RIP Captain Lou Albano. Do the Mario one last time in remembrance!

Man, I love Simon Pegg...in addition to his awesome movies, his Twitter (simonpegg) is pretty awesome too. A few samples:

- Read the Twilight books on hols. Really enjoyed them in a sort of 'creepy old man reading delusional, horny, daughter's diary' way.

- I'm definitely team Jacob. I much rather have good abs and burst sneakers than liquid topaz eyes and a fear of hand jobs.

- Oh come on, the Cullens are so up themselves. Pretentious much? You're vamps for frick's sake, drink human blood and stop crying! (help).

Sorry I have been AWOL for so long...but I am making a triumphant return to LJ! (Mostly because this is one of the few things I've stuck with for years, and would like to keep it going.)

Basically I got off-track because I had lots of long posts I wanted to do and always felt I should be doing one of those instead of doing my usual semi-stream-of-consciousness posting...but no more! Now I will post what I feel like posting again, whether it is useful or not.

( What's new in my life )

That is all for now. More to follow at some point soon(ish).

Squeenix has a new teaser site up, with a dragon, a number 4, and a counter counting down until July 6th. Judging by the Gameboy-esque music and the black-and-white picture, I'm betting it'll be SaGa 4, especially since this is the 20th anniversary (hard to believe) of the first SaGa game, for the original Game Boy. WiiWare, DSiWare, mobile phone, or next-gen system?

Anyway, I'm heading out this afternoon for 10 days in London with my friend Stephanie; I'm hoping to update my LJ a little more frequently while I'm there, and certainly I should have a buttload of pictures upon our return. But if I don't update while I'm there (due to lack of time/wi-fi/whatever), see y'all in a week and a half!

HOLY CRAP but this is a massive markdown on music games...looks like I'mma have to pick me up some Rock Band, finally. :D

Currently rewatching Angel season 4; it truly is the best season of any television show ever, as far as I'm concerned. I sat down this evening, meaning to just watch one episode, and ended up watching four because the cliffhangers were so good. Even knowing what comes next, I still have to watch to see it! I totally remember, during the first run of this season, going on IRC and squeeing with enkiae over the ending of each new episode, being all "ZOMG DID YOU SEE THAT [spoiler] JUST KILLED [spoiler] AND TURNED OUT TO BE EVIL, HOLY CRAP, I CAN'T WAIT TILL NEXT WEEK!" (Or NEXT MONTH in the case of those evil, evil end-of-sweeps cliffhangers. A certain Oedipal tryst, for example?)

I'm almost up to the season-ending Jasmine story arc, which of course features the awesomeness that is Gina Torres (a.k.a. Zoe from Firefly/Serenity); currently, enkiae's favorite character (who is also one of my favorites) just lost her head temporarily, and a certain Sunnydale resident just returned to deal with Angel's personal demons. WHY IS THIS SEASON SO DAMN EPIC

Now that comps is over and I've got a little breathing room, I finally made it back to Persona 4 for the first time in months; I'm reminded of how much I love this game, and I just maxed out Kanji's S.Link, and ARGHHHHHH SO ADORABLE

( Spoilers for various party members' S.Links, and generally through the end of August )

O, oh my god but this is kind of awesome (spoilers for the latest, newly announced Kingdom Hearts game).

Edit: Lindsay Lohan's "eHarmony profile" (a.k.a. HOLY CRAP, I can't believe she did this)

Edit 2: Apparently that first thing I linked might be fake? DAMMIT DISQUEENIX YOU BETTER MAKE IT NOT FAKE, ASAP

I am now yoshitsune, M.A., A.B.D. That is, I passed comps!

However, my committee didn't really think any of my (three) potential dissertation topics I was looking at were workable, so I'm now doing my dissertation on bigness. But at least I'm done with comps!

Oh dear, arguments over whether Who is sci-fi or fantasy (spoilers for the most recent special), because clearly it can only be one or the other and since it has no swords or elves, it must be hard sci-fi, and when it handwaves scientific impossibility with technobabble it must be DOIN IT WRONG.

I really think the ghettoization of fantasy/sf, even within the collective genre of "speculative fiction" or whatevs, does harm because it leads a lot of people into making hard-and-fast dichotomies like this. Really Who is science-fantasy - sure, it has spaceships and aliens, but the TARDIS is a lot closer to the wardrobe from Narnia than any kind of space vessel from Star Trek.

But I think what amuses me most is the idea that somehow this last special was kind of the last straw for Who as a sci-fi show, or that Rusty's somehow doing so much worse than his predecessors at the sciencey bits due to his unwillingness to research. ( Spoilers for the special )

So tl;dr, Who has always been much more skiffy than sci-fi, and it's about as close to hard sci-fi as Star Wars is (actually they're I think at a similar level of "science fantasy," though I'd say SW is a LEETUL closer to the hard sci-fi side, which as horrifying as that is to say tells you something about Who I think).

Edit: Oh never mind, now it's coming off a little more as something against the episode in particular or against RTD personally; since this person is totally okay with Moffat's "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" explanation and Pertwee's "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow," I honestly can't see why ( spoilers ) is somehow beyond the pale. Not that Rusty can't occasionally get a little bad with his "random technobabble saves the day," but even that's not the first time that's happened in Who (it happened in the aforementioned Pertwee's era not infrequently too).

And hey it's a little better with the science than Heroes, which at times seems at least to be TRYING to be hard sci-fi and which has made jokersama's head explode with its treatment of medicine.

I have a definite fondness for any kind of catchy synth music, which I tend to think of as "Mega Man music" after the videogame series of the same name, which was known for its TOTALLY SUPER AWESOME AND CATCHY MUSIC.

I mention this in part because one of my favorite of Lily Allen's songs from her new album ("Back to the Start") I think I really like mostly because of the Mega Man-ness of the opening:

I really want to listen to Adele's music one of these days, mostly based on her appearance on Never Mind the Buzzcocks; above is what I think is the best moment from her appearance, and her cackle never fails to make me laugh until I can't breathe.

Edit: Speaking of not being able to breathe, another fabulous moment from this season, about the loss of team captain Bill Bailey from the show:

I kind of want to see Heidi Montag break up with Spencer and hook up with Lady GaGa. Then they could have the cutesy portmanteau name of "MontaGaGa" and make the crappiest music ever that is somehow nevertheless catchy (due in large part to AutoTune).

Also, goddammit Zac Efron stop making me like you so much. The link goes to ONTD's collection of clips from his SNL appearance - the first, second, fourth, sixth, and ninth are the best. ESPECIALLLY the ninth, which I feel the need to embed here for its total wrongness:



In other news OH GOD I HAVE TO BE READY FOR COMPS BY TONIGHT (since I'm basically teaching or practicing my questions all day tomorrow) AND I TOTALLY DON'T FEEL READY, AUGH

Yay, new Doctor Who!

My thoughts on "Planet of the Dead":
( Spoilers liek whoa, obviously, both for the episode itself and for the trailer afterwards for the Novemberish special )

( ZOMG MOAR WHO SPOILERS, with pictures )

But meanwhile, only one more day till "Planet of the Dead"!

Edit: MOAR BIGGER SPOILER PICS SQUEEEEE

( Spoilers for the companion for the last Who special of the year, and for another connected returning character )

In less spoily news, awww, I kind of love Russell T. Davies and David Tennant when they do interviews, and this one's a riot. Whether it's Ten-inch talking about looking like Tina Turner, Rusty on the Who/Trek crossover that never was, or Rusty offering Ten-inch a role as a gay chipmunk (which he eagerly accepts), you gotta say one thing for these two: they are always entertaining!

Okay, seriously, the spoilers that are coming out for the last of the Doctor Who specials are making me gleeful inside in a way that's possibly illegal. I forgive Rusty EVERYTHING (well, except for Floaty!Glowy!Jesus!Doctor, that still brings the lulz in a bad way).

For those who are spoiler-hos like myself, you can find more here (complete with pictures, yay!). ( My purposely vague thoughts, but that hint at other spoilers )

Discussion of the spoilers on doctorwho is here, complete with discussion of those two other casting spoilers I mentioned purposefully vaguely.

From bemysty:

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon glee.

The icons she chose are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

( My explanations )

Post if you want me to choose some of your icons to explain!