Stuff We Like This Week: May 15 Edition

Stuff We Like This Week: May 15 Edition

May 15

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.

Sarah: Y’all know I love me some Jeri Smith-Ready. Wicked Game, the first in her vampire radio station urbantasy (that’s a word I just made up for “urban fantasy”…do you like it?) series, was my addiction for days and days. The tale of con artist-turned-college student Ciara and her merry band of undead DJs has a genuinely refreshing take on vamp mythos and a totally engaging lead character. I was a little worried that the just-released follow-up, Bad To The Bone, wouldn’t hypnotize me quite so much (because how could it?!), but damn, you guys: it delivers and then some. In this one, we’ve got Ciara dealing with a mysterious new threat to the station, her still-developing relationship with hottie DJ Shane, and what, exactly, it means to have supernaturally-tinged blood. Also, there is a vampire dog (vampire dog!). Ciara’s acerbic voice is still like crack to me — I love the way she describes things, the way she feels things, and the way she’s terrified of said feelings. And I love the way Smith-Ready uses this sequel to further build on the vampy universe she’s created, but also makes time for stuff like Shane’s notes on how to properly use a dishwasher. Did I mention the vampire dog? More, more, more of this series, please!

Jeff: LOST. Lost‘s season finale kicked my ass. It reinforced everything that I love about the show (and yes, I love hating Jack) while adding some new twists and revisiting the pasts of the main characters and exemplifying that they chronically cannot get their shit together. Yes, there are still mysteries and a giant Sobek statue and unresolved questions but Lost is, at its core, a character piece with a compelling story and I like the arcs that Sawyer and Juliet and Locke and Charlie and Neil Frogurt and basically everybody except for Jack and Kate have gotten and I like that the plot still manages to make me go “what?” without making me angrily swear I’m never watching again. That’s one hell of a balancing act.

Matt: This week I like organization. I spent a few hours organizing my comics, getting rid of some stuff I don’t want and filing and piling and what-not, and it feels good to have it done. Right now I’m using a closet as my comics storage area, so the only time I get to really see the whole collection and realize what I have is when I organize a couple times a year. This time around I made sure to fill one shortbox with stuff I plan to finally read or re-read from the vast Mattster Comics Archives, and I’m looking forward to that — got some JLA/JLE, some Grant/Breyfogle ‘Tec, and some Chaykin/Pasko/Burchett Blackhawk, among other things. I’m still not where I want to be (I have SO much unbagged and unboarded, and I am pleasantly anal-retentive enough to get a mild rash when I see the great unbagged sitting in those longboxes getting mangled and torn…) but they’re as good as they’re gonna get, and that’s, um, good. Now leave me be! It’s Friday.

Chris: With the proliferation of digital TV options, either downloading shows after-the-fact or watching them on a network’s website (but not Hulu, etc. as Canada is not allowed to partake. Y’pricks), I’ve gotten lazy with my serialized viewing. I managed to keep up with Heroes, but lost the plot on Lost (I’m about three eps behind the season ender.) I just last week started catching up on House. But something that enables my laziness has helped me connect with a new obsession. Fringe.

I ignored Fringe – it felt two X-Filesy to me, and I had Battlestar Galactica to catch up on. But people kept talking about it, and finally, a few weeks back, I caved and started catching up. And I was amused. It was definitely a show I could love. And then they said two magic words. “Alternate Dimensions” Well shit, that’s all you had to say. So, whereas I won’t be caught up on Lost for a few weeks yet, I rushed to be ready for the season ender of Fringe, so I could watch it with the rest of the world. Thank you, pirate technology! And they’re bringing it back for a second season? Faaaantastic.