Stuff We Like This Week: October 23 Edition

Stuff We Like This Week: October 23 Edition

Oct 23

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In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.

Matt: This week, I like to starfuck on Twitter! I admit it! I’m a horrifying sad desperate starfucker and I do it on Twitter all the live long day!

I don’t know how one is supposed to characterize the positive, passing interactions one has with minor and major celebrities via social media; there should be a word for it, and at one point, I thought maybe Bryan Lynch was working on one, but I don’t know what it is. Anyway, there are plenty of cool comics pros on the service who are happy to have a distraction from their noble work of making awesome shit for me to read, and I take a distinct (if mildly pathetic) pride in every once in a while crafting a one-liner that gets retweeted by someone like Tom Peyer, as mad a genius as has ever penned a funnybook. Last Friday, Eddie Argos and I exchanged some messages, and it pretty much made my life; I love his band Art Brut and the songs he writes, and it’s awesome that he’s so accessible (and so into comics). Of course, as much as I respect all the talented folks on Twitter, nothing can top my very brief passing encounter with Ms. Jane Fonda regarding grandmothers and sex toys.

But really, if I think about it, is it all that great just to talk to the famous and/or interesting via the anonymous avenues of the internet, or is it great to connect with any and all like-minded people, both famous and un?? Sure, it’s fun to think I occupied a second of synaptic connections belonging to Barbarella, but it’s equally awesome to think about the random friends I’ve made who are as anonymous as I am…the dad in the UK who loves Springsteen…the artist and freelance writer in Las Vegas who better be working on drawing the comics script Jeff and I wrote right now or I’m gonna poop in his coffee…the girl who works in video games in Canada and hates Joss Whedon.

The list goes on, and so I guess this week I just like Twitter, and the internet, and the way it makes the world bigger and smaller at the same time. And people, and fun, and friendship, and kittens and rainbows and fucking goddamn anally contagious UNICORNS.

And pie. Never forget pie.

Sarah: Oh, I know who those last two people are! Girl Who Works in Video Games in Canada and Hates Joss Whedon: I LOVE YOU. (Even though I also love Joss Whedon.)

This week, I like my friend Thea at The Book Smugglers for giving me Patricia Briggs’ first Mercy Thompson book. I’d been meaning to check this series out for a while — it’s right up my Vaginal Urban Fantasy (tm Felicia Day) adoring alley. And having inhaled the first book like it’s made of succulent, savory tacos, I’d say it’s right up there with Rachel Caine’s Weather Warden books and Jeri Smith-Ready’s WVMP stuff. Fantastic heroine (auto mechanic/shapechanger), mouth-watering love interest, and a Pacific Northwest setting that appeals greatly to my native Oregonian side. I especially love that Mercy is flawed in a completely believable way — she accepts her otherness, but it doesn’t make her super-special-extra-perfect. It’s just an essential piece of who she is.

On a purely self-promotional note, the other thing I Like is this. I’ve been wanting that panel to grace the internets ever since “feeling very Marvel Girl” became A Thing on Twitter.

Jeff: I know who several of those Twitter people are, too!! And they’re all awesome.

There are a few things I like this week.  Like Borderlands.  Which has the potential to be a massive timesink (because I already have such an embarrassment of free time) and a legitimately fun one, as opposed to, say, an MMORPG.  It’ll be the first non-Rock Band game I’ve played since being disappointed by Ultimate Alliance 2, so I’m psyched about it.

On the Rock Band front, this week saw me spending like 30 bucks on DLC – the Queen pack for RB2 and all of Abbey Road for The Beatles: Rock Band.  In a move that makes me appreciate that Harmonix isn’t a bunch of merciless taskmasters, the Medley is split up into four different tracks, but they give you the option to the play the whole thing as one lengthy, lengthy song.

I like going to the movies this week, too.   Saw VI this weekend.  I’m seeing it solo, but it’s tradition to see Saw on the first weekend it comes out, even if my enthusiasm for the series has dwindled since part III.

I’ve been lax about updating my Goodreads account, but I just finished Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy and I really dug them.  One of the more solid fantasy reads I’ve had lately.  I’m about to start Scott Westerfield’s Leviathan, which is a fantasy World War I story wherein mechs fight bioengineered warships and that, ladies and gentlemen, has got to be a bit alright.

And seriously, Iron Man was really amazing this week.

34 comments

  1. <3 <3 <3

  2. Vaginal Urban Fantasy, huh? Will have to check it out. Thanks for the tip.

    Although if this is really an effort to be positive, guys, why do you have the Twitter time out logo front and center? It’s a massive negative in the headlines before you even get to the good stuff.

    JMHO.

    t.

  3. Huzzah!!!! I *knew* you’d be all over Mercy and her awesome VW Mechanic/coyote-shifting ways.

    Now the question is…Sam? Or Adam? If you need the next books, I’m happy to let you read them…

    Patty Briggs fucking RULES.

    Jeff – Lemme know what you think of Saw VI. I’m less than enthused in the franchise (I think I”m with you, III was the cutoff for me). I went to the Universal Studios Horror Night thing and it was all Saw themed, so I am curious to try VI. If it doesn’t blow, that is 🙂

    And yay for Mistborn! Glad you liked the trilogy. I’m pretty stoked on Brandon Sanderson right now. Hope you enjoy Leviathan too!!!

  4. ADAM

  5. FUCK YEAH, that’s what I’m talking about!

    It is all about Adam. *grin* I knew you would pick the right side 😀

  6. Thea,

    You may wanna skip Saw VI. Better than IV or V, but not by much.

  7. I’m going to finish Leviathan tonight, btw. It was awesome. I’m just going to immediately buy everything that you and Ana give a 7 or higher to from now on.

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