Hooked on Heroes

(This blog contains minor spoilers)






I have recently started watching Season 3 of Heroes on BBC 2. The Beeb usually airs things earlier than Belgian TV AND the big bonus is that there are no annoying commercial breaks: TV as it should be.

I have not really been all that impressed with most new series for the last few years. Sure, I like the occasional 24 or Prison Break, but I can pretty much live without it.
Heroes is one of the few series I was truly excited about, alongside the new Doctor Who, which I really started liking after it was revamped by Russell T. Davies.

First and foremost Heroes is a geek feast. It has many references to other comics/series/movies that we adore, yet it makes sure not to be plagiarism. The most obvious parallel, of course, is with Marvel’s X-Men.
I think the character of Hiro Nakamura(who is a comic book geek himself), actually even calls Shadowcat/Kitty Pryde by name once.
And then of course there is the comic book within the series, 9th Wonders, that is clearly appealing to the comic book fans.
But there are smaller, more subtle references to other oeuvres, such as calling the man who has the ability to become invisible Claude Rains.
Season 3 has some clear references to The Fly, but I’ll let you figure out for yourself where that is.

References aside, I loved the show from the start because it’s visually very dynamic and does interesting things with characters. Besides having these great super powers, the characters are fundamentally human, and fundamentally flawed.
I like how some people have powers contradictory to their nature. Such as Claire being the unbreakable yet petite teenage girl, Linderman being the crime boss who has the power to heal, or Hiro, who can control time and space, while still being geeky and clumsy.
The storytelling is sound, and even manages to weave in time travel fairly well. It also tends to have a bunch of twists that make things more interesting.

I think Heroes, alongside with other series/films about people with superpowers, calls out to something deep within us. It raises questions like: Is this really all that we are, as a species, or can we become more? Where is humanity going? What’s the next step in our evolution?
While decades of sci-fi have been about the “what if” of scientific evolution – cyborgs, spaceships, futuristic weapons – the new generation of sci-fi is more often playing on the “what if” of human evolution. This is in a way even more disconcerting – and exciting – because we are, literally, going further than skin-deep. It’s being taken to our very core: our DNA.

In any case, I'm not the only person loving it, because after 3 seasons Heroes is still going strong.
While I didn’t find Season 2 to be as stunning as Season 1, there is in fact much to be liked about Season 3: Villains.
True to its name, it sheds more light on the role of the “bad guy”, and shows that all is not black and white. Moralities are explored, and glimpses of the future show us that today’s hero might be tomorrow’s villain, and vice versa.

Without being too spoilerific: Season 3 tells us much more about the character of Sylar. We learn that his “hunger” for other people’s powers is in fact part of his ability. Claire is going through a personality change that is both interesting and scary to see, and Mohinder…well, let’s just say Mohinder stops being goody two-shoes quite dramatically.

See, my hands are itching to write spoilers, but I won’t – I rather hate it when I read them myself.

I want to see more! Is it Wednesday yet?

What would MacGyver do?

Just a short little blogpost, because I quickly wanted to share something funny I found on the world wide web. This is now my desktop, ladies and gentlemen. I have stooped to toilet humour...and I'm loving it.

For the record, I did not make this image and in no way have a claim to it. It's just something I liked and I wanted to show to my friends. I don't know who the author is, I found it on The Comic Forums.

It also brings back memories.

I loved MacGyver .
I stayed up until 10pm to watch MacGyver.
I yawned in class because of MacGyver.
I annoyed teachers because of MacGyver.
I made other kids jealous by watching MacGyver .
I was a rebel because of MacGyver!


Of course, I was 10 when I watched MacGyver.

Darn, it used to be much easier to be a rebel back then.

F.A.C.T.S. 2008

I am a bad blogger. I do a lot of stuff, after which I’m tired, and end up not blogging. When I’m not tired, of course, I usually do not have much to blog about. At least nothing recent. So the post that is about to follow should in fact have been posted (and more importantly, should have been written) about two weeks ago. But let’s disregard that fact for now.

Every now and then I choose to unleash my inner geek. Well, every now and then has become exponentially more often since I met B. We have some sort of mutual geek influence going on. So, once again,‘t was the time of the year to be jolly. Or rather, it was the time that the city of Ghent became geek central again for two days: F.A.C.T.S. 2008.

I have been to F.A.C.T.S. 2006, and quite enjoyed it. It was the closest thing to a convention that I’ve ever been to. Apparently it was famous enough to draw quite a crowd even two years ago – because it drew not just people from neighbouring cities, but people from neighbouring countries.
I sadly missed F.A.C.T.S. 2007, to go to the Mensa weekend in Daverdisse. Going to the weekend does score me geek points on another level, but it’s not quite the same. On the bright side, that is where I met B. However, that is another story.

Now back to the geek stuff. F.A.C.T.S. stands for Fantasy - Anime - Comics - Toys - Science-Fiction. So imagine that crowd. I usually go there because it’s sci-fi and comic book paradise, but there’s something for everyone.

Of course there’s the obligatory Star Wars and Trekkie stuff. There are a lot of statuettes, books, posters and various memorabilia to be grabbed. You have (semi-)celebrities signing pictures - for a fee - but apparently some people are willing to pay for it.
We caught a glimpse of Richard Hatch, better known as Tom Zarek in the new Battlestar Galactica.

There were a bunch of games to be bought there, both second-hand and new. This always interests B., and I must admit I’ve also been getting into gaming again. There were also some games to be tried out, but with a place as crowded as that, we didn’t really get to play. I’m not much of a wait-in-line person anyway.

And then of course there is the cosplayer crowd. For those who don’t know: cosplayers (from: costume players) are people who dress up as (their favourite) characters. From what I understand, it originated in the manga and anime community – but it has spread to (Western) comic book, movie and television characters.

I think some of my friends still silently believe I dress up as an elf or something on weekends. I don’t. However some costumes really are very nice. There was a rather impressive General Grievous costume – a huge contraption with a human being in it. The manga boys and girls (and sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which) are generally quite pleasing to the eye. Some have built huge replicas of weapons. By huge I mean they’re sometimes bigger than the person wielding it.
I saw a Mystique walking around, which is impressive, since you have to be, well, all blue. Same for the Aayla Secura I saw.
Anyway, it’s really a feast for your eyes, if you’re into to whole people watching thing. You can bump into life-size remote controlled R2 units, or watch some Jedi knights jump around on a Dance Dance Revolution.
Oh, and did I mention scantily clad barbarians?

I’m still not inclined to dress up though. And If I would – it would have to look impressive.
I did get a handmade neko (cat) skull hat and a kitsune (fox) hat from a Japanese dude from San Francisco. So, I can look like a geeky idiot in wintertime now. A unique geeky idiot even, since the guy doesn’t usually sell his stuff in Belgium.

The rest of my loot was mostly comic books. I haven’t read them all yet. Mostly because I still haven’t finished Persepolis, which I got for my birthday from B., and the copy of Watchmen that I borrowed from him. The only thing that I have read by now is Marvel’s Poptopia, a comic that I might write a few words about on this blog. Hopefully soon!

As for F.A.C.T.S. – two days was not nearly enough time to spend there. I’m planning to go back next year, so that Mensa weekend better not be planned then, you hear?

Oh, and below you can see one of my silly headgear thingies :

Silly Things I Do

When I was in elementary school, I had a classmate who was rather forgetful. “If your head wasn’t attached so firmly to your body, you’d forget it at home, too”, the teacher used to say. The same teacher used to send me to the lavatory soon after my arrival, right after he asked: “So did you have chocolate milk again this morning?” . Meaning I had forgotten – or simply not cared about - wiping my mouth off.

Many years have passed since then, yet I have never quite mastered the art of getting chocolate milk off my face. I have also reached levels of forgetfulness that my previously mentioned classmate could only dream of.

Often I kind of envision myself as a nutty distracted cartoon professor figure. This image of myself is probably entirely in my head, since to unsuspecting onlookers I am by
far not nearly enough into science, too young, the wrong gender, and haven’t really had any instances of having my hair stand up after electrocution. This is not because I haven’t been electrocuted, mind you – I have been at least twice. It has more to do with my hair being long and not really prone to stand up straight, electrocuted or not.

Yesterday wasn’t really a case of forgetfulness in the strict sense of the word – fortunately, or I’d have to explain why I had forgotten my security pass for the third time.
No, I went to work quite normally, yet in the car I noticed something was off. My jacket felt kind of weird on my arms while turning the steering wheel. Then, of course, I noticed it wasn’t my jacket at all. I had gone out in my boyfriend’s jacket. Now in my defense – they’re both black, the same material and apparently a similar size. The latter being mostly because I wear my clothes quite tightly, because in size I’m somewhat taller and quite a bit broader than my beloved. Fortunately, however, I didn’t tear the bloody thing and was able to return it safely to its owner.

And I live to be a moron for another day.

Beverly Hills 90210

Soms, heel soms - zie je een tekst waarvan je weet dat de schrijver er plezier mee heeft gehad.
Onlangs gelezen op : "Orale seks in Beverly Hills 90210 schiet in verkeerde keelgat".

Ach, wat voel ik me weer lekker puberaal.

Try something new! How about an armed robbery?

It was B and I’s 7 month anniversary. Of course, I only realised this in retrospect. We had in fact both forgotten it, which all in all is not a big problem. It’s only annoying if one person forgets and the other goes on a guilt trip about how forgetting this ever-so-important date must signify a lack of love.

But I digress.

We went to a snooker place in Ghent with one of B’s friends. They’re both regulars there, but we ended up chatting, not playing snooker. The waitress, Betty, was an old acquaintance of the boys. In fact the term “waitress” doesn’t do her justice – while she doesn’t own the place, she basically runs it.

It was already quite late – or quite early, depending on your view – about a quarter to 1 in the morning. I heard a noise behind me, and noticed two men rushing in from the front door towards the bar. We were sitting at a table further away, not at the bar itself. I paid no attention to it at first. About two minutes later I heard some shuffling again, and I saw the two men at the door. Well, I only really saw one of them, as the other one was standing mostly behind the first, from where I was sitting. I only saw him for a second or so, but something rang a bell in my head, saying not all was right there. While he was partially facing me, I couldn’t see any of his face, as there was something covering his head. I don’t even know why, but I focused on his left hand. He was clutching a handgun, the kind one sees in American action movies. I had never actually seen one in real life.

Of course the men were gone before I could react, and the next thing I recall was Betty running into sight and stating something along the lines of: “That was a robbery”.

Thing is, I wasn’t shocked. Or scared. There was just a feeling of complete surrealism, like I had just seen a pink elephant sit down next to me and had seen it ordering a beer to boot. You see, Ghent is supposed to be a rather safe city. I studied in Brussels, which isn’t very safe. I live in a part of Antwerp that doesn’t really have a good name. I’ve been harassed up to a certain point – but I’ve never, ever, seen a gun. Guns, like space aliens, are only supposed to exist in Hollywood movies. Now you may find this a very naïve view on life, and of course I’m not stupid enough to think there are no guns in Belgium – but it’s just not part of the world that I live in.

Of course, the real circus only started afterwards. Soon the place was crawling with police and all of us had to give a statement. It was a rather long night, and I had a throat ache that was getting worse. Still, it’s an interesting experience. And it shed some light on how hard it is to actually give a truthful statement. It’s very hard to remember everything you’ve seen in a blink of an eye.
Afterwards the cops even made pictures to register how exactly we were sitting and a forensic expert was let loose to search for fingerprints.

We stayed on a bit longer, to keep Betty company. Some time before dawn I started feeling too ill to stay, and we left for B’s place.

A few days later we got a call from Victim’s Support, which we both gracefully declined. No trauma there. Just a slight shift in my worldview, which might not be for the better.

From what I know, they haven’t caught them yet. That’s slightly disconcerting – the fact that they’re still running loose.
As for me, I gained an experience. And I did tell B that we should do things that aren’t routine. Well, I guess this qualifies as “not routine”.

So….I wonder what’s up for next month. Apocalypse, anyone?

Two for the road

I am a notoriously bad reader.

This, actually, is a rather curious thing. I was the first in my class to read and write, in fact it stood out so much that my mom was told I could skip the last year of kindergarten and go straight to first grade. Fortunately, she did ask me my opinion, and I preferred to stay with my friends rather than to read and write more.

While I had acquired the skill early, one could say it never grew on me. One thing remained through elementary school, high school and higher learning : I only ever read stuff if I absolutely had to. One exception on this rule were the one or two books I read during summer break, usually while on a plane, in a car, or near a pool. I usually regretted reading in cars, because it makes me nauseous. The other exception were comic books, or as one should say more respectfully : graphic novels.

I'm not really sure what my problem with reading is. I'm not dyslexic, or so the experts say, even though I do keep switching letters and misreading stuff. Sometimes this leads to humor only I can understand. While other people read an article about sinking stocks, mine is really about stinking socks - which is far more amusing for someone who is as easily amused as myself.
However, this weird switching apparently is not dyslexia, but should be linked to some "mild concentration problem" that they have not really diagnosed yet.
Thing is, large chunks of black text almost frighten me. I notice the parts that are not printed upon just as much, and I'm distracted as they run over the pages like little white rivers. Not to mention that every sound I hear makes me have to go back and reread the last two sentences. And there are a lot of sounds in the world.

This is a problem, because I do rather like fiction. Quite a lot. So my little reading problem has driven me to film, but also to the medium of comic books. The first time I actually really got into them was because of Star Wars. As a young girl, I was completely enamoured with the original trilogy and I jumped on the possibility of reading new stories with my favourite characters.
And thus I stumbled upon a writing form that was a revelation to me. You could read it like a book, it even had that pleasant paper smell - but the illustrations were beautiful, they spoke to me - and they were nowhere near as scary as monumental blocks of black text. So at 13 - an age that most girls give up on comic books - I started reading avidly.

I did so for years, until my mom moaned it was a far too expensive hobby, and I stopped reading. I only really started again once I had a job - and my own money.

When we left for Cyprus this year - we being my parents, my boyfriend and me - I fell back to an old tradition: I brought along some novels. Graphic novels.

Lately I've been experimenting. On of the things I've been reading was American Virgin by Vertigo.. American Virgin was a rather atypical buy for me. I'm usually much more into sci-fi and superheroes. But American Virgin caught my eye, first of all because of the covers (yes, I'm guilty, I like male eye-candy). I asked my comic book salesman about it and he recommended it (thank you, Peter).

The book tells the the story of a young preacher, Adam, who preaches sexual abstinence to young kids. However, his life gets turned upside down when his fiancée is murdered while in Africa.
The search for what really happened to her brings him - literally and figuratively - to places he's never been before. What follows is an exploration of culture, morality, sexuality and the human heart. And while the book may lead you into African bachelor huts, gay bars, and sex parties - it never leads you into vulgarity. That being said, this is not really you want your dad to read (which is why I I quickly muttered something about me not being finished when he asked if he could borrow it).

So far I've read four out of five bundles: Head, Going Down, Wet, and Around the World. I'm yet to get my hands on Sixty-Nine. Yep, I think someone was going for suggestive titles there.







The other title I was reading was Anita Blake : Guilty Pleasures, a Marvel adaptation of one of the novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. I'd noticed the name of Anita Blake before, mostly in the days that I still read and wrote fan fiction.
While the book does have some male eye-candy again (I swear, I do actually read other stuff too!), some of it is mildly disappointing. The plot is not truly thrilling. The atmosphere is good and the darker drawing style is suited to the story. It does draw you in after a while. What bothered me were Anita's "thoughts" that are unfortunately very much splattered all over the pages in little- and not so little- blocks. While I can see the appeal of a film noir-esque narrating style, this is just too much. I like it when a story is told by action, not thought. Sometimes it's just annoying, long-threaded girlie prose. And sentences like "Luther is overweigh,t over fifty, chain smokes and yet he's never sick" would work much better if they where left out altogether, and the book would just show an old, fat, smoking guy. Which it does. Only there's text to boot. And frankly, the whole vampire-slayer-who-digs-a-vampire is so very last century (Buffy, anyone?). I might give it another go though, let's see if anything interesting happens.

Now, in the meantime, I think I'll temporarily steal the boyfriend's copy of Watchmen.