The Misadventures of a Native New Yorker

So, the last few days have been eventful ones, most certainly. I started my vacation with a visit from zyll and a special bday Imax viewing of Watchmen with j_bkl (his bday was on Saturday, so I treated him to the movie Friday. More on that later).

Then there was J's really fun bday dinner, epic train fail (Just when I think the MTA can't possibly suck any harder, they leave marks), and the total and complete epic fail that was the L-Word finale. (Which j_bkl is ranting about in his journal as we speak). But really, Ilene Chaiken? FAIL. Faily Faily Fail. You should be forced to watch the six feet under finale over and over and over again and think about what you've done.

I also had dinner with J's folks and lunch with mine, and lunch with Carly today. Yesterday I finished unpacking all but the boxes that will eventually be put into my filing cabinet (when I get it), and today I made my very first loaf of home-made banana-walnut bread. It came out pretty good, too. (At least according to J. I was also pleased. *buffs nails on shirt*)

As for Watchmen, I loved it. I read the novel years ago - it was a loaner from a friend in the now-defunct Sci-Fi bookclub. His head did a 360 turn when I confessed to having never heard of it OR of Alan Moore. He leant me Watchmen and V for Vendetta straight off, and I loved both.

While I'm still scratching my head over the movie of V, I thought that Znyder did an above-average job adapting Watchmen. That's the key word here - adaptation. I took a class on it in college - sometimes you can't do something too literally - you have to immerse yourself in the source material, and piece together as compelling a narrative as possible from it, while remaining as true to the original as you think is effective. (*cough cough* Peter Jackson *cough cough*) Were things changed/left out? Yeah. Should they have been? I don't know. But I think Snyder did a damn good job. The movie was exciting, the acting was more than decent (jury's still out on Malin Ackerman, but Patrick Wilson, Papa Winchester, and Jackie Haley were really great. Hell, even Russell Hammond was okay.), and the action scenes were marvelously done. I thought the opening credits were beautifully crafted, and the story that followed worked. Of course, everyone is going to have their nagging criticisms of it, which is more than fair. I'm chosing to wait until my second viewing before I sit and nitpick. I purposely did not re-read the novel before the movie, so I could avoid those things. But I was happy with the film on the whole.

Oh, and according to Semagic, it's now my birthday!! (actually, my *official* time of birth is 9:31 am, but hey. Technicality is a technicality.)

I could blame Joss Whedon. Technically speaking, this *is* All His Fault.

I mean, lots of people tried. Neil Gaiman. Terry Moore. Allan Moore. Frank Miller. Harvey Pekar. None of them succeeded before. Nope, it was all Joss.

It wasn't until he announced that he'd be releasing a Season 8 of Buffy as a comic book that I started buying single issues. Then DC/Wildstorm released the Supernatural mini-series, and I had two comics I was reading. One day, while picking up these two books, a cute employee dude at Midtown comics talked me into buying the first issue of Omega: The Unknown, which was a pretty easy sell, given that it's written by Jonathan Lethem and all. Then, IDW released Angel: After the Fall (their Season 6).

Today? I bought Buffy: Season 8: #13, Angel #6, Omega: The Unknown #7, AND two new books - American Splendor: Season 2 #1 and Terry Moore's Echo #1. In two weeks, DC/Wildstorm will release Supernatural: Rising Son, another mini-series, this time focusing on Dean instead of John. (Hopefully with better art than Supernatural: Origins. Then again, Dark Horse's first Buffy series were terrible art-wise, so I suppose they need time to grow, too). redstapler loaned me her Runaways hardcovers, which I've started and really like so far. ozzdo enthusiastically recommended Fables (and several other titles). I'm still hoping to get either more issues of or the long-promised trade of Local, my all-time favorite indie comic. When I give whtegrlwthehair back the copy of American Psycho that she lent me, I'm going to ask to borrow some of her Adrian Tomine stuff.

It used to be that I felt lost when I walked into a comic store. I would say, "I'm really a 'graphic novel' person." Now, I'm making sure that I have boards and bags. I don't call them "comics" anymore, I call them "books." I am keeping track of when the books I read are released. I'm going to comic-con. I'm thisclose to needing a long box. I imagine that this post will bring even more recommendations, which I will welcome. The stories that I'm finding in here are sometimes so much better than what I can find elsewhere, that I'll keep reading. I guess most of the cool, creative kids are involved with comics these days. (But we know that already).

As if I didn't already have enough to read!

The good news is that I found away to keep myself from constantly looking at LJ during work. The bad news, is that the solution is MySpace. . Yes, yes. I've caved. It's as additive and silly as I originally thought. It's Friendster on crack. And I love it. Some of you have gotten friend requests from me already, otherwise

I had a pretty kick-ass weekend. After Friday's fun, I met up with vbpal on Saturday and we headed into the city. First up was the Young Designer's Market, so I could find a present for whtegrlwthehair's birthday. I was also going to meet up with Carly there so she and I could have a look around together, but she was running a little late. Evan and I were kind of hungry, so we ambled around while we were waiting for her in search of sustenance. We ended up going to Vietnam Bahn Mi So No. 1 on Spring and Broome, which wound up being some of the best money I spent all day. $4 netted me a bottle of water and a HUGE sandwich (pork, some cold cuts, cilantro, sauces) on toasted french bread. I was skeptical at first, but it wound up being absolutely wonderful. After meeting up with Carly and getting caught in the rain (in that order), we hit the market. A couple of hours later Carly had bought a few things and I'd gotten Catherine a great shirt for her birthday.

Then Evan and I headed to the Big Apple Comic-Con, which wasn't so great. I wasn't impressed, it wasn't organized well and the selection of vendors and products wasn't so hot. Evan, a comic-con vet, was really disappointed. I was only annoyed about the $15 admission fee. There was a bizarre collection of celebrities there, ranging from the expected (Peter Mayhew, George Romero, porn stars, Corin Nemic from one of the Stargates) to the random (Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Gos had a table. Why?)

After picking up a couple of Neil Gaiman graphic novels, I headed into the ladies' restroom. While in there I started talking to an older woman. She laughed that I'd heard her talking to herself, but I told her that nowadays, you never know who's crazy and who's on the phone. She thought that was really funny, and then started talking to me about how "Otherworldly" cons are and how marvelous it was to be there. I talked to her a bit more, but when the "crazy" light started blinking, I beat a hasty retreat.

Turns out, I was talking to this woman. Her co-star has gone on to large-scale stardom and Scientology. She's signing pictures at a con. I'd be a bit barmy myself, were that me.

Then Evan made me an awesome dinner, we met up with his girlfriend Michelle and headed to BAM for Thank You For Smoking, which may be the best film I've seen so far this year. Easily. It was the glorious kind of smart funny that you don't get to see often enough nowadays. It's pretty dark, but I haven't laughed out loud this much at a movie since I saw The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I walked out of the theater happy, and feeling as though I'd made a great investment. It was totally worth my $10.

I might as well post this, it's been sitting in Semagic since lunch. *sigh*