Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In June I pushed chebutykin in the mud (-17 points). Last Wednesday I ruled Asscrackistan as a cruel and heartless dictator (-700 points). In April I helped zippychik across the street (6 points). Last Sunday I helped sgtmadmike see the light (8 points). Last Saturday I committed genocide... Sorry about that, bam2 (-5000 points). Overall, I've been naughty (-5703 points). For Christmas I deserve a lump of coal! Sincerely, wombat_socho

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Ganked from deathquaker, who has talked me into taking a look at Suikoden.

Created by Oatmeal

Ganked from POWIP

There's been a lot of good stuff coming off Oatmeal lately. Wonder who the writers are?

Inspired by edwarddain. The first sentence from the first open or F-locked post of each month.

JANUARY: January started out with the death of George MacDonald Fraser and a move into the Burrow that was more like really uncomfortable camping out.
FEBRUARY: Stayed up late finishing Bernard Cornwell's The Archer's Tale, which like so many of this other novels blends a good fictional tale in with a cracking good retelling of a historical campaign, in this case King Edward's invasion of France that culminated in the battle of Crecy.
MARCH: Spent most of the day yesterday assisting P as a taxi driver in return for laundry privileges and Chinese; the rest sleeping or playing internet spaceships.
APRIL: God damn, but I am tired...Tammy showed up today at the Day Job, but I advised Bob to send her home after a couple of hours because she was really too sick to be there.
MAY: This is very weird.
JUNE: Thanks to haikujaguar who spent part of her weekend lighting the flame of creativity in others.
JULY: Spent a couple of hours this morning going through Craigslist, Jobfox and some other job search sites, which put me in a bit of a depressed state.
AUGUST: Out driving with P after dinner last night and when we stopped at Sheetz I found there was apparently no oil in the engine (dry dipstick).
SEPTEMBER: gohanvox posted a link on Facebook to this article from ANN about ADV closing down after transferring its assets and intellectual property to several other companies.
OCTOBER: Elsewhere, the Nats edged the Braves and the Twins whaled on the Tigers 8-3.
NOVEMBER: Dutch was kind enough to invite me over to chez Dunham last night so we could watch Game #3 of the World Series on their rather impressive flat screen TV.
DECEMBER: I slept in more than I intended today, but was there bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when EVE fired up again around 1500.

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile" and I will respond by asking you five questions that satisfy my curiosity. Update your journal with the answers to the questions, including this in the post.

1. What do you think of the state of fandom today -- not just in anime, but all-around?
I think anime fandom may be the only part of fandom that's still growing. TV/media fandom seems to be the same people constantly rushing from one series to the next, and less of it seems to be SF/fantasy-oriented. SF fandom is getting older and crankier and doesn't seem to be able to get enough young folks in the doors to renew itself

2. It's been all about reboots the past couple of years -- see BSG, V, and the new Star Trek film for prime examples of how reboots WORK. What old sci-fi franchise(s) could use the same treatment?
It's been long enough that Space: Above and Beyond could use a reboot. That show had a lot of unrealized potential.

3. What do you watch when you just want to shut the ol' noggin down? -- what do you watch when you want to just see some dumb fun?
4chan and YouTube, definitely. *nodsnods* I don't watch TV very much any more, so that's my closest substitute.

4. You've worked at cons as staff in previous years. Overall, what did you take away from the experience?
It was the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on and the most misery I've ever endured aside from my divorce. Being senior staff (department head/chairman) is an enormous time sink if you do it right but at the same time it's really a major ego boost when people tell you what a great time they had and how they already signed up for next year. You make new friends, and find out quickly what they're worth. I could go on like this for pages...

5. DCAU, or the traditional DC Universe?
Neither. Make Mine Marvel! ;)

Icon meme from revolutionaryjo:

THE RULES

01; Comment to this entry saying 'ICONS!' and I will pick 6 of your icons.

02; Make an entry in your own journal and talk about the icons I picked!
( Icons below the cut )

Ganked from Mitch.
( Would you like to know more? )

Can you name 20 people you can think of right off the top of your head? Don't read the questions underneath until you write the names of all 20 people,
and be sure to tag the person who tagged you after completing it yourself.
( Would you like to know more? )

Because Rin posts too many catchy memes.
( Do you want to know more? )
Crossposted from Facebook.

X-posted from Facebook.
( 100 questions, ganked from R. Schwartz )

Ganked from chebutykin

I want to know 36 things about you. I don't care if we never talk or if we already know everything about each other. Short and sweet is fine. You're on my list, so I want to know you better!

BE HONEST! COPY FROM HERE THEN SEND DIRECTLY TO ME IN A COMMENT THEN, REPOST THE EMPTY QUESTIONS.
( Cut to spare the f-list )

Ganked from tlinganhom.
( Cut to spare the f-list. Because I'm cool like that.  )

Cobb posted a meme he ganked from Kali Tal, who writes:

Think of 25 albums, CDs, LPs (if you're over 30) that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world.

I don't know that there's very many albums that have had that kind of effect on me, but there are definitely songs and albums that serve as channel markers in my memory. For what it's worth, some albums and some songs. No credit for guessing which songs fit where. :S
( My 25 )

Ganked from deathquaker.




Good thing they didn't distinguish too much between SF and comics, or between history and literature.

Ganked from belindabird, with some minor changes.
Original version can be found at her anime review website, which is pretty good.
( How big an anime freak are you, really? )
So, in conclusion, Anime Detour was partially launched by someone who just wasn't that deep into anime. ;)
I was tempted to sub in Jin-Roh, Armitage, Yawara! and Special Combat Unit Shinesman,
but that's not how these things work.

Not tagging, but I'd like to see how stuckintraffik, materia_indigo, onsenmark and redmartel stack up on this; pretty confident they'll all outscore me, but it would be interesting to see where, and what they think needs to be seen.

Ganked from revolutionaryjo, who is far more into the media than I am...
( Dese are da fandoms dat I did in 2008... )

Ganked from Cobb.

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Anime Nerd
Social Nerd
Drama Nerd
Musician
Science/Math Nerd
Artistic Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Ganked from revolutionaryjo.
1. Do you enjoy reading?
Yes. I often do it when I'm at the computer waiting for something in a game to finish processing.

2. What is the first book you remember reading?
Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.

3. Who is your favorite author?
Tough call...just about all my favorite authors have written stuff I don't like. I'm going to indulge in imitation (as the sincerest form of flattery!) and name five of my favorites from different fields: Bruce Catton, George MacDonald Fraser, Tom Wolfe, Bill James, and Robert Heinlein.

4. What is your favorite book?
I have 21 of them.
Books 1-3
Books 4-6
Books 7-9
Books 10-12
Books 13-15
The remaining six, which I swear I'm going to write up Real Soon Now are in a text file which I won't see again until P gets done assembling the new desktop box. Sorry.

5. What was the last book you read and the first you'll read next?
Last book I read was The Sheikh and the Dustbin, George MacDonald Fraser's third MacAuslan collection, which contains the hilarious "The Servant Problem", "The Constipation of O'Brien" (which has nothing to do with GI disorders) and "The Gordon Women", which has a rather bloody intro. Good stuff. Next book I'll get stuck into? Hard to say. I've got a sizable library here, and it's been a while since I looked at some of it. Tentatively, Camille Paglia's Sex, Art, and American Culture.

On an unrelated topic, Paco explains why some of Obama's appointments seem a bit...strange.

Ganked from GVDL, whose curriculum vitae is a lot more colorful than mine...

( Do you want to know more? )

Not tagging anyone, but I encourage my f-list to go for it. Many of you have had interesting lives with surprising jobs.