Indulging My Geekiness

It was a slow week in a lot of ways for me. How slow you ask? Well, as usual, random thoughts were popping into my head but said thoughts were popping in at more than their usual rate.

Two of said random thoughts I decided were not so bad at all, and I decided to act on them. Coincidentally (oh who am I kidding, it was not a coincidence), both of them indulged my geekiness in one way or another, so that was not too bad.

To wit, they were:

Thought Number 1: I decided it was time to switch from Blockbuster Total Access to Netflix. Yup, I joined the herd and went with Netflix, the market leader.

Why? Well, two big reasons. First, Blockbuster NEVER had the Blu-Ray DVD's I wanted in stock. There was always a long ass wait for them. I did a cross reference on Netflix, and saw that 95% of the Blu-Rays I wanted which always had a long wait in Blockbuster was readily available in Netflix. I mean, you KNEW it was an issue when there was a VERY LONG WAIT for March Of The Penguins on Blu-Ray from Blockbuster, and it was available immediately in Netflix. March of the Penguins, people!!!! We're not talking Superbad or some other new release here, for f's sake. This documentary came out a good 3 or 4 years ago. I mean, I really want to take full advantage of my PS3's Blu-Ray capabilities and sadly, Blockbuster was lacking in that.

Secondly, Blockbuster always had a wait also for some of the anime I wanted to watch, such as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Escaflowne. No such problems at Netflix.

Thought Number 2: And this one has been brewing for a while, and finally I decided to do it - I decided to to dip a toe back in the water of the world of comic books, except it won't be just as it was in the old days.

What do I mean? Well, anyone who has known me for a while knows that I love comic books, even though I don't read it regularly or religiously as I used to in the past (and I am very jealous of BTC and Sean, and even Donger, who still do so). Honestly, it just got too expensive for my taste. Back in high school, with $20 you could buy 20 comic books. Now, you'll be lucky if you can get 5 comic books with that same amount. But I do love the stuff, and try to keep up with it via talking to Sean and BTC, as well as reading about what's going on via the Internet. And it's funny, when my childhood buddy Jonas came to visit a few months ago, I found out I was directly responsible for getting him and his brothers and his cousin hooked on the stuff back in the day. How? I got Nonoy (see Coming To Manila for explanations on who he is, if you need to) hooked on it back when we were still both in high school, and he in turn got Jonas (who is Nonoy's cousin), Jonas' twin brother Jason, their older brother Wesley and their cousin Rock to start collecting as well. Too funny.

But I digress; back to the whole "toe in the water" thing. I really have no desire to do the weekly comic book thing like I did for ages, and instead will read select material via the wonderful world of Trade Paperbacks (or TPB).

I made a list of some stuff I want to read and will tackle them one after another (and yes, I know I still have tons of "regular" books that I am currently reading/planning to read. Don't worry, it will all get done. No law against reading 4 or 5 books at a time now is there?).

Here's the list - most of them have several volumes already out in TPB. I will read the first volume, and if I like what I read, I plan to keep on reading the rest of the collection.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Black Dossier Please don't let the horrible movie discourage you from ever picking up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volumes 1 and 2, both of which I have read years ago. It truly is an amazing piece of work and I highly recommend it.

Y: Last Man - I have heard nothing but great things about this.

Invincible - I have read the first 2 or 3 volumes of this already during the many occasions I have killed time by going to a Barnes Noble, and I thought it was great.

Rising Stars - this was Heroes before Heroes.

Wanted - soon to be a major motion picture starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie, due for a mid 2008 release.

X-Men: Messiah Complex - this is the current crossover event going on in the X-Men universe right now so it's not even done yet and won't be in TPB for a few more months. Sean swears by it though and that's good enough for me.

Anybody else have any suggestions or ideas as to what to read?