Haven't posted in weeks- I fail at the whole LJ thing. Between coursework, tv and Dragon Age I haven't had the time. The masters has been something of a system shock in terms of the workload. I went from maths, where the entire degree was based on the finals, to this, where I have 1 or 2 assessed exercises to hand in every week for the last 5 weeks of terms. They've got me writing essays- until the other week, I hadn't done one of those for over four years. It's a pretty intense schedule, but I have to say I'm loving it. I'm so interested in the material, and learning to program is a great experience. In stark contrast to my undergrad degree, I really feel like I've made the right choice with this course. It's a good feeling.

The other main cause for my LJ neglect is Dragon Age: Origins. I can't stress enough how awesome this game is. It's been billed the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate 2, and that's a role it fills ably. The combat, the dialogue, the setting, the humour, and especially the characters- all are pitch perfect. I've racked up about 35 hours so far, and at a guess I'm probably half way into the main storyline. It's a positively huge game and Ferelden is an amazingly fleshed out game world. The extent of the lore that the writers have created is staggering, and I'll quite happily spend ages just reading through codex entries. Bioware are the only developer I can think of who put this kind of detail in their fiction, and I'm deeply grateful for it. It makes my inner nerd very happy.

I also got Left 4 Dead 2 last week, which is huge fun. It's essentially more of the same, but it polishes the mechanics from the first game and vastly improves the level design. The storm at the end of Hard Rain really has to be played to be believed. The melee weapons are incredibly satisfying, the increased gore is hilarious and the new special Infected add much needed variety to versus mode. The only downside to the whole package is Rochelle. A lot of the fun in the first game came from the banter between the survivors, who all had great personalities. This is repeated in the sequel with Ellis, Coach and Nick but Rochelle's personality is strangely lacking. In fact, her whole characterisation is basically her Depeche Mode shirt. An odd failing on Valve's part.

Sticking with games for a little longer, I joined the uni LAN society during Fresher's Week, and last weekend my PC and I attended our first LAN. Turnout wasn't amazing- we never got more than 9 players in any one game- but I had a great time. There's something deeply satisfying about seeing the reaction of people just as your zombie begins to tear them apart. (That probably makes me a bad person, but whatever.) I played some new games, made some new friends and generally had an awesome weekend. The next one is in January, and I'm really looking forward to it.

In order to stop this entry getting out of hand, I'll just quickly summarise some other stuff that's happened since my last update:
-- Went to see Eddie Izzard. He was hilarious, as you'd expect.
-- Getting towards the end of Supernatural season 2. How was I not watching this show before? It is genius. My brother has commented that every episode can basically be summed up as: cold open - "I HUNT DEMONS!" - "MAN LOVE!" He's right, but neither of us care very much. It's so much fun.
-- Caught up to Stargate: Universe. 'Time' was a cathartic viewing experience- Chloe not only died in the episode, she died twice. Of course, it was all rendered moot by the next episode but we still got to see an alien creature chew its way right through her. Good times. (Is anyone else watching this show? If so, do you also feel like Chloe is the worst character in the history of the world? Damn she's annoying me.)
-- Went to see The Men Who Stare At Goats. It was excellent, except that Ewan McGregor's American accent was atrocious. The whole Jedi thing threatened to become very, very meta, but they didn't get too nudge-nudge-wink-wink with it thankfully.
-- Haven't bought Modern Warfare 2 or Assassin's Creed 2 yet. Can't afford them :( Will have to wait til Christmas I guess.
-- Lastly, I have a bunch of google wave invites going spare if anyone wants one. Comment or PM me with your email if you do.

You know, I really am loving Supernatural. It's so much smarter than I ever gave it credit for, by and large. But seriously, did they have to go and do the 'vampires who are good while humans are the real monsters' episode? Really, guys? Even my 14 year old brother called that one as being clichéd. I'm currently three episodes into season 2. Why would they do that to JDM? He was my favourite thing about the show by a considerable margin.

There's a trailer out for the Prince of Persia movie, which I have conflicting feelings about. Visually it looks great, but in the space of two minutes they manage to span the spectrum of dialog, from quite charming to cringeworthy. Jake Gyllenhaal seems fairly apt to play the Prince from what's shown there. A minor gripe though- it doesn't seem right giving the Prince a name. Layer Cake, and I'm sure other films, have shown us that your protagonist doesn't need a name for the script to work, so I'm not sure why the writers felt is was necessary here. Oh, and what's with that Assassin's Creed dive at the beginning of the trailer?

Day off uni tomorrow. Result.

I'm at something of a loose end just now. Sure, there's coursework I could theoretically be doing, but I'd planned this evening around playing the Left 4 Dead 2 demo. It was supposed to drop last night, but got pushed back to the early hours of this morning. That's basically par for the course where Valve releases are concerned, but the pushed back time has now been pushed back once again. Now the only indication we have is that it will be released sometime today. I probably wouldn't mind so much if the 360 version of the demo hadn't come out yesterday, right on time. That's just poor.

In the realm of game demos that were released on time, I spent a couple of hours last night playing the demo for Torchlight. Developed by a team consisting of members who in the past have worked on Diablo 2, Mythos and Hellgate: London, this is a game very much in the tradition of hack'n'slash. It plays in a very similar way to Diablo 2, but with a lot of polish on that game's mechanics. There are three classes, of which I've played only one, the Barbarian. Err, wait, the Destroyer. He's a lot of fun to play, dual wielding large weapons and squashing hordes of little dudes with impunity. The need for potion spam isn't so pronounced as it was in Diablo, which is a welcome change. The graphics aren't amazing on a technical level, but they're clean, colorful and have a hint of Pixar influence in the models. If Pixar went in for dungeon crawling cartoon gorefests. Single player only at the moment, with plans to add an online multiplayer component at a later date. I'm quite taken with the demo- not least because of its impressive length- and at £15 I'm definitely thinking about buying the full game. It stands a decent chance of getting lost in the flood of Christmas releases I've been thinking about getting though. Modern Warfare 2, L4D2, Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed 2 (and probably others I've forgotten) are all on the cards. I so don't have enough time or money for this month.

Speaking of Dragon Age, I urge to take a look at the release trailer. Pay special attention to the bit where Morrigan does a flip then turns into a giant spider to kill the orc dudes. Badass, no? For added awesome, Morrigan is being voiced by Claudia Black.

I have to give a presentation next Monday on a famous computing paper from the 80s. It opens with the line "Of all the monsters that fill the nightmares of our folklore, none terrify more than werewolves, because they transform unexpectedly from the familiar into horrors. For these, one seeks bullets of silver that can magically lay them to rest." This is a paper on software engineering. I have to say, that's the best opening I've ever seen for an academic piece of writing.

Never thought I'd say this, but I find myself in the curious position of being impressed with Microsoft's customer service. Despite the quoted two to three week turnaround time, my xbox was delivered back to my house almost exactly a week after it was first picked up by UPS. Well, in actual fact they just replaced the console entirely, but I kept my old hard drive so that doesn't bother me. They even threw in a free month on xbox live. I'm pretty pleased with this result. (Of course, it's occured to me that maybe they only quote the 2-3 weeks so that people will be impressed when they get their console back much sooner. But that would be cynical.) In the week it's been gone, and the week before that where it was just broken, I've built up quite a backlog of tv. That's this weekend planned then.

Something which I forgot to mention in my past couple of entries- my friend Mark recently left on his nine month tour of the world. After a couple of weeks in Finland, he's now chilling in Ecuador. He's blogging his experiences, and I have to say I'm pretty jealous so far :D His being gone is somewhat weird, and it effectively reduces the group of friends I see outside of uni to, well, John. I'm really going to miss him.

Before Mark left, we'd been playing a few games of Arkham Horror, a coop board game based on the Cthulhu mythos. It's a lot of fun to play and led to some truly hilarious situations. It's not exactly an RPG but it's something of an entry point into the RP mindset, and it's got my brother interested in playing D&D. Except with Mark gone we're a little stuck for numbers- a DM and two players does not a gaming group make. That's kind of a bummer. I haven't played in five or six years, and I'd quite like to get into 4th edition and try out my DM skills again. I think it'd be good for Brad, too, in that it'd offer a way to develop his video game stunted imagination. Meh. Must make new friends.

By the way- kill all sons of bitches. DO WANT.

Last night I wrote a java program to solve a math puzzle in Professor Layton and Pandora's Box on the DS. I fucking love being a geek :D

I've decided to stick up a list of the books I've read since the last time I update my 50 Book Challenge, many moons ago. I may well have missed a few, I've been terrible at keeping track. In fact, holy crap. I just checked and it was early July when I last posted some reviews and I've only read six and a half books in the interim. I'm so not going to make it to 50 this year :S

26) Small Favor by Jim Butcher
Dresden and Michael versus the Denarians. Awesome ensues. Good read.

27) Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
Dresden and Morgan versus evil wizards and a skinwalker. Serious awesome ensues. Also, it turns out that Wizard HQ is in Edinburgh! I love it.

28) Pandaemonium by Christopher Brookmyre
The plot of Doom is transposed to the Scottish highlands, with the addition of a bunch of teenagers. A coming of age story with demons and pulse rifles, this was one of Brookmyre's best.

29) Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
Alan is the son of a mountain and a washing machine, and falls in love with the girl next door, who has wings. He sets out to blanket Toronto with free wireless internet. This was a deeply strange book, but it was also very funny and oddly touching.

30) Death Of A Ladies' Man by Alan Bissett
Charlie is an English teacher at a high school in Glasgow by day. By night, he is a womanizer and a douchebag. An intense portrait of a man's excesses and journey towards a self destruction he never sees coming. Not my usual kind of book, but very good nonetheless.

31) Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
The final book in the Sprawl trilogy, which began with Neuromancer and basically created the cyberpunk genre and the concept of cyberspace. This entry isn't quite so awesome, but it's a decent enough story. The blurb promised more than the book actually delivered, which was disappointing.

I'm currently reading the new Pratchett novel, but yeah. 50 is probably out of reach now unless I just spam read graphic novels.

Man, I fail at updating lately. It's been nearly a month since my last :S Since then, things have been mostly good. A quick run down of what's been happening:

- Started my masters at uni. I'm three weeks in now, and so far I've really been enjoying it. I was so used to sitting through maths lectures and being bored, it's a welcome to change to sit down and actually enjoy learning about a subject. The programming in particular is great fun. If you have a freakishly good memory, you might recall I said SAAS were paying all but £500 of my fees when I went to register. As it turned out, the department waived the remainder, which was a nice surprise.

- I passed my driving test! First time, with two minors, so I was pretty pleased with that. I'm insured on the parents' car, and the freedom to drive around is great. Still need to take the bus to uni though, mum needs the car for work in the mornings. I have free run of it in the evening though. That'll do donkey, that'll do.

- TV season: my favourite time of year :) New Dexter, Californicationm Big Bang Theory and Dollhouse are fantastic, and on the new show front I'm watching Flashforward and Stargate Universe. The former has good ideas but is a little on the heavy handed side, plus it features Sonya Walger with possibly the worst American accent ever on TV. SGU has obviously been cribbing furiously from BSG, but it's still a good show. Robert Carlyle is a large part of that, he's just endlessly watchable.

- On a related note, it's not current TV but I've started watching the first season of Supernatural. A whole bunch of people I know have been watching and enjoying it, and then I saw it for £9 on amazon... What can I say, I'm weak. I've actually been pleasantly surprised by the show, it's not as dumb as I thought it would be at all. Plus, that is a sweet car.

- Finally, to explain the mostly in my mostly good statement at the top of the entry: my 360 red ringed last night. Calamity and woe. I totally thought it was out of warranty, but thankfully I was wrong so that's something I guess. Quoted turn around time on repairs is two to three weeks though, so I'm without a way to stream stuff to my tv for an annoyingly long time.

(Oh yeah- it's been a seriously long time since I posted a book review. I have actually been reading in the interim, but too lazy to write the reviews. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to forget everything I've read, so I need to either write some reviews or just declare critical bankruptcy and post a list. I'll decide which later.)

I'm sitting out at the south flagpole behind the university, burning the half hour before I need to register and pay my tuition for the year. The sun's out, and even though the first leaves have fallen, I'm still going to call this the vestigial remains of a summer that never properly arrived. Kelvingrove Park is stretched out in front of me, the main building is doing its Hogwarts thing behind me, and the temperature is flirting with 20 degrees. Moments like this really make me love Glasgow.

Stolen from anton_p_nym- BrainHex, a cool personality test tailored to gamers.

I ranked as a Socialiser/Conqueror.

You like hanging around with people you trust, and helping people.

Your behaviour tends to be trusting, and you get angry at those who abuse your trust.

Your major brain region is the hypothalamus, which controls and influences trust and anger.

Your chemical messenger is oxytocin, which is associated with trust and enhances the effects of the reward chemical dopamine.

If you were an animal, it would be a dolphin.

The favourite games listed for those two classes are Final Fantasy, Left 4 Dead, Pokémon, Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Metroid, StarCraft, and Super Smash Bros. Which is really pretty accurate- I've played and enjoyed at least one entry in all of those series.

Apparently my least suited classes are Survivor and Daredevil. I'd agree with the former- Dead Space still scares the crap out of me- but I was surprised where it ranked me on the latter. I love the whole Prince of Persia running jumping climbing trees thing.

I passed my driving theory test today, yay! Well, it's not a huge achievement given that I already had to do one to get my bike license years ago, but still. I'm happy. Once I get paid next week, I'll hopefully book my practical test for around the end of September.

In other good news, I finally heard back from SAAS about my funding for the MSc. They're paying all but £500 of the fees, which is a huge relief, and they've given me a decent grant too. Not enough that I can quit my job just yet, but it'll help :) My dad is already trying to convince me to use the money to buy a car. I am now definitely going back to uni, my worrying can stop.

I ended up at a house party on Saturday night, for the first time in quite a while. My social skills are just as anaemic as ever, I can safely report. In my defense, no one there was much better. It was a barbeque in honour of a friend from uni moving down to London for a job, and while the cooking was going on everyone was hanging out and mingling a little. After an hour and a half or so the rain came on and forced us inside, and then the night became much more clique-y. Brian, Mark, me and the other Park Mains turn outs banded together and occupied the living room. Bobby's high school friends took over the dining room, and the remainder of his friends from uni piled into the kitchen/extension. Despite that, I had a good time and it was nice to see a few faces from uni for what may well be the last time.

A lot of stuff happened at Gamescom and Blizzcon last week, some of it even exciting. The news of a new WoW expansion left me feeling slightly underwhelmed, much like the latest patch did. It very much feels like the game is coming to the end of its lifetime for a lot of players. I'm sure the hardcore faithful would disagree with me, but as someone who falls squarely in the middle of the spectrum of MMO players- not too casual, but not too mental- World of Warcraft has lost its shine. I've cancelled my account again, and none of the newly announced content makes me want to change my mind.

Blizzcon was not a total letdown, of course. Diablo III continues to look phenomenal, and I'm very much looking forward to rolling a Barbarian and diving in when the game is released. However, the real surprise from the weekend came when they announced that Tricia Helfer is the new voice of Sarah Kerrigan. I guess I'll miss Glynnis Campbell, whose voice has become something of a staple in Blizzard's games, but seriously people- NUMBER SIX IS THE QUEEN OF BLADES! One of the most badass female video game characters ever. HELL TO THE YES. If you haven't played Starcraft, quite possibly the greatest strategy game of all time, then, well, shame on you :P

Gamescom had nothing which quite rivalled the awesomeness of the Tricia Helfer announcement, but even still they showed promising footage for a few games I'm looking forward to with growing glee- namely Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed 2 and the new Castlevania. There was also a trailer for Guild Wars 2, which had me excited on general principle but showed very little of the game proper, so I can't say for sure if it's looking good or not.

Reviews are starting to be published for Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is out on Friday over here, and they're overwhelmingly positive. Like, over 90% positive. This is truly delightful news. There hasn't really been a great comic book game before now, and definitely not a DC one, so that a Batman game from a practically unheard of developer is gathering such acclaim is both unusual and deeply satisfying. The demo really had my hopes up, and I'm so glad the reviews are supporting those hopes. I'll be buying it. Just as soon as I get paid...

I haven't been on LJ much at all in the past week- my excuse is that last Wednesday I finally managed to get hold of a copy of Tales of Vesperia for the 360. This game, the latest entry in the ongoing and extremely awesome Tales series, has been out in the US since last August, but only got a UK release in June of this year. Ever since then it's been out of stock on the sites I shop at, so I was surprised but pleased to see a copy sitting on the shelf in the Braehead HMV store. I've been playing it a lot since then- between that and watching tv, I've hardly been on my computer at all, hence my lack of updating and (I will shamefully concede) lack of participation at whedonland. Tales is a fantastic game so far, with an excellent combat system and an engaging story. It falls foul of it's fair share of JRPG tropes- an irritating J-pop theme song; a main character who, from the box art, I was convinced was female; a naive princess finding her way in the world; hilariously camp villains; a mysterious figure with a powerful sword who helps the party on occasion; and plenty more besides. For all that, it's well written and the voice actors are largely inoffensive. In fact, many of them are actually pretty good. Yuri (once you realise he's a guy) is a much more compelling protagonist than Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia (the last Tales game released in Europe... *grumble*) ever was. My progress in the game has slowed over the past couple of days, since my mum's been hogging the tv when she gets in from work in the early afternoon, so I'm limited to playing in the morning and after she goes to bed. I'm beginning to think I'd be better off putting the xbox in my room, but I've painted myself into a corner there- the console is now the default family DVD player and sees a lot of use as a media center extender, so there would be a lot of complaining if I removed it.

Aside from playing Tales, the other highlight of my week was the launch of the new Christopher Brookmyre novel last Friday. He gave a talk for an hour, followed by a signing afterwards. Mark and I went along, though we ended up missing the first 10 or 15 minutes thanks to insane traffic on the M8- it took us an hour to cover 12 miles. We were able to sneak in at the back without too much fuss, and what we saw of his talk was hilarious. Afterwards I bought a copy of the novel, Pandaemonium, and got it signed. I managed to have a brief conversation with the author on the finer points of Doom, Half Life and Old Man Murray (the book is awash with gaming references, this conversation wasn't apropos of nothing.) I've read the book now, and it's great. A review will follow when I can be bothered.

I can't finish without mentioning "(Do You Wanna Date) My Avatar", the new music video from The Guild. It was first shown at Comic Con, but it only appeared online in not-shot-on-a-phone form on Monday. I've watched quite a few times since then, it's safe to say. I swear, my geek crush on Felicia Day grows every day. It started back during Buffy season 7, when I shipped Willow and Vi like a crazy person- never took to Kennedy at all. It's only grown stronger since then, through The Guild and Dr Horrible and most recently in Epitaph One, by far the best Dollhouse episode of the season. This video does nothing but strengthen my adoration. (Plus, spot Maurissa Tancharoen as a dancer with Tinkerballa, as a Bladezz groupie, and on backing vocals. Awesome.)

I played through the demo for Batman: Arkham Ayslum on xbox today. Twice. Not to put too fine a point on it, I loved it. It opens with a shot of rolling clouds, which of course is promptly lit up by the Batsignal. The music starts, and almost instantly I was put in mind of the score to the Animated Series, which is probably my favourite depiction of the Batman world. There have been many iterations, from the camp of the early comics and Adam West tv series, to the violent, deeply cynical satire of Frank Miller. TAS always resonanted with me more than any other, with its slightly otherworldly portrayal of Gotham, fantastic music and gorgeous animation. Anyway, the opening cutscene evokes that world perfectly, as the Batmobile roars down the streets of a rundown (though beautifully rendered) Gotham city, transporting the Joker back to Arkham after a breakout. The camera pulls back to show off the Asylum, which is sprawling, ominous and uninviting. Bats circle, lightning flashes, thunder cracks- the world building in this brief cinematic is marvellous. So far, I am impressed.

Inside, Batman turns over the Joker to Gordon and the asylum guards, and we get a little dialogue. Though the action looks superb from a distance, and the models are impressive, in closeup things are a little less pretty. The game runs on the Unreal 3 engine, and falls foul of a common quirk of the engine- namely that everyone's skin looks too shiny. There are reflections where there really shouldn't be. It seems that only Epic, who made the U3 engine in the first place, are able to get round this issue consistently. Also in this scene, we get to hear some of the voice work. Kevin Conroy- who else?- voices Batman, with Mark Hamill and Arleen Sorkin reprising their roles as Joker and Harley Quinn. If the rest of the cast proves as outstanding as those three, this game could really be something special.

On to the gameplay- in short order the Joker is loose again, Harley is in control of the asylum, and Batman has to fight his way through a collection of inmates to stop them. The combat is deeply satisfying, using various combinations of three face buttons and the right trigger. There's excellent use of slow motion to emphasise just how much Bats is owning these guys, along with some good force feedback. After a few fights like that, the demo showcases the game's other two selling points- detective mode, and stealth. The former deploys the little blue visors on the cowl, giving you x-ray vision and highlighting items you can interact with. It shows up armed enemies in red, and lets you see through walls to plan your assaults. In addition, it reveals grappling points, weak walls, and presumably more in the game proper. Essentially, it's the scan visor from Metroid Prime. After showing you how to use this mode, the demo tasks you with taking down Zsasz without being detected. You swing around the ceiling from gargoyle to gargoyle to get behind him, then glide down silently and kick him in the head in a very enjoyable fashion. There follows a room with guards which must be taken down silently, then a large room where you get to experiment with what you've learned to that point. The demo then ends after the reveal of the first boss.

A good demo should obviously raise your interest in the full game, and this one has certainly done that, as you may have guessed from my ramblings. The gameplay, though not revolutionary, is fun. It's the atmosphere that I'm really sold on- after years of lackluster Batman adaptations, this feels like a game that could really do the comics justice. The Asylum, or what little you get to see anyway, feels lived in. By crazy people. It's dark, crumbling and at least a little moldy. There are a few contrivances- easily accessible airvents and conveniently spaced gargoyles, I'm looking at you- but that's something of a necessary evil in video game design. On the strength of the admittedly short demo, I think I'll be getting a hold of the game when it's released at the end of the month.

And now for something completely different...

( Music meme )

When I'm not watching tv, reading, or cycling, a lot of my free time lately has been going into whedonland, which is an awesome interactive comm based on all things Joss. There are challenges for fic, graphics, trivia, and all sorts of other stuff. You earn points for your team (Firefly, Angel, Buffy, Dollhouse) and the team with the most at the end of three months wins... a noprize, I guess. It's the most fun I've had in a comm since the early days of rahmbamarama. It's really reawakened my interest in the Whedonverse and I've met plenty of cool people.

Anyway, they're winding down from a big weekend of activities, and there's nothing new until next week, so now's the perfect time to join if you're interested. I'm on team Firefly, as you might have guessed from the banner.

(In a similar vein is twelvecolonies, which is the same idea but based on BSG. I'm on team Colonial One over there. We're awesome because we have Billy.)

I need a haircut. I keep waking up in the morning with a sort of Wolverine thing going on, and it is really not working for me.

It's been another slow week- again, much of it given over to tv. I watched Bones season 3, and just holy crap at the ending. I thought Sweets was too obvious to be the bad guy, so my guess was that it would be Hodgins. I was fully prepared for things to be all sad for Angela, but man I did not think it would be Zach. I really love his character, he can't be evil! Sadface. I enjoyed the rest of the season too. Sweets really grew on me as it went on- I started out hating him but by the end the chemistry with Bones and Booth was beginning to set in and I like him now. The highlights of the season for me were the karaoke scene, the kiss and the bit with the Christmas tree. The dvd set comes with the first four episodes of season 4, but I know if I watch them I'll just want to download the rest of the season. I have plenty to watch without that, so holding off on the extra disc for now.

John and I are 10 episodes into season 3 of Felicity, which is just all over the place in terms of quality. I've never seen a show with such a terrible main character. She's just so... drippy. I have zero interest in the Felicity/Ben stories. We're basically only watching for the supporting characters at this point. That said, it has some truly great supporting characters. Sean and Meghan steal every scene they're in, and Tracy is a lot of fun. (I actually typed Turk there before I noticed. It's the same character, but yeah. Fun.) Noel was good for a long time there, but now they're starting to hint at Felicity/Noel again and my interest in him is waning correspondingly. I normally like Elena a lot, but she's been a bit of a bitch this season so meh. Oh, and AJJ is gone :( The show is worse for her absense- same thing happened in Power Rangers. Take note, tv producers. Oh yeah, can't end without mentioning that a small piece of my soul dies every time I hear the new theme song.

We also just finished season 2 of Mad Men, which was considerably better than Felicity. For one, it is surely the most ridiculously good looking show ever to be on tv. The sets, the costumes, the people. They're all gorgeous. The writing is phenomenal as well. It's a very smart show and I love the character arcs. Peggy's rise, Pete's descent into marital hell, and Don's constant battle with his past are all superbly portrayed. Don's outward badassery goes without saying, but I love the nuance in John Hamm's performance. Has there ever been a more charming man? Seriously, you watch him having the damn affairs and you still almost believe him when he tells Betty he's faithful. Vincent Kartheiser remains unable to shake the coat of slime he picked up on Angel, though I actually found myself liking the character a little in the finale. Plus, Colin Hanks! On the guitar!

I read the two latest Dresden files novels last weekend, but I can't summon the energy to write reviews for them just now. There isn't much new in those two to add to what I wrote about the first nine. Though I still have a considerable backlog of unread books in my room, I bought a new one today- Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow- because I got paid the other day and I haven't bought myself anything in a while. Buying a new book is a singular experience. I could lose my whole life in book shops, I think. They're always very reassuring, even the chains.

I watched Wonderfalls last week, and loved it. Bryan Fuller's shows are so imaginative and visually inventive. Jaye/Eric is going straight in near the top of my favourite ship list, they were so damn adorkable. I never thought I'd say it, but this show actually got me to dislike Jewel Staite. Heidi was a bitch. I was worried about where the ending was going for a while- thought it might have been a situation where they got cancelled after they had filmed a cliffhanger or something- but it all worked out fine. Obviously there are a lot of loose ends with the details of the show, but in story terms I think the 13 episodes stand really well on their own. Another excellent show cancelled way too early by Fox. Sigh.

This week I have a variety of tv shows on the go. My brother is back from holiday (good to have a bit of activity in the house again) and he's marathoning season two of BSG, so I'm dipping in and out of that. My mum and I are watching The Mentalist, and I'm watching season three of Bones on my own. If John's round later in the week we're watching s3 of Felicity and s2 of Mad Men. I almost feel bad that I have enough free time to watch all of this. Almost. I've done all I can at this point for uni next year- it's a waiting game to see if I get the SAAS award. I've applied for a job tutoring math to high school kids, but even if I get it, it won't be til the schools go back in August. There's no overtime going at B&Q, not that I'd want any. So yeah, loads of tv. It's fun, and it keeps me from spending my somewhat limited cash. It's a challenge having so few commitments :P

Spent a lot of last week being incredibly jealous that I wasn't at Comic Con. Many awesome looking things happened. For example, this is a truly amazing assemblage of people. Also, I was looking at photos of the BSG signing and Michael Hogan was wearing a frakking Mass Effect shirt! I don't know if he plays it, or if he's doing voice work for the sequel. I can't decide which would be better. Both would be true, in an ideal world.

(Oh yeah, did anyone see those new Dexter posters? They're a little on the terrifying side.)

My parents are back tomorrow. I managed to make it through two whole weeks without setting fire to anything or flooding the house, so I'm going to call this experience a win.

For the past couple of days I've been listening to Bear's season four soundtrack a whole lot. The BSG soundtracks have all been fantastic and this is no exception. Say what you will about the final season, it's hard to deny the awesome inherent in Bear's music. I flat out fail to understand how none of his work on BSG has been Emmy nominated. It's crazy.
The first disc is 20 tracks selected from the first 19 episodes of the season, and the second is basically the entire score to Daybreak. There are so many amazing pieces on the album, to the point where it's hard to select a favourite. I love Gaeta's Lament, Farewell Apollo, Kara Remembers, Diaspora Oratorio, The Heart of the Sun (especially when the Colonial Anthem kicks in at the end), So Much Life and An Easterly View. Particularly that last one, since that's where the series really ends for me. (I discount the final scene because it makes no sense.) About half the songs on the cd give me goosebumps at one point or another, and I really can't recommend it enough. Go forth and buy/illegally download :D

This is pretty weak. The Doctor should not be 14. Or whatever.

On an entirely unrelated note, I remembered something else awesome about the Boss concert last week. Well, it was all awesome, but yeah. He actually managed to pronounce Glasgow properly and that made me happy. So many American artists don't- most tend to say it so it rhymes with 'brass cow.' It really doesn't. Okay, that was apropos of nothing at all, but I was thinking about it and man am I bored right now.

I just finished watching the Six Feet Under finale. I loved the show so much. Nothing else has ever confronted death head on in the way that SFU does, and at the very least it's been a fascinating insight into how differently death is treated in America. It's much more than that of course- incredibly well drawn characters, storylines that are in turn heartbreaking and uplifting, and thought provoking writing on a level that few shows ever manage. I love the cast, I love the music, I especially love the crazy dream sequences. At various times throughout the run I hated almost every character to some extent, but so often the writers were able to play with my loyalties and endear the characters to me again. I like that in a show.
I'll admit that not every episode was a winner, but the finale is as wonderful, emotional and poignant a piece of television as I've ever seen. Those last 10 minutes were practically perfect. I'm so glad that I finally got around to watching this show after owning the first two seasons for so long, but at the same time I'm sad it's over. I suppose that's the mark of a great show.

The only thing from the watch list that managed to get two votes was Wonderfalls (which conveniently finished downloading while I watched the end of SFU) so I guess that's what I'm watching next. Cool.

Yesterday John and I went to see Bruce Springsteen play at Hampden Park. It was the best gig I've ever been to, for a number of reasons. These include:

-- queueing in the rain and not caring
-- getting to about 10 rows from the front
-- getting absolutely soaked to the skin while waiting for the band to come on, and still not caring
-- seeing people between the ages of about 3 and 63 in the crowd
-- weather clearing up right before they came on
-- HOLY SHIT I'M 10 METRES FROM THE BOSS
-- Little Steve looking all old, but still rocking out like a master
-- Outlaw Pete
-- Working on the Highway! Complete with epic guitar toss to roadie
-- The best crowd atmosphere I've ever been part of
-- Taking all the request signs from the crowd
-- "This has to be the biggest sign I ever seen" "There must be 15 cents worth of sprinkles on this sign"
-- They played Pink Cadillac and made my entire year
-- He gave the mic to a five year old girl and let her sing the chorus to Waiting on a Sunny Day. The crowd went wild
-- The crowd singing The River almost as loud as the PA
-- Tramps like us, baby we were born to run
-- Damn but Clarence Clemons can still play
-- The screen door slams...
-- Springsteen's son coming on to play guitar on American Land. That's a lucky kid
-- The heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-shaking, booty-quaking, love-making, history-making, legendary E- STREET- BAND!
-- The rain coming down at the end and not reaching the crowd because of the heat
-- Closing out with a huge version of Twist and Shout

Thanks, Boss.

I'm feeling somewhat happier today, for a couple of reasons. First up, my aunt and uncle bought me lunch today and that was nice. Secondly, I just made a list and there's nothing quite so therapeutic for me as organizing things. (I know that sounds lame. Shut up.) Basically, I've been watching Six Feet Under for a while now and I'll probably finish it in the next few days. I was trying to decide what to watch next and realised I have a ridiculous amount of stuff on dvd or downloaded. Plus, people keep recommending new shows to me. So I thought I'd make a list of it all and ask you guys to help sort through it :) Here goes.

Pilots
Caprica
Virtuality
Warehouse 13

Series on dvd/downloaded
Bones season 3
Boston Legal season 4
Northern Exposure season 3
Numb3rs season 5
30 Rock season 3.5
Stargate Atlantis (the end of) season 5
Friday Night Lights season 2
Heroes (the end of) season 3
House season 5
Mad Men season 2
Sopranos season 1
Party Down season 1
Damages season 2
Dirty Sexy Money season 2
Freaks and Geeks
Gossip Girl season 2
Life seasons 1 and 2
X-Files season 3
Quantum Leap season 2
Sleeper Cell season 1
The Shield season 1
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex season 2

Things I have been recommended/Things I was thinking about getting anyway
Wonderfalls
Californication season 2
Merlin
Pushing Daisies season 2
Reaper season 2
True Blood
Eureka
Farscape season 2 onwards
Jericho season 2
Dead Like Me

Anime that Mark keeps suggesting
Rouroni Kenshin
Code Geass
Death Note
... almost certainly loads more that I can't remember

Things I have an urge to rewatch
Angel
Sports Night
Alias

I know, I know- I have a problem. But I have a 20mb internet connection and couple of terabytes of storage space, I need to justify spending that money somehow. So, any help at all in whittling/prioritising this list would be welcome. Anything you think I should watch right away? Anything you'd say isn't worth watching at all? Anything else you want to add to the list? (I probably won't thank you for that last one, but comment away.) Help me!

EDIT: Scored out things I've watched, added a few new entries.