It's Joss Whedon's, which makes it an obligation, but also means it will be canceled by its second act break (having been moved to a different timeslot during its first). Get 'er done.

A big fancy feast (and further fondue frip-frappery) this afternoon, a lovely end to a week (or start to a next), and now having felt like I've not had ten minutes to myself for 72 straight hours, perhaps a bit of couch, perhaps a MacCutcheon, perhaps some television like regular people.

Posted by tederick at 9:30 PM in jedi antics & joss & toys!
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I ain't gonna spoil Batman for ya. I'm gonna spoil Buffy.

Issue 19 is not the best issue of the comic series so far, but it's the issue where the comic became great - not great as in superfantasticwondertime!, but the other great, the great of scale, and purpose, and power, and meaning. And if it didn't damn well happen when Buffy had to kill her best friend, it sure as hell happened a few pages earlier with something as simple as Gunther saying "surf" where the rest of us woulda said "turf." Like my own personal Giles told me a few times back in the day, it's in the words. It's in the language.

It's a sloppy piece of comic bookery, three months too late and obviously drawn in a hurry, but damned if it ain't the piece of the story where, sorta somehow kinda, Joss and his folk proved to me that this whole Season 8 thing actually needed to happen, after all. That it isn't just an also-ran, and that it isn't just a piece of the story, but that it actually has the capability to be something a bit more. That it had to happen here, not on a TV show and not in a movie, but right here in the funnybooks, to be the thing that it needs to be.

Think about what we've had so far that could only ever have happened in paper and ink:

• Giant Dawn fighting Giant Mecha Dawn in the streets of downtown Tokyo
• Willow's power, and where it comes from
• The final, anguished moments of Renee's life, told from her fading point of view
• and, of course, Sarah Michelle Gellar getting her lesbianic freak on with her first, best lieutenant.

And then sweep all that aside for a 4-issue mini arc in the distant human future when the entirety of our characters' actions has been shown to be a trivial blip in an otherwise uninterrupted ongoing churn of regular, mean-spirited old life; think about the last thing Willow says in issue 17 - "only time" - ; and sorta shiver a little bit, when Erin is cradling Fray in her arms on an unchanged rooftop on the last page of issue 19.

This story takes some fucking chances, man.

p.s. is Xander in love with Dawn?

Posted by tederick at 8:18 PM in comix & joss
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I wasn't entirely sure what I was gonna get when I popped in the Firefly blu-rays, but holy damn am I glad I did. It's a bit like watching the show for the first time. I even (and I never do this because it is generally a disappointing practice) side-by-sided the sucker with the old version and the difference is mouth-watering. Worse things than popping in "Serenity" for a few minutes of pretty before you go to work on a grey and tiresome Thursday.

Meanwhile, the other Serenity hits shinyblu on the last day of the year. Which might time out right with me re-watching the show right now. I realized in viewing these disks that I don't think I've watched more than a handful of these episodes since about a year before the movie came out. Which feels about right - enough time to be surprised again.

Hey, here's a tall piece of crazy: the score for The Dark Knight is ineligible for the Academy Award. So was Batman Begins, probably the score that did the most work for its host movie of anything in the last five or ten years. The Academy is, once again, miles behind where it needs to be.

Posted by tederick at 7:41 AM in batman! & joss & shinybludisks
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"I will take you outside and fuck you in the street!!" - Ed Begley Jr.

"That is spicy. I don't think that's for cats." - Adam

I love that photo a lot.

Sarafina and myself went to the Pineapple Express movie last night, and ate fish burritos, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I would say there are at least six things in that film that are outstanding, four things that are just really pretty, and the rest is overall very well done. Additionally, I read the second neo-Fray arc issue in Buffy, and was so goddamned thrilled that I almost didn't know what to do with myself. Actually, I probably embarrassed myself in public spaces with my near-constant glee. The densely-woven futurespeak is new (I suppose we can presume that in the previous self-contained storyline, we were seeing "translated" futurespeak, as we would see translated Chinese in an issue of Iron Fist) but very well done. And as for the spoiler... well yeah. I fell for the Dru fake-out rather nicely and was aptly rewarded at the end, but the bones of the thing now are just gorgeous to look at. Something happened in this issue that never happened before - the modern-day Buffyline just gained a fuck of a lot of context, a place in the world. It's not limited to Sunnydale any more, it's not even limited to the naughties any more; with the past and present accounted for and the future now added in, the Buffyverse feels dense. I like.

This crazy son'bitch built the Batman Beginsmobile. There was a phantom DeLorean that lived somewhere between my ex-girlfriend's house and my parents' place, back in the day... you'd be driving along at night and it would just appear behind you, and you (meaning I) would freak right out. Imagine how you (meaning I) would feel if the motherfucking Batmobile started tailing you instead. Holy cow.

Finally, for everyone who (like me) is still having trouble sliding the oily oyster that is "Quantum of Solace" down their gullet, there's a Joe Cornish fake theme song floating around YouTube that's quite enjoyable. They had me at "great big man-tits."

Posted by tederick at 3:48 PM in ADAM & batman! & comix & joss & movies & youtubery
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I don't want to rain on the Whedonites' weekend, because lord knows those poor miserable people have been through enough. (They cancelled Firefly! In 2002!!) But I'm just not on board with Dr. Horrible. Did no one else find it... kinda humdrum? There's a self-congratulatory air about the proceedings with this one, which I hope does not extend to Dollhouse, but probably could. Yes, the whole project is sorta adorable and there are songs and Doogie Howser has a death ray. But if this were made by a college kid - aside from the fact that we'd all be gawping at the fact that he somehow found fifty billion dollars for his budget - would we really be calling it all the great things it's been called this week? The story is flat, the genre innovations are a no-show, and the technical craft is bottom-drawer. There isn't a single note here that wasn't done better in any of the other superhero inversions of the past five years, and there's no ending. Honestly, I've come to expect more. Captain Napalm: strike!

Anyhoo. Rough weekend. I ate several grilled cheese sandwiches. Well, to be fair, one cannot really call what I grew up with as "grilled cheese" truly "grilled cheese," as there is no grilling involved whatsoever. It's more like "broiled cheese sandwiches." To whit:

1. Toast two pieces of white bread
2. Butter one side of each piece with the yellowest margarine you can find
3. Pre-heat oven on broil
4. Place both pieces of toast on a baking sheet, one with butttered side up, one with buttered side down. On the one with buttered side down, place two pieces of thin Kraft cheese singles, the ones that are not made out of actual cheese.
5. Put in the oven and heat until cheese is gooey and other piece of toast is notably browning
6. Take out of oven, put un-cheesed toast on the cheesed toast, flip the whole sandiwch, and re-broil until other side is as brown as the first side was
7. Serve and enjoy.

Comfort food is lovely, but I may panic soon and need to watch the entirety of The Lord of the Rings. It's a scale of escalation.

So, I am likely not going to be living in my dream home at College and Yonge come September first. This means I am shortly to join Toronto's homeless population. As predicted on this blog 18 months ago, my homeless personality shall be Captain Jack Sparrow - me and that Jedi guy outside the Scotiamount are gonna have a fight. Look for me - my hair is nearly long enough for dreadlocks already. Shiesh! How do people stand having hair in the summer?

Happy Potteaster! On this day in 2007, Harry Potter died for our sins and was reborn a complete franchise. Praise Potteresus.

Posted by tederick at 9:40 AM in foodin' & h-pot & joss
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Oh, I'm gonna be mighty pissed at myself if it was that obvious the whole time.

Posted by tederick at 2:16 PM in comix & joss
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Astonishing X-Men by Ellis and Bianchi - sucked! oh god, did it suck. Human words cannot describe the ugliness of Simone Bianchi's art, nor the degree to which Ellis apparently never read a single issue of the comic he's taking over. When did Hisako become a cross between Molly Hayes and a pissed-off gym instructor? Never. Fuck you.

Angel: After the Fall, now with a revolving clusterfuck of increasingly incompetent artists teasing out the dregs of Brian Lynch's evidently uber-thin original concept - the worst comic I am currently reading! I cannot believe the phenomenal fucking nosedive in quality this thing took around about the middle of issue 4, nor the fact that 6 fully awful issues later (including the unforgivable "First Night" mini-arc), I am still here. Spike: After the Fall? No thank you.

Batman: RIP by Grant Morrison - incomprehensible! Utterly, structurally, conceptually, executionally the worst-written anything written I've read since The Writer's Journey! Morrison has had it! The hack is off the job! Four more issues of this just to find out what the Big Change is? Not worth it.

Buffy vs. Fray - so fucking good.

Posted by tederick at 2:21 PM in batman! & comix & joss
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Me, to D-Coc, re Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: I think we just got pantsed.

D-Coc, reply to me, re same: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS
HOW HARD AND FAST AND VIGOROUS CAN THEY EAT MY ASS

Posted by tederick at 12:32 PM in joss & tederick films
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Genuinely I can say that this issue of BTVS was the first time I felt legitimately like I was watching an episode of the show. Which is nuts, because it was entirely based around content that could not possibly have been featured on the television program - Giant Dawn robot fight in the streets of Tokyo, etc.

What it felt like, though, was the stakes of the show - where characters enter and exit, succeed and fail, rally around each other in unexpected ways, and come away changed by the events therein. That's what's basically been lacking from arcs 1 and 2 of this comic - no real growth. WatG, however, really felt like a grand finale of something, setting up and paying off relationship after relationship while still fitting into the overall scheme. And not a hint of Floating Boots to be found. Sublime.

(I've figured out who Floating Boots is, by the way. It's Captain... Malcolm... Reynolds!! Sweet.)

Posted by tederick at 10:39 AM in comix & joss
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A big fire swept through the backlot at Universal Studios last night, and among the casualties was my actual favourite part of the lot: the Hill Valley town square from Back to the Future. (The clock tower evidently survives, but was damaged; no word on who or what traveled where or to which time period.) If all this is making you nostalgic, I might point out that they have the goddamned Flux Capacitor at the Silver Snail now. It certainly prompted two or three minutes' of unabashed staring from me.

I Rode for the Heart this morning; a big thanks to Erin Booth, Helen, e-Becca, my aunt Beth, Jocelyn, Matthew Fabb, Demetre, Jeff, Chris, Meredith, my parents, Steeeeve!, Christys, and Sarafina for sponsoring me. Hey, here's an idea: next time I want to do a 75K on this thing, someone remind me to actually train beforehand, yeah? And by "beforehand," I mean for several goddamned months like a real grown-up would do, not a few weeks of half-assed riding. I did the whole thing in about four and a half hours this morning and it damn near wasted me. I was not prepared.

Let's post-script two things:

Lost! While on the whole I'd say that Season Four has been fairly kickass, I gotta call the finale weak. Not as bad as that disastrous tail-ender to the first season, but still not nearly as absorbing as last year's "we're in the future now!" slam-o-rama (though to be fair, what could be?) nor even as action-adveturey-science-fiction-terrifico as the Season Two closer with Desmond. So instead of debating the fiddle-faddle of who was in the box or who got blowed up on what freighter, I'll just give two bits of human interest on the whole thing and then call it a year: 1) they pointlessly brought Harold Perinneau back just to get rid of him again, because he did indeed go "boom" with the boat; and 2) here are some hilarious alternate versions of the final shot, featuring other non-Bens in the coffin from Season Three. Anyways, I'm sort of glad the year's done, as my interest in the show was sort of lessened by the strike gap. I'm sure I'll be back on board for Season 5.

X-Men! In like kind, I'm glad Astonishing X-Men is done. Joss' lack of commitment to the publishing schedule made the final arc really difficult to enjoy, and the final one-shot was a solid B minus at best; the high-mark work in the arc took place earlier with Scott, not in the bullet with Kitty. It was at some point this week that I realized that I've been regularly reading three X-titles and pretty much don't care about any of them any more, so I think it's time for an X-break. At least until Ellis takes over AXM.

Posted by tederick at 4:40 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & comix & jedi antics & joss & movies
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Maybe I'm missing a big part of the concept or something, but Dollhouse ain't exactly blowing my doors off yet. It even looks for shit - the worst parts of the Angel season 5 production design and lighting style, taken to a new level of bland.

13 episodes have been ordered... anybody wanna lay bets on what order Fox will air 'em in? I'm going 6-5-3-13-11-1-cancelled.

Posted by tederick at 5:39 PM in joss
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Round trip to Brantford last night for my lady, home late and up later, woke up this morning not entirely sure who I am, until I remembered: "Oh yeah, I'm the guy who did that." It's nice when the strings connect.

It took me a few go-throughs but I am enjoying the new R.E.M. album. Better than Around the Sun anyway, but I really didn't get much out of that one. Still, I'm aware that nothing's really shaking my shit loose like it did back in the day. But then, one should not expect a band to be able to do anything like they did "back in the day." "The day" is where bands live, and every day since "the day" is a Sick Boy rant I can recite from memory which comes from a movie that is, in its own way, indicative of the exact phenomena it so effectively critiqued.

Apparently someone can actually sculpt Harrison Ford's face. Worth tossing the 12" to move up to Premium Format? Nah, probably not. It would be better if these things weren't shipping so late in the year, anyway. By third quarter I'm gonna want none of this; if they'd streeted in the second week of May, it'd be nothing but Indiana Jones all over my damn self. As it is, I guess I'll buy this measly Oldiana Jones figure. It amuses me. And the like-scaled Slave Leia can worship hiim as a god-thing.

I gobbled up the first issue of Millar's run on Fantastic Four last night, because everyone said it was so darn good... and it is so darn good. Plus, Serenity: Better Days #2 was actually the first time in five Serenity comics that I actually got that "new story smell," i.e. feeling like I was actually watching an episode of the TV show I never saw before. It was a bit vague, but I liked it. Why does the art have to suck so much?

Thank Christ, they finally found my Raiders jacket at Wested in the UK, new lining not yet installed, and mistaken for a "pre-distressed" jacket on order because it's just so spectacularly Jonesy in its beaten-up-ness. Now it might actually get back just in time for it to be too hot for me to wear it!

Posted by tederick at 9:39 AM in comix & dr. jones & jedi antics & joss & toys!
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IT IS IT IS IT REALLY IS

Other flicks they really oughta get off their asses and release in BD PDQ (I'm all about the block caps today, both acronymical and N.O.T.):

• There Will Be Blood (c'mon!!! I'll be your friend...)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (why? will this in any way impact my viewing of the film? Zuh? I dunno. Wantee.)
• Kill Bills, the vol. 1, and the vol. 2
• Fight motherfuckin' Club
• The Lord of the Rings (obviously)
• The Matrix (the first one only. Wouldn't that be a hoot?)

This concludes a list that got progressively obviouser with each subsequent bullet.

Posted by tederick at 6:52 PM in joss & shinybludisks
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Let it never be said that I am not a man with a backup plan.

I got pantsed at poker the other night, absolutely utterly pantstededt. This took away any vague notion on my part that I might partake in this year's charity tournament and make off like a bandit with curly-cues of lemon around my fingers, and dress-money to spare. Still, I've said it before and I'll say it again, Matty Price is a man who really knows how to put out a snack plate. I took one mid-size win, so at least I remember what it tastes like. That, and cheese.

Buffy and Angel both lay down this week with faltering middling episodes; the post-coital exuberance of last month's Buffy lesbo-thon dimmed to the usual "She's got the weight of the world on her shoulders, for fuck's sake! She can fuck anyone she wants for her own reasons and they will deal with it!" rhetoric from back in the Riley days, and the whole "First Night" jive on the Angel side just didn't work at all. The Spike one was a'ight but all of the stories were just too short to be worth anything to anybody. But I don't care, cuz Secret Invasion rocks socks, proving once again that Brian is the one true Bendis. (But not the other thing, I am up to my nuts in Ex and Y.) Tracking down Logan #1 a month late proved six bitches on a bitchboat, but I got it done.

Seventeen heart attacks later, I left work after 7 and wrapped myself in the gauzy certainty that one way or another, a great many things will conclude in the next 5 days. And that's fine.

"Nobody steals from Dracula." - Dracula

Posted by tederick at 8:35 PM in comix & j-o-b & joss
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[droooooooool]

Posted by tederick at 9:43 PM in comix & joss
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I think if I won the lottery I would give out random non-meaningful quantities of money to everyone. Like, one guy would get $63,257, and another guy would get $32,408. And a third guy would get $101,390. I would definitely give Mark $6.10, because I owe him for that one time. And then I would just split. I would leave the country and let everyone itch and scratch over the meaninglessness. It's called a life lesson, and I am an instructional designer (by trade).

Behold the triumphant return of Melaka Fray. Oh, I cannot wait. And I use those words significantly, because of all the comic faddisms that have come after the downfall of the three series, this is the only thing for which I can genuinely say "I cannot wait."

Meanwhile, Sarafina's been amblin' through Firefly, giving me the opportunity to peek in on the series for the first time in a while. Comfortingness, thy name is Ron Glass. Still, I don't care what anyone says: I hate "Jaynestown." It's lazy storytelling.

Speaking of lazy storytelling, this morning we were playing "guess the country lyric," where you try to figure out what the dopey country singer on the radio is going to rhyme to whatever is in the first part of each line of a song, like how if he sings "looker" the next line will almost certainly end with "hooker." It turns out I'm relatively good at it, which I presume means I would be an extraordinarily bad songwriter, since my skills all seem to involve knowing exactly what cheap hacks did before, rather than coming up with nifty inventions that contain any measure of ingenuity. Also: I can't dance.

Christ, I wish I had tomorrow off. (Which would be me actually addressing the proper demigod for my complaint in this instance, so there you go.)

This afternoon I was leaving Brantford I was called upon to shout "Jann Arden needs to be gone!" at my radio. I meant the horribleness of her music that was spilling out of the car speakers, but then realized that I actually meant something quite larger.

I'm gonna go lie on my bedroom floor and try not to break anything.

Posted by tederick at 1:56 PM in comix & joss & miscellaneous crap
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Joss Monkeypants Whedon to make Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog with Doogie Howser, Captain Tightpants and Vi the Vampire Slayer!

(Wait a minute... why isn't Captain Napalm a musical??)

Further to the last entry, maybe I should just get a t-shirt that says "I don't do stuff cuz Joss Whedon is better at it."

Other items!:

ITEM!: The dumbtards at Apple finally fixed the iPod "The"-title album sorting discrepancy.

ITEM!: This morning, I used the Force to find something extremely small that had been lost for a very long time.

ITEM!: My spring cleaning kicks your spring cleaning's ass.

Posted by tederick at 3:21 PM in i hate mac & jedi antics & joss
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The telepods went into the mall yesterday; I wanted to drive one around the outer atmosphere and then dock at the Enterprise, but oh well. At least the secret's out. At around 5:30 p.m. last night I bought a lottery ticket, some nuts, and a cigarette lighter. I really am quite lucky, and I know that. For every single thing in my life that pisses me off, there are five things that make me feel wonderful, and another five things that make my whole world feel like a big dumb playground of surreal adventure. It's a mental game, this, but it keeps me happy.

Let's talk about spoilers! I haven't watched Lost yet, so don't talk to me about it. I did, however, ready Uncanny X-Men this week, wherein the person who ain't gonna come back from the Breakworld was rather unceremoniously revealed to me. It was not the best way to find out. But I once again blame Joss Whedon. The rest of the world doesn't stop just cuz the Whed-o-god is playing with his dollies.

I need some coffee, and music, and snuggle time. And a day or two off, with some fancy shopping, would not go amiss. It's a whole new ballgame come Monday.

Posted by tederick at 9:28 AM in comix & j-o-b & jedi antics & joss
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"I wasn't aware we had an alarm for this, but yes, sound the alarm."
          - Xander Harris on lesbianism

Seen and heard in Buffy the Vampire Slayer #12:

• The sheer noobishness of Xander's approach to asking out girls proves that indeed, Chad was right about me
• Chad also seems to be correct vis à vis my feelings on inter-Slayer sexplay.
• Dark Horse has confirmed that the arc after this one will concern one Miss Melaka Fray, thus affording the new Buffisodes the opportunity to demonstrate once and for all that Battlestar Galactica, and even Whedon's own Firefly, are mere posers in the world of future-lingo
• Georges Jeanty outdoes himself here, not just due of his clear skill at drawing nude frolicsome Slayers... but on performance art and portrait fidelity in the faces alone, he's really come into his own in this second decalogue of issues. Even his Andrew has improved. Huzzah!
• I would call the Superman referencing contrived, but otherwise Drew Goddard is once again our God(dard). His knack for bedroom farce is excellent, and reaches its zenith in the timing and manner of Willow's return.
• Dracula sucks
• The media sucks more
• Excited, though not entirely drooling, over Serenity 2: Omitting Dramatic Tension Just So We Can Have Wash Back
• Matt wanna see Giant Dawn stomp puny Japanese!

Posted by tederick at 8:51 AM in comix & joss
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My goal of not murdering anyone was substantially assisted just now by the consumption of a generous corned beef sandwich. Boy: blood sugar's a bitch, huh?

Last night I had what you'd call "thick sleep" - the sleep of total nonexistence. I guess I was tired. We stayed up very, very late with delicious wines and party games on Wednesday night for Sarafina's birthday, and while the overall reaction to my being able to guess Sarafina's "tofu" in charades will remain one of my favourite moments ever in the history of moments, yesterday morning was nonetheless a little rocky. I couldn't get the Gatekeeper's Eastern European shrieking out of my head, for one thing; I also couldn't eat solid foods or get entirely comfortable with the thickness of Jemaine Clement's lips. Still, this has been a big fat satisfying awesome of a week. And it's still going.

You know what else is still going? Insane-O-Winter '08, is what. Another big snowstorm for the next 36. There's been so much fucking snow in this town this year, they've run out of shovels. Who runs out of shovels? The same yolks who run out of Wal Mart snow pants, that's who. Poor planning, Canada!

Lost: I am confused about "island time." Aren't we within about 3 days (on the show) of the episode where Jack told Kate he loved her, and Charlie died? What happened in those three days wherein Claire seems pretty content and well-adjusted, and Jack's mackin' on blondie? I'm sure Daniel Faraday could explain this (with the aid of a rocket!), but I can't.

Buffy: Haven't been to the Snail in a while, and unfortunately I have now been liberally spoiled on this week's big reveal in issue #12. I'll try to actually read the issue in question shortly, after which point we should probably talk. In the meantime, I'll be in my bunk...

Posted by tederick at 1:00 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & comix & foodin' & jedi antics & joss
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So after two or three years of solid use, I decided to get rid of that Jack Colton scream button on the side of the blog. I've replaced it with Jack Rebney going nuts. Which is, unfortunately, silent (although I guess I could have overlaid any of Jack's excellent sound bites). But still very entertaining when you're bored.

Here is an open letter to Joss Whedon:

Dear Joss Whedon,

Matt

This was prompted largely by the fact that I was so pissed off that Runaways 29 was months late that I was determined not to like it... and then it turned out to be pretty much the strongest issue of the 5 he's done so far. So now he's an asshole for exiting the book after issue 30, and an asshole because 29 was months and months and months and months late. The latter thing is really starting to cheese me off. The man released four issues of Astonishing X-Men in 2007. Four! This goddamn thing has been going on half my life! And now his short run on Runaways looks to end up taking a solid year or more to release, which is playing merry hob with my ability to keep the story going in my head. (The incomprehensible recap at the head of issue 29? Utterly deceptive twattlespeak, says I.) The Buffy issues have been chugging right along, but one imagines it's only a matter of time before he gets bored with them Buffy grinds to a Fray-like halt, too.

Is this my first anti-Whedon sentiment? And is it about punctuality?

Shieeesshhhh.

Posted by tederick at 3:07 PM in comix & joss & tederickdotcomdotcom
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Time we got the big engine working for me, instead of the other way round. Yes?

Yesterday I came to a decision about the next couple years of my life, one of those "closer to the middle" moments where the pieces all line up in a way that track and make sense and have their own weird inner logic. Life, never without its sense of dramtic irony (at least in the blocking), then saw me immediately stumble through a student film crew's hot set in the middle of a shot. What can I say? It was snowing a lot, and I was preoccupied. But last night was lovely, even with the blizzard. There were beerpetizers and Indian food and maybe one or two glimpses of a bright and promising everythingever. So yeah: things are feeling pretty solid right now, at least on my end. Hope that's true of you as well.

Speaking of Doom Patrol, I should really read that. And Y: The Last Man. And at least one novel. But this morning it was far better to ride the subway the long way in to work, sip my coffee and catch up on the Marvelverse.

Posted by tederick at 11:20 AM in comix & j-o-b & joss
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That's it, I'm calling it: Angel Season Six is better than Buffy Season Eight. Brian Lynch just baked my noodle but good. And maybe stop reading now if you don't want to be spoiled for After the Fall #3.

OK, maybe it's too soon to be making judgments like this - ATF has its nice contained dozen-issue spread, so it's already starting to advertise its beginning-middle-and-end-ness in a way that 50-issue Buffy couldn't possibly get at yet. But still. This fucking creepy-ass Lynch guy is some kind of damn genius, he is. Having Angel reveal he isn't a vampire any more at the end of the third issue is a gorgeous bit of long con, especially given the wagga wagga of Gunn being all vamped up in issue 1. Jesus, this issue was just so gorramned solid. Angel challenging all of the lords to a Capital Cities of Heaven-style bash-out for control of Hell-A? Right on.

It gets a bit icky when I try to figure out how much is the Joss and how much is the Lynch. I'm choosing to go whole-hog on Lynch for this one because salient details like vamps being in a constant state of half-sun half-moon torment is ingenius, yes, but ingenius in the Betta George sort of way, not the true-blue Whedon. I could be wrong. When all this is done I'm gonna want a whole lot more info on where it all came from. Damn I'm impressed.

Posted by tederick at 1:07 PM in comix & joss
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On the other hand, my life is also quite frequently awesome. Big fancy glowing this-is-my-life awesome. Ain't quite all the way there yet but, man howdy, there are sunbeams peaking through.

You know that thing where you want to write a thing and then it's not quite there when you actually go to do it? I'm having that a lot lately. In one sense it's good because it feels like there's a half-dozen things waiting to pop (like dough!), and when they do pop I think they'll be good cookies. (Did I just fuck up a metaphor?) In the other sense, though, one of my key goals is to get to a point where I can just sit down and write no matter what. Like if I was writing Nancy Drew novels during the war or something - "thou shalt turn out sixty pages by Friday, Ms. Keene, or we'll replace you with another equally-anonymous ghost writer." I'm less interested in the spurts of stupendousness right now, and more curious about what it's like to have enough tricks in the toolkit that I can summon the wind whenever I need it.

I'm at the Starbucks at Festival Hall right now, in pursuit of that selfsame wind. There's a fucking crazy old dude dressed like a Swiss mountain climber who keeps endlessly putting on and taking off the various tchatchkes (sp?) of climbing gear that he has arrayed around his vest and liederhosen (sp, again? why the fuck do I use words I don't know how to spell?). It's possible that when he finishes putting on his greatcoat, he's going to do a triple flip up to the third level by summoning the power of the Almighty. No wait - he opted for the stairs. No wait - now he's doing step aerobics. What the fuck am I doing here.

Reading: Buffy #10 is terrific. Just terrific. Not what I expected at all but this one does, actually, feel more like an episode of the show than any of the prior issues. There's the sack-of-hammers approach to storytelling that Joss used in issue #5, i.e. I Have An Idea And Here Is My Idea Fully Expressed (With Pictures!), and then there's this - using casual plotting and almost a seeming indifference to quietly explain the whole fucking thing. And by "the whole fucking thing," I not only mean this eensy weensy seasonal arc that's taking shape, but also really the meaning of Buffy, and the meaning of life. Plus, so many threads tied up. Thank you for that.

I'm making solid progress on Snapdragon, still not quite at the "this thing earns its own argument" stage, but closer to the "I can believe that someone, someday, might want to read this" stage. And there's a few other things queued up behind it, so at least I've got something to think about.

"Any unstable reality field is potentially dangerous, even cataclysmic." - Willow

Posted by tederick at 12:57 PM in comix & joss & the process
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I have composed a haiku to describe my unease at the Peter Street B-boyz's shifting hours:

Once open always,
Peter Street Burrito Boyz
Now I'm just not sure.

I know it was never actually "open always," but poetry is about expressing feelings, not facts.

Hey, my Zombies Calling post got linked on Whedonesque due to its Joss-ish content, and I didn't even have to do anything. Thank you, interwebs, for your endless ability to annex and propagate my work! It's nice when I don't have to exert. The Faith Erin Hicks signing last night was good; I got a FEH-original Sonnet-kissing-Joss doodled on the inside cover of my ZC copy. So yeah-ya.

It has been the longest work week ever. Everybody's sort of grounded out to doing nothing - today at the office, about ten of us spent a good quantity of time trying to figure out how we'd disrupt an awkward one-on-one taking place behind closed doors in our kitchen. Also, for a solid portion of the afternoon I just wandered around with my Constable Odo action figure, making him look at stuff and say "hmmmmm." I found it amusing; others, less so.

I am tired and happy, and wearing purple and green.

Posted by tederick at 5:39 PM in blogTO & comix & foodin' & j-o-b & joss
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Sure, I still hold at arm's length the death of narrative that enterprises such as this represent, and think that the absolute worst thing you could do to the compelling suggestions of Angel's finale is continue the story... and yeah, Angel's still a git. But I have a big smelly hard-on for Brian Lynch and everybody (including him) knows it. So good god-damn, did I enjoy reading this. It's not as pretty as Buffy, it's not as clever as Buffy; the art is filthy and unrefined and use of colour is, quite simply, incredible; the writing feels like off-market Whedon rather than the genuine article - overachieving and underachieving at the same time - and the reach is huge. You know, just like the show.

So - Wesley's a ghost and Gunn's a vampire. (Already the clickity-clack of my feeble writer brain is telling me that, given his shape last we saw him, ol' Charlie mighta well got vamped by either of the Chosen Ones.) Betta George is hangin'. Right on. I know it's totally anti-what-this-thing-is-about, but where do the Spike series fit in the overall timeline? Did they happen during Season Five, or after this? A big part of me wants Spike to show up next ish with his Fanger Gang (i.e. Fang Gang But Better) and start kicking ass. But I imagine he's around here somewhere, being the clown prince of some harem or something.

Anyhooza. I enjoyed. I would like there to be more. Beginnings are easy. Issue 2s are tricky as hell. Now I'm home and tired and good freaking GOD the next three weeks are starting to look like the gaping maw of Hades itself. And I smell like old horse, and my ears are warm and tingly. Time for bed.

Matt: "Are napkins profound?"
Helen Anderson: [nods] "And tragic."

Posted by tederick at 10:41 PM in comix & joss
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"Holy god, that's a lot of zombie pants." - what I kept misreading on my own blog, every time I jumped into Tederick.com today

Well I just got in a fight I couldn't win with my own lightswitch. I mean honestly - people keep trying to assure me my problems aren't unique, but could that happen to anyone else?

Trying something new: comments are still moderated here on Tederick.com but they now publish immediately. (Well, actually it takes about 30 seconds.) My ability to manage junk has increased exponentially in the past 12 months so I think it's relatively safe to assume that only a couple of spam comments will get through, and that I can get rid of them within a few hours of their arrival. Soooooo... we'll see how this goes. If it chucks up, we'll go back behind the gate.

I am a new level of bendtacular. I had that day at yoga! The one where Gudrun (Yoga Instructor B) came over and said "you're pretty flexible!" Which, for me, might as well have been "I have never seen any human as proficient in the art and science of body-bending as you, Matt Brown, currently are." But yes, I was particularly flexisome today, and still feeling good about it 8 hours later. Stuff I couldn't do 3 months ago came easy as pie today.

Now get your nerd out and revel: someone (with the auspicious screen name of effulgent12) has done what I have long wanted to see, and Godfathered the Angel flashbacks in their entirety. Including Spike, Darla, and any other ancillary characters. 22 episodes at 8 minutes apiece makes a fuck of a lot of watching, so I haven't done it yet, but I watched a bit. It's pretty cool, and so painfully geeky! Oh someone needs to give that effulgent12 a big nerdy hug.

Will Mulder and Scully stumble across Frank Black in X-Files 2? I sincerely hope the answer is "BLARGGHHHH!"

Went out for a much-needed pair of beers tonight, and realized that it is in fact Tuesday, not Monday, which means it's technically my Wednesday. Ordered a buncha stuff off the internet to take advantage of the continuing fire sale that is Amazon.com vs. .ca. Must go and fold clothes and finish The Matrix now. New frogpipe: so good. Between this and the Pillows From God I'm calling my room the place to be nowadays.

Posted by tederick at 8:48 PM in joss & movies & tederickdotcomdotcom & zombies
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