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• 11Jun 09

  Blech

  I feel crappy. My head feels like a doughball, my nose is Niagra falls and I've got aches all over my body. I can't eat but I'm drinking water like a camel, so I can't rest for more than three minutes before needing to piss, and I'm stuffed to the brim with drugs. And my bed's on the opposite side of the house to the wireless box, so the connection keeps cutting out and it's taken me ages just to post this blog.

  Blech.... I'm such a moany tit.

  • Posted Jun 11, 2009 6:42 am PT
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• 8Jun 09

  I've finished my AS exams!!

  No, I haven't got anything particularly interesting to say, I'm just pretty excited that I'm done. Had my last exam earlier this morning. Yay.

  • Posted Jun 8, 2009 3:48 am PT
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• 8Apr 09

  I'm back.... and this time, it's personal!

  Actually, no it's not, but I had to say something dramatic. But it is true that I'm back, I'm not dead or anything, I've just been having a general break from fandoms. Is that the plural of fandom? Fandoms? Fandi? Besides, not many of my favourite shows are doing much this year. So what have I been doing in the meantime? Well, I can proudly announce that I am officially a Buffy geek. I've bought and watched seasons 2, 3 and 4, and absolutely love all of them. Last weekend was a true geek-out. The season 4 DVD arrived at Saturday lunchtime, and by Sunday evening I had finished the season. I will now proceed to raving about what is now my joint-favourite show.

  Season 2 was fantastic. By the third episode, I was completely hooked. Drusilla was wonderfully insane, and Spike was simply badass and brilliant. And if that wasn't enough, Angelus turned up mid-series and upstaged even them. David Boreanz was brilliant, as both the brooding, loyal and good Angel and the confident, self-assured and unashamedly evil Angelus. "Innocence" is simply a masterpiece of television, along with others like it - Lie to Me, School Hard, Passion, I Only Have Eyes For You and Becoming stand out in particular. Becoming also made history is being only the second time I have ever cried at something on TV, after the series 2 finale of Torchwood. OK, so there were some weak filler episodes (Inca Mummy Girl, Bad Eggs, Go Fish), but the great thing about Buffy is even when an episode has a bad plot, rubbish monsters and little character work, it still manages to be great, mainly because it has simply the best dialogue I have ever seen on television. It's interesting, consistent, distinct, witty, dramatic and realistic all at the same time. I have to say this because it's true - Joss Whedon is a God among men.

  And yet, for all the brilliance of season 2, season 3 managed to be even better. The charmingly evil Mayor was a great villain, juxtaposing his pleasantries and carefree persona with acts of pure evil, as was the dangerously psychotic Faith. Unlike the last season, there were virtually no poor filler episodes, it was much more consistent yet still had outstanding episodes like Bad Girls/Consequences, Anne, The Zeppo, Enemies (great twist at the end, I literally screamed), Earshot (Despite the poor ending), Amends, The Prom, Graduation Day and one of my all-time favourites, Helpless.

  Season 4 wasn't quite as good as the last two. It had some simply brilliant episodes - Who Are You is my favourite episode of all seasons, and then there's The Harsh Light of Day, Wild at Heart, Fear Itself, the hilarious Something Blue, Pangs, Hush and Restless. However, I often find Superstar to be listed among the greats by a lot of fans, but I found it average. It was also very experimental. Hush was as clever as it was creepy, and also pushed the boundaries into what you can do without any dialogue, and Restless was a very brave and unusual finale, and an incredibly clever introspection. Also, Anya became a Scooby, and we saw plenty of Spike, which is never a bad thing.

  However, season 4 was let down by a poor arc and "Big Bad". There wasn't much interesting to Adam, although admittedly that is comparing him to the great villains of Angelus, Spike and the Mayor. The Initiative plot was interesting at first, but soon lost its intrigue. The season also had a return to the poor filler episodes. Beer Bad was, well, Bad, and I had to burn my eyes out after watching Where the Wild Things Are. Lastly, Riley. He was intended to be a nice, normal boyfriend for Buffy is contrast to Angel, but he came off as simply dull and characterless. There was very little chemistry between him and Buffy, I found more chemistry with the guy she had one scene with in the first episode before he got killed by vampires than in the whole season of Riley. But despite that rather uninteresting relationship, this season did introduce Tara and her relationship with Willow, which is not just the best same-sex relationship I've ever seen on TV, but one of the best full stop. My favourite Tillow bit was in Who Are You.
  Tara: I am, you know,
  Willow: What?
  Tara: Yours.
  No, I've just got something in my eye, honest....

  But enough about Buffy. Doctor Who returns on Saturday! There's not much I can draw from the trailer, but it should be good.

  Also, I've been reading the Order of the Stick. Now, I've never played Dungeons and Dragons, so a D&D based webcomic seems like an odd thing for me to enjoy, but it's absolutely brilliant. It's basically about a group of six adventurers, called the Order of the Stick, on a quest to defeat the evil Xykon, but the plot thickens and becomes very complex over time, but I won't give away the main plot now.

  The leader of the group is Roy Greenhilt, a sarcastic and sharp-witted warrior, and the other members are Elan ---, an enthusiastic but none-too-bright bard, the insecure and apparently greedy Haley Starshine, Durkon Thundershield, an introverted and traditionalistic dwarf, Vaarsuvius, an egomanic, condescending elven wizard, and Belkar Bitterleaf, a mass-murdering, sociopathic Halfling who is, in his own words, a SEXY SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!

  Then there are the villains - Xykon is the main villain of the comic, a lich sorcerer with a very short attention span who loves being evil and commits atrocious acts in order to entertain himself. Then there's Redcloak, a powerful Goblin who is fed up of how Goblins are treated like disposable mooks to be slaughtered en masse by the heroes, so he becomes part of an ancient plan to change all that. Then there's the mysterious Monster in the Darkness, who is powerful enough the destroy the world but loves nothing more than Power Rangers, tea parties and eating chewy marshmallows. There is also the Linear Guild, evil counterparts of the Order of the Stick, and some more that are introduced later in the comic.

  The first arc is a little hard to get through, because it's mainly D&D jokes, the plot is linear and the characters are a little 2D. However, the second arc adds more character-based humour and development, and explains the plot that links all the arcs together. The third arc is simply epic, and the fourth and current arc contains some really deep and complex characterisations. Overall, it's funny and clever, very self-aware and genre savvy, and contains moments so purely awesome that Chuck Norris exploded just by reading them. I recommend it to anyone, and the link to the first strip is below. It starts off OK, but becomes brilliant later on, so stick with it if you've got the time, it's well worth it, I'd put it up there with greats like Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter, I honestly would.

  http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html

  And then there's um.... Oh, what's that things name again? Oh yeah, real life. Well, right now life sucks more than a drunk Essex girl, but I've got food and a bed and no broken bones, so things could be worse. I went to Belgium last week on an Economics trip, which was kind of dull, but I got chocolate and free beer, so it was still pretty fun.

  Well, that's all for now, folks. I'll see you around.

  • Posted Apr 8, 2009 12:08 pm PT
  • Category: General
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