A book meme (thanks to Darla)

In an effort to keep my almost dead blog from flatlining completely, I'm responding to Darla's tag and doing a fun little book meme. The questions and answers are below.

(If you've been waiting patiently for a new post these past few months, all I can say is, "Sorry!" Last August, I started down a really cool yet enormously challenging new path. I'm now a library branch manager! It is a huge understatement to say that I've been busy and preoccupied. And the ol' blog fell by the wayside.)

Do you remember how you developed a love for reading? I loved reading as a child, but I don't recall how I started. I remember I was reading and writing at an earlier-than-usual age. My first, happiest reading memories involve two books: The Poky Little Puppy (now a classic) and Slim Green (a long out of print title about a green snake).

What are some books you read as a child? Besides the two mentioned above, my favorites included A Wrinkle in Time, The Incredible Journey, and - as I entered my teen years - everything by Paul Zindel, especially The Pigman. I also loved reading non-fiction. One of my favorites was a book called Jellyfishes by Elizabeth Shepherd. (I still love jellyfish!)

What is your favorite genre? Horror.

Do you have a favorite novel? Very hard to choose! Some favorites - besides the kids' titles mentioned already - are Little, Big by John Crowley, Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran, The Fury by John Farris, The Mist by Stephen King (that one's a novella), Nightflyers by George R.R. Martin (another novella), and any zombie book by Brian Keene.

Where do you usually read? In restaurants while having lunch or dinner, and in bed before going to sleep.

When do you usually read? See above.

Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time? I often have lots of non-fiction books and magazines going at once...then I dip into them when I'm in the mood. Fiction is a different story - I only read one novel at a time.

Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction? As mentioned above, I tend to read non-fiction in small doses, re-reading items of interest and skipping parts that don't interest me. Right now, I'm using this method on a cool book about the Enneagram.

Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library? I check them out of my library (duh!) and only buy occasionally. I own very few fiction titles. Most of my home library contains non-fiction on topics like gaming, astrology, the Enneagram, and science fiction TV shows.

Do you keep most of the books you buy? Yes.

If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child? I don't have any kids, but I frequently buy books for my adorable nephews. Recent favorites include Ladybug Girl and Diary of a Wombat. I haven't bought them any of my childhood favorites yet.

What are you reading now? Dead Sea by Brian Keene. (Brian Keene is 'da man!)

Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list? Yes. It's hard not to when you work in a library.

What’s next? I wanna re-read some Lovecraft.

What books would you like to reread? Any of the ones mentioned above.

Who are your favorite authors? Brian Keene, John Farris, Shirley Jackson, George R.R. Martin, R.A. Salvatore, Andrew Holleran, David Leavitt, Diane Duane, Vonda McIntyre, Alan Dean Foster, H.P. Lovecraft, Tom Piccirilli, Alice Hoffman, Tom Perrotta, Nick Hornby, Elizabeth Berg, and so many more!

Good & scary

Bagelman and I caught The Ruins on DVD a few weeks ago, and I must say - it's a good, scary little horror movie.

Maybe I shouldn't call it a "little" movie, since it's based on 2006's best-selling novel by Scott Smith and has some fine production values, eerie (and sometimes disgusting) special effects, nifty sound work, and a surprisingly solid cast. It tells the story of four pretty young Americans (two couples - Jeff and Amy, Eric and Stacy) vacationing in Cancun who agree to accompany a friendly (and cute) German fellow to an archaeological site in search of his brother. The site is remote and mysterious, but the friends aren't expecting anything more than a fun, adventurous day trip. What they get is utterly horrible. After a terrifying encounter with some natives, the group gets stuck atop an ancient, vine-covered pyramid. To say anything else about the plot would venture into spoiler territory, so I'll refrain. But if you like horror, see this movie! Well, see it if you like your horror bleak, gross, and nasty (as I do!).

This film truly doesn't really pull any punches. The situation is hopeless, bad things happen and keep happening, and the characters' strength starts to crumble in various ways. (The exception might be Amy, played by Jena Malone from Saved and Donnie Darko, who starts out whiny but gets believably tougher as the story progresses.) While the plot is fairly unpredictable, there were a few ho-hum moments. In particular, one character's death at the hands of another was too clearly telegraphed by the scene leading up to it.

In the end, I really dug this disturbing piece of cinema. I went to bed that night haunted by (without giving too much away) the "voice" of the evil presence on (and in) the ruins. Its whispers and screams have been with me ever since.

Joss does it again

Many/most of you probably know about this already, but it's too cool, fun, and exciting for me to leave out of my blog. Follow this link to see parts one and two of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" (part three goes online tomorrow), and you will see why Joss Whedon + musicals + superheroes + Neil Patrick Harris + Nathan Fillion = Internet magic.

Zombies, shaky-cam style

I finally saw Diary of the Dead, George Romero's fifth and most recent tale of the zombie apocalypse. My review? If you are a Romero nut, see it. If you are a zombie fan, see it. If you are a horror fan, see it. If you don't fall into one of those categories, you should probably skip it. But I'll feel sad for you.

The film definitely has its plusses and minuses, though the minuses (in this zombie geek's opinion) are mild. I find that I can't totally rave about Diary, and yet I thoroughly enjoyed myself while watching. Here are the plusses:

• Mr. Romero. Just like his other films, Diary includes all the typical "Romero touches" his fans expect, like high-quality gore, an early "shocker" scene, intelligent (if heavy-handed) social commentary, a Pittsburgh-ish setting, and acting that ranges from good to pretty bad. I always appreciate Romero's style. Even when a scene doesn't quite make it or a jokey line of dialogue falls flat, I'm still gripped by the overall story and having a good time.
• The zombies. They are as delightfully shambling, gross, and flesh-hungry as ever, and they get dispatched in all kinds of new and inventive (and squishy) ways.
• The characters. They are a fairly interesting bunch with a few surprises up their sleeves (like the sexy blonde girl's skill at car repair), although some are better explored than others. The "main" character, I suppose, is Jason, a film student who, along with his friends, is filming a horror movie in the woods near Pittsburgh when reports of the zombie plague start coming in. But we hardly ever see Jason, since he keeps his camera running during the crisis and - in Cloverfield/Blair Witch style - we see events unfold through his lens. So he's hard to get to know and feel sympathy for. (I think that might have been on purpose though - see "social commentary," below.)
• The not-so-shaky cam. I was pleased that, despite the "you are there," hand-held camera point of view, I wasn't nearly as bothered in the tummy as I was by Cloverfield and Blair Witch. Since the characters have two cameras and switch between them, and perhaps also because they are film students who know how to use the things, the screen doesn't shake so much and the movie isn't overly choppy and hyper-edited. Don't get me started on Cloverfield and Blair Witch, two films I was disappointed by - and not just because they made me nauseous. I found Blair Witch overhyped and very so-so in the scares department (until the last few minutes), while Cloverfield seemed, in the end, kind of silly and predictable - a missed opportunity (but with some great moments).

And the minuses:

• The social commentary. Even though this is one of Romero's trademarks, he usually tends to overdo it. (I personally don't mind so much.) Here, the statements made about the yuckiness of reality TV, instant Internet fame (a la YouTube), and our dependence on the media in general are smart yet slammed in the viewer's face about five times too many.
• The Amish guy. He was actually great (and funny), but he seemed a bit out of place. (Then again, how could he not have been out of place? You'll understand this when you see the film.)
• The rich guy and his family's house. The film lost me a little bit when the characters first arrived at the mansion and there was talk of servants, panic rooms, and high-tech security systems. It all felt kind of false at first, but then it wound up being an interesting and creepy setting for the film's denouement.
• The rebooting of Romero's zombie mythology. This isn't really a minus, I just found it sort of weird. Diary takes the zombie apocalypse back to square one - with the dead beginning to rise and people learning the basics of dealing with them (shoot them in the head, don't get bitten, etc.). On the one hand, we saw this already in Night and Dawn. But on the other hand, I definitely prefer this "back to basics" scenario over the "bigness" (for lack of a better word) of Land of the Dead, my least favorite of Romero's zombie flicks. I still liked Land (of course), but it had too many characters, guns/gadgets, locations, and storylines for it to be my idea of a great zombie movie.

So, as I said, my minuses aren't all that big. If you want a solid new dose of the living dead, be sure to check out Diary on DVD.

Yig rears his ugly (snake)head, again!

I had a lovely visit from Darla yesterday, and I was finally able to introduce her to my favorite game, Arkham Horror. (Yes, Arkham has taken over the top spot from Last Night on Earth, which is still a strong #2.) I've already reported on my two previous Arkham games (both played with Goldie and her sons), and here are some notes and highlights from the latest one:

• Since this was a learning game for Darla - and I hadn't played in months - we opted for Yig (above) as our Great Old One (GOO), since he usually makes for a shorter (hah!) game and is supposedly not too scary in the final combat. Yig was the GOO in my first Arkham game as well, and he did seem to be a good choice for beginning players.
• Besides the base game, I have every single expansion - the two smaller ones (Curse of the Dark Pharaoh and King in Yellow) and the two "big box" ones (Dunwich Horror and Kingsport Horror). We used some elements from all the expansions. I integrated all the new investigators, GOOs, items, spells, skills, etc. - unless they required or referred to some element we weren't using, such as the two extra game boards and the Dunwich monster. I also added in many of the new Mythos and encounter cards, and some of the new mechanics, such as injury/madness (which we never got to try).
• We chose our characters, rather than drawing them randomly. I prefer picking characters this way, as there are so many cool ones and I'd hate to end up with an investigator I'm iffy about - especially when I'm still learning the game. Also, a two-player game of Arkham is pretty challenging. We considered playing two characters each - so we could keep up with gate exploring, monster killing, etc. - but we opted to play one each so we'd have less to keep track of. This did indeed make the game extra-challenging. There was really no good way for us to keep up with all the new happenings in town. But we persevered, and we'd been careful to choose a good, balanced team of investigators to make things as easy (hah!) as possible.
• Darla played Daisy the librarian (how could two librarians resist using the librarian character?), and I played Mark Harrigan the soldier, hoping to balance out Daisy's spell-casting ability with Harrigan's awesomely lethal flamethrower. This combination worked great, although we were helped along by some blind luck when Daisy drew the elephant gun (which is even nastier than the flamethrower) as one of her random items. So together, we were quite the monster-killing team.
• As expected, we had several rules questions during the game, and I was usually able to dig up the answer in the rule book or one of the FAQs that I'd printed. In a few cases, I just couldn't find the answer, so I made a note of the issue (for later resarch) and we forged ahead after taking our best guess about how to proceed. There is no doubt that Arkham Horror is a complex game. There are lots of "little rules" that are easy to forget. For example, for most of the game we neglected to remove ally cards from the deck as the terror level increased (d'oh!). Also - and this is a big one - we totally missed the fact that Yig places a curse on each investigator after he awakens, making the final battle more challenging. So our last stand against the mighty Yig was really easy (oops!).
• As indicated in my last sentence, we won! :) (So what if we inadvertently cheated?) But, sadly, I was playing a different character by the time the final battle came along. Yes, once again my initial investigator was devoured by the GOO. I was especially disappointed this time, since I loved the Harrigan character. In case you're curious, the poor guy met his end while lost in time and space. He was about to return to Arkham when an unfortunate Mythos card forced him to make a skill check (which he failed) or else be devoured. Perhaps I'll play him in my next game and see if he can hang in there till the end.

Cutter gets some Hasbro love

I spent a lot of time online this weekend, looking at pics and reports from Joe Con (which took place in Dallas this year). A lot of sites have great coverage of the event; here's a link to one of my faves, ToyNewsi.com. TNI has photos of the always fun parachute drop, plus lots of toy previews.

For me, the most exciting news is that a Cutter figure is on the way as part of a TRU exclusive three-pack. Some of you know that I adore Cutter and even dressed as him at last year's con, hoping to convince the Hasbro reps that the character had enough of a fan base to warrant a new figure. So I'm psyched that one is on the way! The only downside is that the figure is a repaint, using (as expected) many parts and accessories from Shipwreck...and (this is the bad part) Gung-Ho's head. The problem with the head is that Gung-Ho does not wear a baseball cap, but rather a bigger, taller, military-style cap. I'm not sure exactly what it's called, but - on the new Cutter figure - it looks pretty lame with a Boston Red Sox logo painted on it. :( I can only hope that the figure shown at the con was a prototype, and the final version will have a modified head - with Cutter's iconic ball cap looking just as it should. But, alas, I fear the new Cutter won't be quite the figure he could (should) have been.

Despite that annoying detail, I am still so happy that Cutter is getting made in the new line, and I will treasure him regardless. I've been on the Joe boards a lot these days, and it seems like many of my fellow collectors echo my sentiments - while they nitpick the new toys like crazy, they are still stoked to be getting so many fan-favorite, classic characters (Barbecue! Short-Fuze! Quick Kick!). It really is an awesome time to be a Joe fan.

Two of the best cartoons EVER, part 1

I blogged recently about my love for Thundarr the Barbarian, and I know I've mentioned other cartoons in passing. But I've been meaning to write at least a little something about two of my all-time favorites. First up: Justice League Unlimited.

JLU ran on Cartoon Network from 2004-2006 as a continuation/spin-off of the Justice League series. While JL was very good, I had some problems with it. The two-part episodes often seemed a bit drawn out, like there wasn't quite enough story to fill up an hour. The writing was solid but lacked a certain edge - in particular, the jokey moments didn't always work. And limiting the team to seven heroes left so many great ones out in the cold (despite the very cool inclusion of Hawkgirl, one of my all-time faves).

But JLU fixed everything that was iffy about JL. Suddenly, characters from all over the DC comics universe - Supergirl, The Question, Huntress, Black Canary, Vigilante, Booster Gold - were getting featured on a regular basis, keeping things fresh and interesting. Stories were told in tighter, half-hour episodes while longer story arcs played out during the season, rewarding loyal viewers. The writing was great, with juicy story twists, unexpected romances, and lots of funny quips.

And the best part of JLU? Green Arrow. Sigh. I've always had a crush on Green Arrow, but it's never as strong as when I watch him on JLU. I feel like he's portrayed perfectly on the show - strong, smart, passionate, and witty. And he has an awesomely sexy voice, provided by Kin Shriner, the handsome guy that played Scott Baldwin on General Hospital back in the 80s (and is again playing him today).

I missed JLU during its initial run on Cartoon Network, but caught the entire series on DVD last year. At some point during my viewing (I don't remember which episode it was), I remember thinking, "This is the best show ever. Not just the best cartoon. The best show." Now, I'm not sure if I'd truly put JLU at the very top of my "greatest TV shows" list, but it would easily make the top 10.

JLU is currently airing in reruns on Boomerang, so watch, watch, watch! And if you don't have Boomerang, then Netflix, Netflix, Netflix!