You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

- My flist is like 80% posts from doctorwho. I mean, I'm excited about Series 7 and all, but it's sad that there is less and less activity here from individuals. OF COURSE I AM NOT HELPING.

- I saw ParaNorman this past weekend and LOVED it, though on several occasions I found myself boggling that this was a film marketed to children. It is quite saucy, and it may in fact be the first American "children's" film to have a gay character. And it's done in such a cool, "no big deal" way that I was kind of amazed. Also, I want to live in the little town in the movie, with all it's witchy goodness (Witch's Wieners LOL).

- So I turned a year older yesterday. I didn't do much for the occasion, since I had to work. I thought seriously about calling in, and after this past night's butt-kicking I kind of wish I had. I did manage to pick up the Jaws Blu-Ray and Juan of the Dead DVD that I ordered from Amazon.

- I created an IntenseDebate account so that I could fully comment on Mark Reads/Watches. If any of you are following his Buffy and Angel posts and want to see my comments, they're here. I'm elphaba_cee, as in Wicked ("...and I only wish there were ... something I could do for her, to repay her ... Elphaba see..."). I'm planning to take a break once the Whedonverse is finished (he's doing the two short seasons of Dollhouse with the last season of Angel) and I'll pick back up in March when he starts The West Wing and Friday Night Lights (the latter of which I've never seen but I know a ton of people who love it).

- I picked up my annual copy of EW's Fall Movie Preview. And promptly ripped the stupid Breaking Dawn cover off. :P I've done my yearly marking of the day planner, and if I ever do a movie post again, I'd love to do a list of my most-anticipateds. Anyone seen the poster for Spielberg's Lincoln? I wish they'd start showing us Daniel Day-Lewis in character, as opposed to the reanimated Lincoln corpse they seem to have been propping up for these pictures. (Seriously, it is UNCANNY!)

- I got my dad Game of Thrones for his birthday, and he is hooked! I talked to him yesterday and he had just reached the Baelor section. I really need to get cracking on A Clash of Kings myself, but gah, there's so much I'm behind on that I had intended to have read by now (don't even say the name Bujold to me).

* I still never type "nonsense" without expressing feigned shock at my own profanity. Thank you, FAP Debate Thread!

* Been watching Game of Thrones on HBO and started a separate post about it, but I'll just do the short version here instead. I'm enjoying it, but it feels a bit empty. I think it's Exhibit A in my argument that being more faithful to the source material doesn't always make for a better adaptation. Not that I think it's a *bad* adaptation, by any means. It just feels like an abbreviated transcript of the book. With more boobs. :P

* For the first time in my fandom life, I'm participating in f_march_madness. Tough decisions! Awesome GIFs! I think I might be doing it wrong, as there seems to be a tradition of selling votes or something. If I'm not familiar with a show, I'm just voting for an actor I like or, at worst, the person whose name is the coolest. Also, the comments remind me why I generally hate fandom. :P Seeing tons of people raging against Sherlock Holmes and the Eleventh Doctor is kind of hilarious and weird. And there's a slightly disturbing "men are evil" vibe there. Pssht, kids. I do, however, love that Donna Noble has a comfortable lead among the Doctor Who characters. That may change, but it's nice to see that people remember how awesome she was.

* In a strange turn of events, Dan Radcliffe and Bonnie Wright are both up for Empire Awards (no Rupert or Emma). He's up for Best Actor and she's up for Best Female Newcomer (she's a newcomer after being in all 8 HP films?).

* I paid my second visit to the Nitehawk cinema this past weekend. They're going "Crazy for Swayze" all month and I took the opportunity to see Dirty Dancing on the big screen for the first time (seen it on video countless times, never in a theater). They had a pre-show (getting more like the Alamo all the time) and played a lot of 1980s videos, including the McDonald's dance number from Mac and Me. I took great pleasure in telling my neighbor that yes, in fact, that was a movie and not some elaborate commercial. I had the waffles and fried chicken - chicken good, waffles eh. The Today show did a segment on this theater last week, but I wish they'd said more about the programming instead of concentrating solely on "OMG real food at a movie theater - what will they think of next?!" I also had to laugh at their sample price for dinner/movie for two, which was $100. I guess some people might spend that much if they got a couple of cocktails, but my solo movie/brunch came to much less than half that. I am going to spending a lot more time at this theater in the coming weeks. It's no Drafthouse, but it's still very cool.

Oh, and here's one of my favorite things about it. The Wall of VHS:


There's way more to it, but I wanted to get close enough to discern titles.

We need to talk about Game of Thrones, y’all. I picked this thing up LAST JULY, got 200 pages, and put it down. Picked it back up around November, started over because I’d forgotten most of it, got a smidge further, only to stall out again around the holidays.

A few weeks ago, in an effort to finish at least this one dang book of the series by the time I’d be able to get DVDs of the first season of the television adaptation, I picked it back up. I remembered enough from my second attempt to not feel the need to start over, but 807 pages is a serious commitment to a story you’re not sure you’re into yet.

To those of you who have not read A Game of Thrones, it is an EXCELLENT read. HOWEVER, I don’t know that I’d recommend it to everyone. If you don’t like The Lord of the Rings, for example, I suspect you’d have similar issues with this. It has a very medieval feel to it, and it’s “high fantasy,” which tends to mean that the elements we typically associate with fantasy - wizards, magic, etc. - are actually rather minimal (at least in comparison to the overall story), as opposed to something like Harry Potter, where those elements are commonplace and intricately bound with the story and “other”ness of the world the characters live in. If you adore LOTR - the books, not just the movies - I think you’d really love this, even though the tone is quite different (this book is BRUTAL and BLEAK, and I have a feeling the next books are just going to get bleaker and more brutal). It’s just such amazing writing and I can’t quite believe I’d never even HEARD of these books (or indeed anything else from George R. R. Martin, though I recognized his name) until Damon Lindelof had that fake feud with Martin over the LOST finale.

Also, there are like 10,000 characters (it seems like it, anyway) and it’s extremely hard to keep track of everything. Seriously, this book makes The Wire look like My Dinner With Andre.

To those of you who HAVE read it, ( *flexes typing fingers* Spoilers for Game of Thrones ONLY (and a little LOTR); please no spoilers for future SOIAF books. )

BTW, I *have* started watching the television series. I now have access to HBO (long story, but I've had it for a while and only just found out a couple of weeks ago) and plan to watch the reruns each week (until the DVD comes out, that is). Have seen the first two already, and I'm chomping at the bit to see how they did that ... thing that happens at the very end of the book.