Mmmm. Monday.

Administartion:
Welcome to new reader filius_draconi!

Happy (barely)belated birthday to razzman!


And now, for addictions in order of current obsession.

City of Heroes:
Thanks to my guild, I finally got Kung Ru to level 20 last night. My new contacts will finally speak to me! Okay, so I have to super-jump over a sea of purple to get to any of them, but, hey, they're talkative now! Of course, it took me going through all four to find one that seemed like he was giving me a door mission. Sky Raiders. Who knew? We'll see how that goes tonight, provided I don't spend my play time tonight paired up with satyr_mi. Got the single defense boosting power in the Regeneration secondary with my level. I was going to get Health so that at 22 I could get Stamina, but I realized I really really really needed to do something immediately useful. :-p Heck, I wanted to get Crippling Axe Kick or Crane Kick, but those can wait a bit.

I've gone on a chargen spree in the game. Fortunately, I am taking my addiction to multiple servers instead of deleting anyone on Pinnacle again. :-p I do suspect, however, that some of the lesser played Stryke's may be deleted at some point. As it is now, I'm keeping both blasters (Arctic and Tactical), at least one defender (Atom), and possibly the controller (Thunder). The tanker and the other defender (Flame and Ebony) haven't been played in a couple weeks. :-p We'll see what happens with them. I'm still hoping to get all of my alts on Pinnacle to level 10 before making any rash decisions, though.

I made a very amusing Tanker named Tiny Tina. She's 4 foot tall, as thin as can be, has the big ol' anime pigtails and a big smile. Invunlerability / Battle Axe. =^_^= I am very amused. =^_^=

Buffy:
So, satyr_mi and I gave in to temptation. We went to Borders and bought stuff. For him, we bought Star Trek DS9 season 5. For me, we bought Buffy season 6. ^_^ Sadly, our DVD player is old and crotchety and doesn't like disc 2, which is the one that has "Once More, With Feeling" on it. Fortunately, my desktop's DVD drive and my laptop's DVD drive read it without issue. So I watched OMWF in my room. ^_^

Season 6 is probably the most loudly criticized season of the series. A lot of stuff happened, everyone was really depressed, it was highly disturbing, and the happiest, sanest couple in the history of the Buffyverse got shattered in a truly spectacular (read, shocking as hell) fashion. Of course, that really was the game plan for the season all along. What happens to you when you first get real freedom? We're not talking "moved out of the house and go to visit your parents from time to time" freedom. We're talking you are in charge and no-one else is supporting you freedom. The kind people call "growing up". The answer is, it sucks. Some lucky folk seem to have no problems with it at all, but most go through a time of flailing about like a fish out of water trying to figure out which way is up. Yeah, it isn't as extreme as what the folk in Sunnydale go through, but then we also don't have demons and vampires trying to kill us every night. Or a trio of pathetic nerds who couldn't get laid to save their lives trying to pretend they actually have testicles.

Despite all of that, I really like Season 6. It is not my favorite season, but I like it. The only real stand-out episodes in my mind for the season are "Bargaining", "Once More With Feeling", "Smashed", "Two to Go", and "Grave". So, the premier, the event episode, the finale, and one other episode. Other than Season 1, I can think of at least half a dozen episodes that aren't the premier or finale that stand out in my mind. The difference with Season 6 is it isn't episodes that stand out, it's the moments that stand out. Buffy telling Spike her secret, Willow casting the two memory spells, Xander breaking the second spell, Buffy closing the door after her birthday party, Tara standing up for Willow at Buffy's birthday party, Spike "exercising", Riley finding Buffy and Spike, Anya crying and being consoled by D'Hoffryn, Warren shooting the gun. Not really episode-wide content, but memorable. All in all, though, it comes out a little weaker than previous seasons.

Entertainment:
So, for the second Friday in a row, satyr_mi and I went to the movies! We went and saw "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". It was good, although the changes in the look of Hogwarts and the geography of Hogwarts were a bit much. And the entire film just seemed rushed. It makes sense, but it crams way too much into too short of a time span. And stuff got moved around a bit and explained less than optimally. The map, Harry's Patronus (this NEEDED to be explained, sorry, but that's HUGE), Harry's broom?!?! Hello, he doesn't get that until "Goblet of Fire"! It's this whole big thing in that book! Something of an aside to the main plot, perhaps, but it's an important event regardless.

Considering how much things got compressed in this film, I'm wondering how compressed the next two will be. Books 4 and 5 are HUGE books, and it's not all filler. Side stories can be purged out with minimal fuss, but the main plot itself is a bit convoluted in both books and I'm not sure how nicely it will fit in a two and a half hour movie.

Worky Worky:
It's payroll monday. Yay for payroll monday. Why is it so quiet?!?!?!?!?

Randomness.