That pretty much sums it up. Today was a long day, I was at five doctor appointments in a row from 7:45am - 4:30pm. This time did give me an opportunity to read more than half of Cory Doctorow's novel Little Brother.
This book is amazing. Straight up. I've been a fan of Cory Doctorow for a long time. Full disclosure, he's kind of one of my heroes. I've got a ridiculously long reading list though, and sadly I hadn't got around to any of his novels until now, but I'm certainly glad I finally did. If you don't know, Cory releases all of his book for free in digital format under a Share-Alike Creative Commons license (he's also kind of a digital copyrighthero). Because of that I've also got the rest of his novels on my eReader now to make my way through once I finish Little Brother.
Personally, I think everyone needs to read this book.
If you are so inclined, you can download the ebook in many different formats here, or purchase a copy in dead-tree format at, you know, a bookstore.
One last note - my fiance is having surgery tomorrow, so updates might be a tiny bit sparse for the next few days. Don't go anywhere though, I'll be back soon!
So this is one of a couple of (probably) weekly posts I'm gonna start doing (it might end up biweekly or monthly, I'll see where I'm at next week but I think weekly will be just fine). I've got an idea for another on Fridays, but nothing to fill in the week specifically yet. So if you few loyal friends and readers have an ideas for something you'd like to see me work up on a weekly basis, let me know in the comments. Anyway, here we go with Shit I've Been Into #1!
High School of the Dead
Do you like zombies, even a little bit? Do you like animation, even a little bit?
If you answered 'yes' to either of those questions, this show is for you. It's an incredible, violent, sexy take on a grossly over-crowded genre. Not to mention that the animation in this show has dethroned Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as far as having the highest quality animation in a televison series. This show is beautiful. So far I've seen the first season. There is an OVA (Original Video Animation, aka Direct-to-DVD for you non-anime fans), and a second season upcoming. Seriously, if you want to see zombies get destroyed in gorgeous HD animation, watch this program.
High School of the Dead is available on Netflix Instant As a side note, the english voice dubbing is easily the best I've heard to date. With the exception of one character. Trust me, you'll know which one.
DC Comics: New 52
If you've been on the internet at all over the last month, you've probably heard at least something about it. There's been a lot of negative controversy over a couple of the female characters. Here's what I have to say about it:
So far I have read over 40 of the New 52 titles. The lowest rating I would give any of the books so far is 'pretty good', the highest being 'AWW YISS!'. I've read the two titles that have gotten the majority of the negative reaction, and I think people are grossly overreacting. Not only do I think people are overreacting for the wrong reasons, and unintentionally making themselves look incredibly sexist in the process. There is all this complaining about two female characters *gasp* having sex, yet no headlines in the blogosphere about how the New 52 title with a homosexual protagonist was fantastic. Does that sound right to you? Me neither.
I would recommend you read all of the New 52 issue #1's if only to see which books you like the best and want to continue with. I would also recommend anyone who has ever wanted to get into DC Comics and hasn't for whatever reason (like the therrible continuity, constant retconning, etc) start here. A few of the books are continuing the plotline there were in before New 52, but the #1 issues are all done in such a way that they are a jumping on point, whether the story arc is new or not.
If I was forced to make more specific book recommendations than "all of them", here they are:
Animal Man
Aquaman
Batman
Batgirl
Batwoman
Blue Beetle
Detective Comics
Demon Knights
Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.
Green Lantern: New Guardians
Justice League
Grifter
Supergirl
Teen Titans
Action Comics
That's all for today folks. I hope you enjoyed the post, excelsior, and all that. And if you have a question, or just want to yell at me, or whatever, LEAVE A COMMENT!
This is not my first blog. This is not my fifth blog. If you count all the various Livejournal usernames I had back when that was a big thing, this probably isn't even my tenth blog. I've got a feeling this is the one though - the Final Version of Bryan Sarrasin Blog, if you will. I still run another geek culture tumblog, Liberal Nerdism. But this is the blog just for me. It's also for you, whoever you are. My reader expectations are not huge, but that isn't really the point here (on this blog, anyway).
As far as what you can expect here, it's a variety of things. Previews and reviews of indie games. The same for film, television, and comics - along with opinion articles on the same topics and anything else I find that deserves mentioning. So I suppose it's a bit like Liberal Nerdism, but there are some important differences:
I don't write anything long form on Liberal Nerdism, posts here will be primarily long form (with some exceptions, mainly shared videos and the like)
Liberal Nerdism is thusfar updated when I come across something I feel is worthy of the blog. This blog will be updated at least once every weekday (weekend posts are possible for special stuff).
Liberal Nerdism is highly impersonal. While I don't plan to air all the details of my largely unexciting personal life here, I will be posting updates about how my classes are going, how my programming skills are improving, my art, writing, and probably some French stuff once I have the time to start my language classes.
So that's basically it. This is going to be my first proper attempt at keeping a blog going, and if you're reading, I hope you enjoy it.
