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Wednesday Medialog --backlog!
May. 12th, 2021 10:49 pm[Backlog -- this post was written around the end of April, and I didn't post it because ???. It's long enough though, so I will do a second separate post for since then]
Wednesday Medialog
I'm less behind on this than I feared, huzzah! [--ed: lol]
I don't know if I mentioned, but I spent a week in Texas to visit my parents, basically as soon as I was fully vaccinated (plus the two weeks), since mum and da both got their shots well before me. So a lot of this medialog is with them!
*Mom showed me all of the first season of New Zealand Taskmaster! I have mostly not kept up with the non UK versions (I understand the quality of the American one is, uh, not there) but EnZedians apparently know how to do it correctly! Jeremy Wells mostly didn't impress me as Taskmaster the way Greg does, but he wasn't disappointing or upsetting either, mostly just forgetable. Meanwhile, Paul Williams has mastered the art of looking very slightly concerned and not letting anything cause him to deviate from that face, which is an essential skill for a Taskmaster's Assistant. I thought their choices of prize tasks especially were inspired, and the show overall felt just a little bit sexier than your average UK season. It was delightful!
Also lesbians, yeah? Why hasn't UK taskmaster had such blatant queerness on display?
Alsoalso, how is Guy Williams, an EnZedian from the year 2020, so strongly reminiscent of a late 70s/early 80s DnD metalhead stoner redneck? Like, his vibe is SO SPECIFIC but also SO THERE.
*We also watched the fourth episode of series 11. I'm at least two episodes behind on the podcast, and haven't seen the fifth ep yet, but I'm continuing to enjoy it!
*Mom and I were pretty determined to watch a bunch of movies, and dad would occasionally join us. He only came in for the last twenty minutes or so of Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga, but to be fair, it's not exactly a deep movie. (and dad is a pretty serious ABBA fan, so the influences worked for him). I liked that there wasn't really a villain of the piece at all, Mika and Lemtov were both really delightful in their confusing "we're here to support these little wee newbies to the big world of Eurovision!".
*The next night we watched Josie and the Pussycats, and I was slightly surprised that dad stuck around for the whole thing. It's another movie that's not deep but is delightful --I'd seen it before, but not in a long time. I find the ending to be pretty weak (the whole "turns out we've been shunned by society but we reinvented ourselves and now true love" thing is...ehhhh) but basically anything Alan Cumming or Parker Posey do in the first 80% of the movie is Hell Yes Enjoyable. It must've been a complete blast for those two to film!
*I swear there's one more movie we watched, but it's not coming to me right now. Meh. Separately from that movie, my visit overlapped slightly with Alys, and mom forced the two of us to watch Who Am I This Time, a very charming little movie staring Christopher Walken as very neuroatypical and Susan Sarandon as the woman who went ahead and moved into his world to court him.
*On the T-and-plane to the airport, I read through most of Austin's copy of Humble Pi, which is a book of mathematical mistakes (mostly). It was really good! The tone was extremely light and readable.
*The other book I read in Texas was "How To Date Like A Teenager" which is an advice-humour book from the 70s or 80s. I've read it many times before, but it is full of Useful Advice (this is not true)
*Part of the Texas accomplishments was going through one room worth of bookshelves and pulling things off the shelf that I wanted to keep more than mom did. So I flew home with literally thirty extra pounds of books, like ya do. I have correctly put myself into a nostalgic mood1 and used that to not reread any of the new books in my collection, but my copy of The Adventures of Blue Avenger.
Fun fact! There are two people I've ever encountered who were familiar with this wonderful meandering young adult novel. One of them is the webcartoonist Dante Shepherd2 (whose weird chalkboard based witticisms you may remember as the comic Surviving the World), the other is my partner Austin.
I definitely don't have media requirements for my partners, but the fact that he had also read and enjoyed this book in high school implied very compatible things about our brains, is what I'm saying.
*Oh, I've since remembered the last movie I watched in Texas --Brenda Starr. The adventure/comic parts were so fun and well done. The weird layered meta-story with her cartoonist was...okay. The weirder "~let's be in love~" story with the cartoonist was...pretty gross, honestly. I'm glad to have watched it, but wish it could've been a sincere comic adaptation and not a winking meta-mess.
*Mom and I also watched all of Over the Garden Wall --she had never seen it, and had a vague sense that "this would be good to cosplay". I've told her I'd be Wirt if she is Greg, but honestly vice versa would also work! It was as quietly good as I remembered --it's never gonna be the sort of lifechanging media I thrust upon people eagerly, but it's always going to be a really solid story.
*Video games! Mom and I played through about two and a half worlds of Overcooked (it is so hard!) and a few stages of Ring Fit Adventures! Also a skootch of Animal Crossing and plenty of silly phone games.
*More recently I've also been seriously working my way through all the original campaigns in Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I'd never really done this before, so it's a fun adventure!
*Now, lifechanging media I do thrust upon people eagerly includes Leverage --you may recall a recent post where I did the cries because of a fanvid. That vid inspired me to remind Eliska that we were going to watch the show, and separately I showed it to Austin and he was all "that's amazing what's it from?" and long story short, I am now successfully watching Leverage twice at approximately the same time and I could not be happier with the situation.
*After I finished Blue Avenger, I started on The Enthusiast, which is Josh Fruhlinger's novel. (That's the Comics Curmudgeon if you don't know the name). I'm only about a chapter in, but I'm having fun so far, and I probably want to make Austin read at least that first chapter because trains.
*I'm still in-progress on Middlegame, still in progress on Comics Curmudgeon (July '16) and sorta stalled out on Irregular Webcomic (#106). It'll all get there.
Whew! I should do these more often, especially if I'm going to consume one trillion media.
~Sor MOOP!
1: I tried really hard to focus on taking only books that a) were books I remembered reading as a child/young adult and enjoyed; b) were folktale/fairytales; or c) were mathbooks. There are always books I've never read in my parents house, and some of them sound Damn Good, but I don't need to grab every single novel that looks halfway decent.
2: Who I recently learned uses he/they pronouns and FUCK YES I got the Surviving the World person on team nonbinary! Also I even more recently learned they work at Northeastern and omg that's the same city as me.
Wednesday Medialog
I'm less behind on this than I feared, huzzah! [--ed: lol]
I don't know if I mentioned, but I spent a week in Texas to visit my parents, basically as soon as I was fully vaccinated (plus the two weeks), since mum and da both got their shots well before me. So a lot of this medialog is with them!
*Mom showed me all of the first season of New Zealand Taskmaster! I have mostly not kept up with the non UK versions (I understand the quality of the American one is, uh, not there) but EnZedians apparently know how to do it correctly! Jeremy Wells mostly didn't impress me as Taskmaster the way Greg does, but he wasn't disappointing or upsetting either, mostly just forgetable. Meanwhile, Paul Williams has mastered the art of looking very slightly concerned and not letting anything cause him to deviate from that face, which is an essential skill for a Taskmaster's Assistant. I thought their choices of prize tasks especially were inspired, and the show overall felt just a little bit sexier than your average UK season. It was delightful!
Also lesbians, yeah? Why hasn't UK taskmaster had such blatant queerness on display?
Alsoalso, how is Guy Williams, an EnZedian from the year 2020, so strongly reminiscent of a late 70s/early 80s DnD metalhead stoner redneck? Like, his vibe is SO SPECIFIC but also SO THERE.
*We also watched the fourth episode of series 11. I'm at least two episodes behind on the podcast, and haven't seen the fifth ep yet, but I'm continuing to enjoy it!
*Mom and I were pretty determined to watch a bunch of movies, and dad would occasionally join us. He only came in for the last twenty minutes or so of Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga, but to be fair, it's not exactly a deep movie. (and dad is a pretty serious ABBA fan, so the influences worked for him). I liked that there wasn't really a villain of the piece at all, Mika and Lemtov were both really delightful in their confusing "we're here to support these little wee newbies to the big world of Eurovision!".
*The next night we watched Josie and the Pussycats, and I was slightly surprised that dad stuck around for the whole thing. It's another movie that's not deep but is delightful --I'd seen it before, but not in a long time. I find the ending to be pretty weak (the whole "turns out we've been shunned by society but we reinvented ourselves and now true love" thing is...ehhhh) but basically anything Alan Cumming or Parker Posey do in the first 80% of the movie is Hell Yes Enjoyable. It must've been a complete blast for those two to film!
*I swear there's one more movie we watched, but it's not coming to me right now. Meh. Separately from that movie, my visit overlapped slightly with Alys, and mom forced the two of us to watch Who Am I This Time, a very charming little movie staring Christopher Walken as very neuroatypical and Susan Sarandon as the woman who went ahead and moved into his world to court him.
*On the T-and-plane to the airport, I read through most of Austin's copy of Humble Pi, which is a book of mathematical mistakes (mostly). It was really good! The tone was extremely light and readable.
*The other book I read in Texas was "How To Date Like A Teenager" which is an advice-humour book from the 70s or 80s. I've read it many times before, but it is full of Useful Advice (this is not true)
*Part of the Texas accomplishments was going through one room worth of bookshelves and pulling things off the shelf that I wanted to keep more than mom did. So I flew home with literally thirty extra pounds of books, like ya do. I have correctly put myself into a nostalgic mood1 and used that to not reread any of the new books in my collection, but my copy of The Adventures of Blue Avenger.
Fun fact! There are two people I've ever encountered who were familiar with this wonderful meandering young adult novel. One of them is the webcartoonist Dante Shepherd2 (whose weird chalkboard based witticisms you may remember as the comic Surviving the World), the other is my partner Austin.
I definitely don't have media requirements for my partners, but the fact that he had also read and enjoyed this book in high school implied very compatible things about our brains, is what I'm saying.
*Oh, I've since remembered the last movie I watched in Texas --Brenda Starr. The adventure/comic parts were so fun and well done. The weird layered meta-story with her cartoonist was...okay. The weirder "~let's be in love~" story with the cartoonist was...pretty gross, honestly. I'm glad to have watched it, but wish it could've been a sincere comic adaptation and not a winking meta-mess.
*Mom and I also watched all of Over the Garden Wall --she had never seen it, and had a vague sense that "this would be good to cosplay". I've told her I'd be Wirt if she is Greg, but honestly vice versa would also work! It was as quietly good as I remembered --it's never gonna be the sort of lifechanging media I thrust upon people eagerly, but it's always going to be a really solid story.
*Video games! Mom and I played through about two and a half worlds of Overcooked (it is so hard!) and a few stages of Ring Fit Adventures! Also a skootch of Animal Crossing and plenty of silly phone games.
*More recently I've also been seriously working my way through all the original campaigns in Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I'd never really done this before, so it's a fun adventure!
*Now, lifechanging media I do thrust upon people eagerly includes Leverage --you may recall a recent post where I did the cries because of a fanvid. That vid inspired me to remind Eliska that we were going to watch the show, and separately I showed it to Austin and he was all "that's amazing what's it from?" and long story short, I am now successfully watching Leverage twice at approximately the same time and I could not be happier with the situation.
*After I finished Blue Avenger, I started on The Enthusiast, which is Josh Fruhlinger's novel. (That's the Comics Curmudgeon if you don't know the name). I'm only about a chapter in, but I'm having fun so far, and I probably want to make Austin read at least that first chapter because trains.
*I'm still in-progress on Middlegame, still in progress on Comics Curmudgeon (July '16) and sorta stalled out on Irregular Webcomic (#106). It'll all get there.
Whew! I should do these more often, especially if I'm going to consume one trillion media.
~Sor MOOP!
1: I tried really hard to focus on taking only books that a) were books I remembered reading as a child/young adult and enjoyed; b) were folktale/fairytales; or c) were mathbooks. There are always books I've never read in my parents house, and some of them sound Damn Good, but I don't need to grab every single novel that looks halfway decent.
2: Who I recently learned uses he/they pronouns and FUCK YES I got the Surviving the World person on team nonbinary! Also I even more recently learned they work at Northeastern and omg that's the same city as me.