I'm heading to the Calgary Expo tomorrow!  I'm gonnabe ascited! Here's some of the geeky things I'm into lately.
Game of Thrones season 2, of course. Who isn't into that?
The Legend of Korra is finally here, and cheers to Nickelodeon for making the episodes available online for free, even for us Canucks. Sometimes we have a hard time watching tv shows from American websites, something to do with CRTC rules or something. (but wait, didn't you say you were watching Game of Thrones....) Korra kicks ass!  Worth the wait (it was announced at SDCC 2010, though I wasn't in the room at the time of the announcement, I think I was just down the hall...). A perfect show for Pallas, at least as far as having strong female protagonists to emulate. We like to fight bad guys, Darth Maul being a particularly persistent foe, he shows up several times a day to get his butt handed to him. By a 3yo girl!
Darth Maul shows up in the current season of Clone Wars, looking forward to seeing that on DVD. The Cartoon Network being one of those networks that don't let Canadians watch their shows. But that's ok, I have the entire original Marvel Star Wars series in Omnibus form! Finally finished reading it. I think it's really cool that the final (and my personal favorite) run was done by a female writer and penciller, Jo Duffy and Cynthia Martin. For the mid-80s that was a rarity. Hell, it's a rarity now.
And I'm rereading Perdido Street Station, this time for book club. Loving it just as much, maybe more, this time around.

I know we are very far behind in movies, but slowly we are catching up. We went and saw Harry Potter the other day. I was pleased with it but I haven't read Half Blood Prince in four years, whereas Michelle reread the whole series this summer and didn't like some of the changes. One of these days I will reread them all too. Just no time. Says the guy who started rereading the 800-page A Game of Thrones today. Not my fault! I brought it to work to lend to my friend who requested some good fantasy and then I was stuck in shovel 10 all day with nothing to do in between trucks. Anyways.
Other movies we have seen lately, courtesy of the library's DVD collection:
Kung Fu Panda- surprisingly good. I had zero expectations though and those are not hard to surpass.
Darjeeling Limited- I know, how can I admit I don't own it? But Michelle does not share my love for Wes Anderson. My favorite scene- when the brothers are walking along being their normal screw up selves and then they see the raft in the river and Peter (Adrian Brody) yells "Go!" and they do. Though I've never saved, or failed to save, someone from drowning I kind of know what that feels like.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off- stands up surprisingly well. The caricature characters were silly and dumb even to my 20-years younger self.
The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford- I thought Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck and Fort Edmonton Park all turned in great performances!
From my own DVD collection I rewatched The Royal Tenenbaums (an annual event) and that scene where Chaz tells Royal he's had a rough year gets me every time. And I finally finished Avatar! The real Avatar, not the James Cameron thing. Or the M NIght Shyamalan thing which I am frightened of, but also hopeful for. I had just the last episode to watch for eons and ages and I finally got around to it. Good ending- unlike all the deviantArt fangirls I was never a Zutara fan.

Avatar trailer! Watch it before it gets taken down:



Looks like they decided to name it The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with James Cameron's Avatar. Please don't suck! But who cares if it does because the cartoon is unassailable.
Thanks to BetterThanBunnies for the link.

For some reason I can only upload one photo to Flickr on the computer I use in Hinton and after that it crashes. It's a Windows so what can you expect?
Oh well. Technically I'm not even supposed to have these pictures let alone put them on the internet.
I do for three reasons: 1. I have never said the name of the company where I work or even really where it is, specifically.
2. I have never badmouthed the company in print, choosing instead to act as a sort of booster. They really do treat me well and I am glad to work there.
3. I post the pictures because they're all gummed up with awesome! Certainly not to make the company look bad.
People from all over the world contact me asking questions about them, some just are fascinated with the giant machines, some even build model replicas and need to know specs. So you know, just helping the world out!
Anyways, in totally other news, just remember that Avatar the cartoon is totally amazing no matter what kind of monstrous mess M Night makes of it.

Fanart Friday- Avatar The Last Airbender



Michelle and I were talking about cartoons we watched when we were little and I came to the conclusion that most of them were just extended commercials for toys and cereal. Did they make Go-Bots toys or were they just Transformers ripoffs? Anyways there certainly were very few cartoons back then of the quality of Avatar, which is right up there with BSG on my favorite TV shows list. The idea of the show is martial artists can "Bend" the elements to their will. The Fire Nation has taken over and being all oppressive to everyone else, except the Air Benders who are all dead. Except for Aang, the last airbender and, as you can deduce from the title, also the Avatar who is sorta like the Dalai Lama. Aang needs to master all four elements to save the world. His friends Katara, Sokka and Toph, as well as his flying bison Appa and Momo the lemur are doing their best to save the day.


Aangs by: Oddabeish, Wenzmaster, ElDeppressio and mek0.


Katara by Artavias; Sokka by Tyshea; Toph by Nokomento; Avatar _ Street by Dustsplat.
Top image, All Avatar Issue Cover by NotThePornStar
Oh yeah and don't forget Avatarlie Brown by Homie Bear!
Avatar (c) Nickelodeon.

Siroi Yami No Naka
. . . is Japanese for I have no idea what. I think it means crazy catchy Japanese rap, what House of Pain might have sounded like if they had emigrated to Hokkaido or something and managed to have a career. Anyways, it comes to my attention because I mentioned to someone on deviantArt that the bounty hunters from Cowboy Bebop, the best anime I've ever seen, should've tried and go for the bounty on Vash the Stampede of Trigun, the second best anime I've ever seen. And sure enough, someone had already thought of it and made a mashup video with Siroi Yama No Naka (by ShakkaZombie, btw) as the theme music.
So even if you don't know anything about Spike, Jet or Vash, just watch this video for the great tune:


Also, the best American anime ever is finally going to have its third season, and you can see the trailer here if you like.

Some Random Roman Stuff
I finished watching Season 1 of HBO's Rome tonight(hey gabrielle, what does HBO stand for?)- and though I kind of knew how it would end, historically anyways, it was still a helluva ride. I feel like Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo are old friends, and I loved watching their Forrest Gump-like journey through the rise and fall of Gaius Julius Caesar. Especially the second-last episode, if you've seen it you know what I mean. Ooh- and their encounter with Cleopatra! Classic, if not exactly true to the classics.
And I have to send another shout out to Avatar the Last Airbender. For a kids' show it's surprisingly well written and engaging. I just watched the episode with the hippie nomads. Hilarious.
Check out my new desktop background. Kind of Avatary in a way, crossed with Crouching Tiger. But not Forrest Gump.
That's all for me, I'm heading to work tomorrow. Did you know I put more videos on my YouTube from work? It's true. Like this one:


One more thing- the new Marilyn Manson video can be found here- but it's not safe for work.

Have you ever seen Avatar: The Last Airbender? It's an American-made anime that airbends on Nickelodeon (and is out on DVD which is how I watch it). So yeah, it's for kids but I've been really getting into it. It's about this little kid, Aang, who is the Avatar. Sort of like a Dalai Lama in a world where martial artists can control the elements. Plus it's got flying bison and shape-changing panda bears. The episode I watched tonight had pirates. "I used to kind of look up to pirates but those guys were terrible," Aang says after they beat them down.
Mako, the great voice actor who sadly passed away recently, who also voiced Aku from Samurai Jack* plays the Fire Lord's brother.
Anyways, I couldn't help but notice certain amount of resemblance to another great American cartoon, so I drew a fanart:
(if you can't see it you're probably using Internet Explorer for some reason)


Avatarlie Brown by ~HomieBear on deviantART

*Speaking of Samurai Jack, I'd just like to point out that the Scotsman had a prosthetic machine gun leg first! Though that in no way is meant to detract from the oure kickassness that is sure to be Grindhouse.