One of those random "stuff" type posts

[iainjclark]

My horrible phlegm-filled lurgy is now finally subsiding, even though my throat is still raw and I keep coughing randomly. At least I no longer sound like a cross between Davros and Barry White, and was able to laugh at last night's Mock the Week without actually killing myself. (Frankie Boyle's Inuit Robot Butler was absolute genius).

Janet is off work today, and is happily ensconced on her PC playing Spore, which (despite annoyingly refusing to let her interact with any of the online content) is generally pleasing her in being a combination of every game style she's ever liked, with the added bonus that she gets to design weird alien life and evolve it.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which turned out to be unexpectedly not-a-big-pile-of-crap, is back for a second season on 8th September. I might never have started watching this if I hadn't been asked to review it, and seen a couple of other people praising it, but I'm really glad I did. It's smarter than it has any right to be, and it neatly picks up on everything I liked about T2 while ditching everything I disliked about T3. Lena Headey is suitably obsessive and bad-ass as Sarah Connor, plus it has Summer Glau as a deeply unnerving 'good' Terminator, as showcased by this here poster (click for a bigger version).

Ben Folds Five are re-uniting for one night only to play "The Unauthorised Biography of Reinhold Messner" in its entirety. When we saw Ben Folds 'solo' back in June he was playing with two other musicians who were for all practical purposes indistinguishable from the remaining two members of Ben Folds Five (to a philistine like myself -- I'm sure their friends and families see an important difference) so I'm sure this will be a breeze for Ben. This seems to be part of a MySpace "Front to Back" live album initiative.

Folds's new album Way to Normal is out on 30th Sept. He played quite a few songs from it when we saw him live, and generally it sounds quite up-tempo; less acoustic and melancholy than Songs for Silverman. More of an early-BFF sound, in fact.

Comments

[ajr.livejournal.com]

On the grounds that one can never have too much Summer Glau, I thank for linking to the poster. I don't know how I haven't seen it before.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Seems to be quite a recent addition - but there are others about.

[fba.livejournal.com]

I'm quite interested in Spore - but the reviews on Play.com all seemed rather negative. I suspect this may be a case of the reviewers not 'getting it' though.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Well, so far there's a validation glitch affecting a lot of customers so she can't share the online content, which is the bit where you share creatures and have other people's creatures in your gam (like sharing a Mii).

With that in mind, she's enjoying it as a game, although she's a bit unsure about how much variety there'll be when starting new creatures from scratch.

[tinimaus.livejournal.com]

Frankie Boyle is a very scary man. That is all I have to say about him.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

You're talking about the kitten, aren't you?

[tinimaus.livejournal.com]

Pretty much everything he says, really. "Three million pounds for a state funeral for Thatcher? For that money, you could have given every person in Scotland a shovel, and we would have dug a hole so deep, we could have handed her over to Satan personally."

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

He's scary, but he's my kind of scary.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Since I am only two thirds of the way through the Chronicles I will refrain from calling you a big ole wronghead yet.

However, why is it only nine episodes long? I would have thought this spelt death not second season.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

The WGA strike cut the season short. Chronciles was far from the only show affected, many other shows had in the region of 13 episodes instead of 2o-odd.

[fba.livejournal.com]

But in the case of Heroes I suspect the WGA strike was what saved it from the axe...

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I think that's fair. :-)

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Ah, all is revealed.

PS What is the book under Gunsmith Cats?

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Damn, you replied to the comment just as I was trying to fix the 2o/20 error.

The book under Gunsmith Cats is The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, by Jessica Anya Blau. It's one of two that I picked up on a whim (the power of table displays).

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I will say now that the hotness of Glau surprised me - I think she's grown an ass or something - but does not compare to Headey.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I AM NOT ALONE ANYMORE

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Now you can be alone together!

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Well I was particularly impressed by episode 3 (The Turk) especially the Oppenheimer start, and by episode 6 (Dungeons and Dragons), but the series definitely improves as it goes.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

What I liked was that a lot of the criticisms I had about the pilot and the first episode proper were dealt with as the series progressed. To take one off the top of my head, I was a bit annoyed at John being a complete pansy all the time, but I think it was as soon as episode three they had him doing proactive stuff instead, which was a nice surprise.

If episode six is the one I think it is, I'd agree with that.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Yes, the early episodes are very concerned with setting up the premise, but them the series gets both more thoughtful and more dramatic as it goes along. They sometimes over-complicate the mythology, but generally I was impressed. The last four episodes have a lot of excellent stuff in them.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

ICEFISHING!

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Still funny now. :-)

Janet decided to see if there were any Frankie Boyle tickets going for his live shows, but they're all £90 and upwards - sold out apart from touts, basically.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Fuck! I didn't even know the tickets were on sale yet. Not that he's doing any London shows (I think).