Christmas time and meme time

This Christmas, I have: cooked three heavy dinners, cleared the kitchen three times, received a lot of woollen clothes, read one and a half books since boxing day (Ben Goldacre's Bad Science is highly recommended), watched the Incredibles, worked my way through more of Evil Inc. and been tagged in an end of the decade meme.  The meme goes thusly:

Created by Ami Angelwings the idea is to: "come up with 3 categories and who you think wins that category! Be creative!"
Categories can be anything, serious like political event of the decade or ridiciulous like worst hair of a world leader, weirdest food trend... etc etc)

And then you tag 3-5 other ppl, who then come up with 3 categories.. and so on.  The main part is to be creative!

Here goes my thoughts:
Tea of the decade:  Rooibosh, or redbush.  Best. Tea. Ever.  If I run out I go into withdrawal.  Sooo goood.

Useful appliance of the decade:  Tweezers.  Without them I'd be going stir crazy.  It turns out that women aren't as naturally hair free as you'd imagine.

Personal discovery of the decade: Learning how varied work can be, and that gosh darn heck, I can actually be good at it.  The thought of the work place when I was 19 was terrifying - the few temp jobs I'd had back then didn't go great and I reckon it's just in the last few years that I've found my feet, my confidence and have realised that I'm capable.


Well, that was an uncreative and me-centric list.  I tag and challenge the following people to come up with more creative stuff:

James Ashelford
wiec?
Cerebus660
SallyP
Red

And I've put up a new poll, inspired by a book I read on Boxing Day, more info will be posted in a few days.  Meanwhile you've got till the 7th January to cast your vote.

3 sentence reviews

Of comics a week old..I'm giving myself a little bit of a break from blogging as I need to recharge and think of topics for posts (!).  I will be back in about a week.  Meanwhile, happy holidays everyone!


Spoilers ahead for Red Robin #7, Batgirl #5, Green Arrow/Black Canary #27, Action Comics #19, Adventure Comics: Blackest Night # 5.
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Red Robin #7
I'm really liking this addition of Tam Fox, she is really very good.  There's a big spider beasty, Alfred and Lucius Fox having a quiet afternoon cup of tea, and then Ra's Al Ghul is killed!  There's something about this title that keeps drawing me back, even though I when I do read it I feel it isn't really an obvious book for me.


Batgirl #5
Laugh out loud comic of the week with some very clever digs at Damian - one made through the choice of art style and one an off panel gag.  There's also a shock ending which contrasted strongly with the humour of the book.  I'm eagerly anticipating the next issue!

Green Arrow/Black Canary #27
This issue is very much focused on Cupid.  She gets her Dark Arrow and we discover more about her past.  The regular artist is far too fixated on giving Dinah an unzipped costume, but other that that, a cracking issue.

Action Comics #19
When you consider how I was debating whether to drop this title a few months back, I think it has really improved in the last few months.  I won't debate the content, if you're not reading it it won't make sense, if you are you don't need my description.  A solid issue.


Adventure Comics: Blackest Night # 5
I am sick and tired of covers paying tribute to the dead Supergirl crisis cover.  It's lazy, boring and reduces the impact of the original.  Having said that I thought the comic was lots of fun - I like books that break the 4th wall and this had plenty of that.

Kid Flash book cancelled

*depressed*
That was the book I was looking forward to the most next year.

Happy Solstice everyone!

To those of you living in the Northern hemisphere, today is the shortest day of the year.  As of the 22nd the days start getting longer again.  Thank fuck.  I do not like it getting dark at 4pm.

Band aid - do they know it's christmas

EDIT - In a timely manner I;ve just found out that Rage Against the Machine beat X-Factor's Joe to the number one spot int he UK Christmas chart!  Listen to the song here.

Anyway, back to Band Aid:

Such a ridiculously horrible smug song.  It's written by rich people with fuck all empathy and understanding of anyone different to themselves.  Emphasis is mine.


It's Christmastime
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish sa shade
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime

But say a prayer

Pray for the other ones
At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging
chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
(Oooh) Where nothing ever grows
No rain nor rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

(Here's to you) raise a glass for everyone
(Here's to them) underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

Feed the world
Feed the world

Feed the world

Let them know it's Christmastime again

Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmastime again


Ugh.   Let's see:
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom - really?  only ever doom?
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you - oh that's a lovely sentiment.

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime - Snow doesn't make christmas. We don't get snow in England either.

Where nothing ever grows - what never? never ever ever?
Do they know it's Christmastime at all? - if they're Christian, yes, I expect they do. If they're not Christian I expect they don't care.  However I think the song is asking whether they know it's Christmas as in a period of spending stupid amounts of money, putting up shiny plastic, stuffing yourself silly and generally being smug and self centred.


I've finally got Christmas songs this year.  My sign choir has done a a few performance recently and it turns out I love Silent Night and Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and Mistletoe and Wine. Ahem.  But that bloody Band Aid song is horrible.  Grrr.


Apologies for the lack of comics posts recently.  Life has got busy and I don't have time to do lots of interesting things.  If you want comics thoughts head on over to New readers....  The first manga review has gone up, along with other superhero books.  Non superhero titles will be up before Christmas.

Battlestar Galactica season 2

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[Rape trigger alert]


I watched episodes 9, 10, 11 amd 12.  The ones with Admiral Cain and her fleet of hideous people.
That was uncomfortable viewing wasn't it?  Actually uncomfortable doesn't quite cut it, they were horrible and disturbing.

For those of you that haven't seen it, the protaganists ship finds a second human run ship, who take command due to military protocol.  This new ship has a cylon (enemy robot) on board, as a prisoner, and has been beating, whipping, starving and gang raping her since the start of the conflict.  I say her, because the cylons look and feel exactly like humans, and if you were to do medical tests on them, they would appear to be humans.  They have feelings, morality, can think, reason and interact just as humans do.  They also want to wipe out the human race, which is the premise for the show.

Anyway, Admiral Cain's fleet takes over Commander Adama's fleet  (the good guys), and initially this is fine, because it's how the military works.  Everything's cool.  Then we learn about how Cain's soldiers have treated their prisoner, and we cut to the good guy's cylon prisoner and the chief interrorgator (of the bad guys) is beating her up and starts raping her.  Then a couple of good guys storm in, kill the rapist and attack the other soldiers.

It's a fucking horrible scene and throughout the episodes it is made quite clear that the bad guys do not think that the cylons are human, and they say you cannot rape a machine.  Which is odd, because the way they are talking about her indicates that they know her reactions and they want to cause her pain.  If you cannot rape a machine why do it?

In contrast the good guys also know that the cylons aren't human, and although they give their prisoner no respect, she is fed, given clean clothes and is well cared for.  She is not beaten, or raped, or abused.  She is given looks of disgust and comtempt and isn't accorded any friendliness.  The good guys are quite specific that they think she is other than human, but I don't think they think she is less than human.  Just other, and dangerous, very dangerous.

It's horrible viewing.  But I don't feel that it shouldn't have been done, I don't feel that it is gratuitous, and I don't feel like I do about most rape scenes or tropes.  That says a lot about the quality of the show.
But the gods help you if you have been raped and you watched this, because I imagine it would be very triggering.

Last day to download RATM's Killing In The Name...

Just a quick reminder to the UK folks!  I've just downloaded mine and they are currently only 9000 ahead of the X factor boy.  Make a vote for honest, political music made with integrity why don't you?


Oh and a Welsh rugby player comes out.  Godo for you mate, I hope you're happier now, and please ignore the homophobic asshats.

Wonder Woman trades review (and UFOs!)

I bought two Wondy trades.  By Gail Simone.  They're rather good.  I knew she'd read better as a whole rather than as seperate monthly issues.

Anyway the two trades are The Circle, Simone's first arc, and Rise of the Olympians, with the Manazons.

In The Circle we get to see the circumstances surrounding Diana's creation, talking clever gorillas and Captain Nazi.  And Etta!!  Although I'd prefer it if she was fatter she does pretty well.  A new Amazonian enemy is brought in and there are flying horses.  The art is great, Diana's not in thong and there's a reasonably good intro by Mercedes Lackey.  I've never read any of her books, but it seems that DC is trying to attract the female market with this trade.  Works for me.  I think this is good enough to be reviewed over on New readers..

Unfortunately I couldn't pick up the next chronological book, so missed some stories between The Circle and Rise of the Olympian, but nevermind.  In this trade the Gods come back - I've no idea where they've been, I can only think their abscence is linked to a Crisis.  They look pretty darn good, design wise.
Wondy gets another enemy and dons her awesome winged battle armour.  There's a giant squid and Ares shows up.

Yes, these books are reccomended.


AND!  UFOs over Moscow!!