(no subject)

There's not much to talk about this week, except:

• Last weekend I bought a few more books: The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby (I've actually been meaning to get the book on the same subject from the 60s by Richard Hofstaedter [sp?], but I couldn't find it), Just and Unjust Wars by Michael Walzer (I had this book for one of my classes freshman year, but I regretted giving it back and wanted to read the whole thing), Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (I took your suggestions to heart :D), and The Rough Guide to Anime (if only because it's the kind of book I want to lend to people who aren't all that familiar with it, which makes up for most people I know). Yes, even more reading material. *sigh*


• I finally got around to reading all of XKCD this week, which a friend recommended to me a while ago. I had seen a couple of strips floating around, and I saved some of the more thought-provoking and truthful ones to my computer, but like over 95% of webcomics I've read I didn't really care too much for it. They all really suffer from the same thing: confusing cleverness for humor, sarcasm for wit, and a finely-cultivated cynicism for insight. It was a very amusing diversion, and there were a lot of strips I really liked (even though I skipped over all the computer programming jokes, which didn't bother me all that much anyway), but I'm not like "OMG I love it!!!" like some people I know.


• Saw the movie version of Watchmen recently (the director's cut, to be exact), and I have to say I liked it much better than the GN! They did a good job of cutting out a lot of the unnecessary baggage that bogged down the original novel, which made the movie seem less heavy-handed and otherwise problematic. Plus, the cinematography was amazing (I especially liked the tableaux vivants of the opening credits), and unlike most other superhero movies I've seen, it didn't feel like it was one three-hour climax, but has its ebbs and flows, which I think is a much better way of telling the story. It was still very much flawed, especially because it stayed very faithful to the original GN, and many of the huge flaws it had that I mentioned before were transfered to the movie as well. I think a couple more liberties could have been taken with the movie, and if the people responsible for making it absolutely had to ruin a perfectly good song, it really didn't need to be one by Leonard Cohen. -_- But if you're looking for a good popcorn movie that won't insult your intelligence at the same time, this is for you.

I'm not really looking forward to next week, because not only do I have both a dentist's appointment and an eye doctor appointment (UGH D:), but my sister's sports camp is over with as of today so I need to practice my driving in other ways. On the bright side, they're showing Annie Hall on TV tomorrow night, and the last season of Monk starts a week from today, so there's that (the fact that this is my "bright side" is kinda sad when you think about it, but there you have it).

It's International Blog Against Racism Week, and every day this week you can find links to everything that people have been contributing over at ibarw (I'm not going to link each post because I'm feeling pretty lazy right now, but all of this week's posts should be on the first page of entries). They also have a Delicious account that's worth checking out. I haven't read any of these yet, but they all look interesting and I hope I can make the time to catch up on these, especially when I go back to college.

All right, meme time! Both of these I've taken from fegie.

#1:

( 90s meme )

#2:

1. Reply to this post requesting a letter (if you want), and I will assign you one.
2. List (and upload, if you want) 10 songs that start with that particular letter.
3. Post them in your journal with these instructions.

I got the letter "S."

( Read more... )

And finally this week's song, "Triangle Walks" by Fever Ray:

Fever Ray is the side project of Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of Swedish electronica group The Knife, and her first self-titled album came out earlier this year.  This music is a bit darker and more ambient than the stuff under The Knife, but since the other half of that group, Olof Dreijer, sings on a number of Fever Ray songs, I consider this to be another Knife release (plus, "Triangle Walks" is one of their more Knife-like songs).  I haven't listened to Fever Ray all that much yet, but I did like what I heard, and The Knife is one of my favorite bands anyway.  If you're interested, I recommend starting with 2006's Silent Shout first, and then 2003's Deep Cuts if you like what you hear.