it can’t all be about manga…

Whee!  Tonight was the season finale of Supernatural.  At the end of last season, Dean made a deal with a demon: his soul was forfeit after a year if his little brother Sam was saved.  Tonight was the night the deal came due. 

Heh.  I love this show.  Nothing will ever be as evil as the cliffhanger at the end of season one, though.   When we didn’t know if it was going to be renewed or not.  Evil, I tell you! 

This is, however, the perfect time for anyone out there to run out and get the first two seasons on dvd.  Really, run.  Then you can savour it over the long, tvless summer and watch season three all at once when the set comes out right before the fourth year starts up.  I warn you, though.  Everyone I’ve given my sets to has blown through them in about a week.  This year had it’s flaws, though.  Durn writer’s strike.

Er.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Supernaturalis a tv series about two brothers who travel around America hunting demons, ghosts and other creatures.  They like to dip into the urban legend pool for some of their stories, many of them are just creepy ghosts.  The show is *really* about Sam and Dean Winchester, though.  They’re so completely believable as brothers.

That’s it, I’m spent.   I’m going off to lounge in bed to read some of yesterday’s manga.   Night all.

Ha, okay.  Last week I had: doing two jobs at the library, extra hours at the bookstore, the OLA conference for two days (running back to the library during breaks to do ILLs), discovering I had FIFTEEN overdue books when I finally had a chance to get online and then I had to read like a fiend so I could return the ones I hadn’t finished yet.  Fun times.

This is sort of a non-post.  I’m going to bed in a minute but I was messing around on YouTube this evening and came across a clip of one of the best cartoons ever: Spy Groove.  Why is this not on dvd yet?

So for as long as it lasts, here it is:

I also found a clip of Downtown, another cartoon I miss watching.  sigh.  On the bright side, I discovered last night that Teletoon is playing season two of the Venture Bros.  I must do some digging and find out exactly when it’s playing so I don’t miss any episodes.

A multi post evening!  I’m just trying to clear some of the stuff I had been meaning to do as I anticipate more free time now that the holidays/travelling/traditional post Christmas cold is all done with.  Yes, I got sick right after arriving back in Toronto and have been sniffling since.  Didn’t have much energy for much besides sleeping and watching about 30 episodes of Avatar: the Last Airbender, a series I always liked but lost track of once I switched my weekend day at the bookstore to Saturdays. 

It’s surprisingly good for a “regular” cartoon, and yes, feel free to call me snobby.  I haven’t had much interest in the cartoons on tv since Teen Titans and Justice League were both cancelled.  Avatar is worth watching though.  There’s a serialized plot (which is part of why I stopped watching it once I started missing episodes), good voice acting, consistantly high quality animation… I particularly like the fight scenes which mix martial arts with bending (if you’re unfamiliar with the show, the characters can manipulate the four elements).   Even the villain has layers and moved past the “Grr! I must capture the Avatar!” stage.  Though now that he’s slowly moving towards being a more neutral character (or at least examining his motivations) they introduced his psycho sister.  heh.

Hmm.  I didn’t really mean for this to turn into a post about Avatar.  Oops!  Ah well.  In addition to the two manga updates, I’ve also been working on my master list of what I own, some of which was surprisingly out of date.  I also turned off the comments on that page.  I got tired of people asking me to upload manga, despite me repeatedly saying it was all “real” stuff.  sigh.  Does no one read anymore?  I also added a comment for the new December manga at the library last night.  Some of it is new, some of it has been on order for a while so was already on the list.

That’s it for tonight.   I’m back at work now (darn it!) and must sleep!  It’s always so sad when vacations must end.

I was trolling for Battlestar Galactica previews on the Sci Fi Channel’s website this morning and came across the Dresden Files!  I couldn’t get the preview to work, but I found it on YouTube so got to watch.  I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the clips (and I tried to ignore the cheesey voice over) but I’m more than willing to give it a fair shot.  And it’s starting in Canada on Space in January as well, so I get to watch it during its first run! 

(Totally off-topic, but the other thing I’m really looking forward to in January is Heroes restarting.  Tonight’s episode was amazing!  The end sequence completely blew me away.)

BTW, the pilot of the Dresden Files was filmed here in Toronto, so we’ll also get to play “spot the landmark” while watching.  That’s always fun. 

If you’ve never heard of Harry Dresden, you’ll want to check out the books by Jim Butcher.  (Storm Front is #1 in the series.)  The basic premise is that Harry is a wizard who works as a PI and on retainer for the city police.  Whenever they have an odd, unexplainable case Murphy (the head of the special department) will call in Harry to help.  The books bring in magic, vampires, werewolves, talking skulls, angels, holy knights etc etc.  A very entertaining series, and it’s a bonus for me that while Harry has a hero complex and will take an unbelievable amount of damage during the course of the story, he also doesn’t have completely unrealistic power-ups every book that will eventually give him god-like powers.  *cough*Anita Blake*cough*  If you watch the preview for the series, it’s actually a pretty good representation of the character, though it’s hard to tell if they get his coat right.  Harry’s leather coat is practically a separate character in the books… Also they did something to change little blonde Murphy….

Wow.  I just watched the preview for Pan’s Labryinth and it looks amazing… very dark and dreamy.  It’s coming out in limited release on December 29 so hopefully I’ll be able to find it playing somewhere in Toronto.

And check out the making of the live action Hogfather movie.  Pratchett fans rejoice!  Now if only we could get it aired here in North America.  What are the odds?  I suppose we’ll have to make do with the illustrated screenplay in the meantime.   Sadly though, I did not see the Death of Rats.

SQUEAK!

Another fabulous episode of Battlestar Galactica tonight.  Not that they’re all winners, but statistically speaking this show kicks ass on a regular basis.  The latest episode had the Cylon Raiders, which I always like to see.  Basically they’re a Cylon head with wings.  heh.  I don’t remember what they looked like on the old show, but I love the design of them.  They’re kind of dog-like to me.  Not as bright as the other Cylon models (which puts me into cute-widdle-puppy mode) but incredibly dangerous (puppy bites off your hand).

It’s missing the ominous red glowing lights in it’s “eye” which usually kicks the creepy up a notch.

Hands down, though, Bones won for best episode of the tv I watched this week.  (Didn’t know there was a contest, did you?)  Supernatural (the usual winner) was a close second, but the writing, acting, suspense, motw on Bones was just amazing this time.

Hmm… what can I say about the season premiere for Veronica Mars that I just watched?  Amazing?  It kicked my ass?  Awesome, stomach clenching ending?  heh heh heh.   I’m so glad I have new episodes of this show to watch. 

So, Veronica is now at college with some of the crew from high school.  Wallace’s cute new roommate (who, for one disorienting moment I thought was the kid from High School Musical that yes, I have seen damnit) is not only the victim of the week, but also crushing on Veronica.  It makes him only cuter and I was crushing on his crush.  I was almost rooting for him by the end of the episode, and I’m a die hard Logan girl.  Also?  Total Battlestar Galactica shoutout!  They said frack!  hee!  The only negative was the new look!we’re!noir! opening credits that I’m not sure I liked.

Arg, I don’t want to say too much for certain people who won’t be able watch it right away.  I can’t decide if I loved this more or the Supernatural premiere…. decisions decisions.  But everyone please please watch Veronica, because right now it only has 13 episodes for this season.   If I have another beloved show cancelled before its time I will become even more bitter and cynical than I am now.  My heart can’t take it.

Oddly enough, I thought I was going to be able to watch House this year since Supernatural moved to another night.  Then they go and air VM in the same time slot.  I’m not meant to watch House, I think.

I can’t type anymore.  My hands are cramped from too much crochet, but my square is almost 20 inches wide now.   Then I get to start a new one!

I’ve been meaning to write about some of my new yaoi books for about two weeks now and haven’t gotten around to it.  One of those situations where I know writing the post is going to take forever so I keep putting it off.   Soon… I will do it soon.

So what have I been doing instead?

Tonight I watched some of the xxxHolic anime.  Episodes 22 and 23 (SPOILERS AHEAD!) were from volume 6 of the manga, which has been my favorite story so far.  It’s the chapter about the lonely woman in the park that Watanuki meets and forms a bond with… and he keeps going to see her even though he knows it’s killing him.  sniff!  Yes, I shed a single tear tonight, which surprised me because I did like the manga version better.  The anime still touched me, though.  It looks like the next episode will be a flashback to one of Watanuki’s first ghost friends, but hopefully the spider vengeance story will be coming soon.  If there’s only three episodes left, though, they don’t have much time.

Yesterday I read Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel, which is the sequel to Airborn.   I got caught up in the adventure and romance and didn’t stop to play on the computer.  Young Matt Cruse is back with his plucky friend Kate and this time they’re off to find a “ghost” ship that disappeared 40 years ago and has been drifting through the skies ever since.  There was a lot of tension in the book - were they going to find the lost ship?  would Matt and Kate stay together despite their attractive new treasure hunting partners?  would they get caught by pirates before finding the treasure?  will Matt ever get over being a poor boy dating a rich girl?  A very fun read!  I gave Airborn to my nephew for his birthday - I think I’m going to give him the sequel for Christmas.

18 episodes of House!  Yes, I’ve been making my way through season 1.  All of my friends seem to watch it and while I liked it too, it was never enough to remember when it was on or watch instead of Supernatural.   I was home sick from work for a couple of days and thought it would be appropriate to watch a medical drama.  It’s amusing to watch.  There are very definite patterns to the treatment of patients that they rarely deviate from (they like to half kill patients with the wrong treatments before figuring out what they actually have), but I get a kick out of watching Wilson.  He’s the head of Oncology but all he ever does is hang out with House and his lackeys.  Sometimes he’ll look into a microscope and say “It’s not cancer!” but you don’t see him doing actual work very often.  I think he’s secretly jealous of House’s lackeys and the fact that Wilson’s office isn’t as big or cool looking.

Hmm, not blog-related, but I did blow off processing new dvd’s for a while at work on Saturday to work on another DMP manga list for the bookstore.  For the FIFTH time!  If my supreme overlord manager had been there I would have called it “Cathy’s last DMP list EVER” which might have helped with finally getting any of these books into the store.  Hey, it worked with the anime!  I made one massive, 5 page list of anime I wanted for my section, called it “Cathy’s final anime order list” and handed it over with the declaration that if we didn’t finally start getting some of this stuff in I was never making another one again.  We eventually got most of it, so I continue to nag when cool new stuff is coming out that I want us to get.  (The first volume of Bleach is being released at the end of November, btw!)

I keep missing the new tv shows I meant to watch but I did catch the first episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.  I liked it, but was disoriented by the fact that it’s a drama.  I thought it was going to be a comedy (like 30 Rock) but it’s a drama about making a comedy show…. slight difference.  I was also getting distracted by how many people I kept recognizing.  But they’d only rush by, or were someone’s assistant and only had a minute of airtime.  I guess as the show goes on these background people will get more attention, it was just weird how I’d only have time to think “Hey! Isn’t that….” and then they’d be gone.  :)

This week is Supernatural, which I’ve really been looking forward to.  And Entertainment Weekly had Battlestar Galactica (my other “I CAN’T WAIT” premiere) on the cover this week, which was awesome.  Not too many spoilers in the accompanying article… they were all in the pictures that went with it.  arg!  Be warned if you don’t like spoilers!

I’m off to watch another episode of House now before turning in.  I’m going to start working on my yaoi reviews tomorrow night and as soon as I see the next and last episode of Ouran (I’m assuming #26 is the final one of the season and I hope I hope it’ll be back for a second year!) I’m going to get back into writing about the anime episodes, which August-the-hell-month killed, among other things.