You know what song is made of awesome? Laura Barrett's cover of Weird Al Yankovic's parody of Nirvana's most famous song. Wooo.

Yes, that is correct. A heartfelt, single instrument rendition of Smells like Nirvana. Do not misunderstand; it's a lovely, haunting tune... and you combine it with the lyrics and suddenly everything is Made Of Hilarious.

Now I'm mumbling and I'm screaming, Barrett enunciates clearly for our benefit, and I don't know what I'm singing. Crank the volume, ears are bleeding, she adds gently, illustrating for us the magnitude of her desperation.

I still don't know what I'm singing, she tells us, and it is a plaintive cry.

But though our souls bleed for her, there is no help we can offer. We did not read the lyric sheets either.

A few months ago, Michael Crichton died of throat cancer. As I discovered *yesterday*, when sitting in the local mall's food court and staring vaguely in the direction of a small TV bolted to the ceiling. Every fifth phrase or so was filtering into my brain: sale and sale and i'm thirsty and jennifer aniston and sale and this drink is kinda too sweet maybe and music video and posthumous publication and michael crichton and sale and what and what? and What?

And no, no, that is in no way awesome.

His books though.... Okay, from Timeline on he has lost me, but for a couple years in early high school he was my favourite of all authors. I kept a scarred, second-hand copy of Sphere on my bedtable like a dreamcatcher or a promise.

And there's a metaphor from The Lost World I still believe in to my bones:

More loudly, [Harding] said, 'What didn't Darwin know, Ian?'

'That life is a complex system,' he said, 'and everything that goes along with that. Fitness landscapes. Adaptive walks. Boolean nets. Self-organizing behavior. Poor man. Ouch! What are you doing there?'

'Just tell us,' Harding said, bent over the wound. 'Darwin had no idea...'

( ...'if you didn't know any physical chemistry, you could look at a crystal and ask all the same questions.' )

(emphasis mine)

 
If one was rating webcomics for awesome, one'd be duty bound to tack Ursula Vernon's Digger somewhere off the end labelled "Too Much Awesome, Is This Even Legal?" And you don't even have to take my word for it; it was nominated for a Eisner Award, and that is almost *official* or something!

The story's main character is a wombat - yes, that is correct, WOMBAT - so I assume now about 37% of those reading have made a high pitched "Eeeee!"ing sound and immediately injured the mouse-button in their excitement to get to the comic.

For those who are slightly less enthusiastic about moderate sized marsupials (*raises hand* sorry guys, but I must be honest) never mind the talking animals. The main character is a *structural engineer*. A structural engineer who stumbles into a fantasy-land adventure, complete with gods and prophesies and vampire squash.

She has... about as much patience for the circumstances as you'd expect.

Lord Ganesh: Do you know how old the Earth is, burrower?

Digger: 4.5 billion years, give or take. Why?

Lord Ganesh: Ah. Yes. Quite. I forget that it is difficult to be mystical and cryptic to a species with a highly developed science of geology.
 

Plus the art is really nice (and on top of nice - *interesting*), and the world-crafting is compelling, and the humour is intelligent *and* LoL-worthy. *And* the archives have recently been freed from subscription, so now is your chance! Check it out.

I’ve never read the book, but the jPod formatted to fit my television screen is awesome.

Our heroes are twenty-something game developers thrown together by a computer glitch, and together they combine to make, well, a double-plus geek friendly dramedy, anyway. That is not nothing!

5 other prizes contained inside:

- Geeky internet jokes.
- Geeky *coding* jokes.
- The epic bromance between Jim Jarlewski, middle aged family man, and Kam Fong, Chinese mafia don. Two men with nothing in common save their love for dancing with each other! ...Occasionally while wearing Nazi uniforms.
- Lesbians. With guns!
- Mother & son bonding over hiding dead bodies! What is family *for*?

It’s also a show with its mind firmly, deeply in the gutter, but, y’know, I know you guys. Vagina-shaped playgrounds and vibrating underpants and people getting accidentally stranded at an orgy aren’t going to scare you away.

(Unlike, say, my mom. Although I think she was *actually* put off at how we compared her to a pot-growing gun-nut who kept accidentally killing people. I guess that is enough to cause offense for *some folks*, even if *some folks* are the only ones in the family with training in the (safe and effective) use of weapons. I mean. Come on, Mom! You mean you *haven't* ever wanted to run away from us all and join a lesbian commune?

The moral: some analogies are better kept inside your head. Or maybe: do not watch tv with your mom.)

In conclusion! A clip added for the sole purpose of winning hradzka over!



If you can pass yourself off as Canadian, the whole series is online at the CBC site. (Neener neener, Hulu.com watchers. Neener neener, I say.)

ETA: Oh, or I guess you could watch it online at theWB.com. What*ev*er.

 
Fido is a pretty awesome movie, you guys. It's Lassie meets Shaun of the Dead in brilliant technocolour!

And, wow, I cannot think of any recommendation more enticing than the elevator pitch, so I'm just going to jump straight to multimedia:



I know what you are saying to yourself right now. You are saying, Holy fuck, that is fucking awesome, how was I not informed until this fucking moment? And I don't know what to tell you. I guess am falling down on the job, my apologies. (Or maybe the Canadian indie film industry needs to work on its marketing... but probably not, as that theory supposes a universe that does not revolve around my actions.)

I was lucky enough to catch a screening before it went to release. The director did himself up in zombie makeup and gave a fascinating intro about the social trends behind then-current glut of zombie films, and the care that went into the colour palette (so much care, omg, I once needed a cam copy for reference and felt guilty watching it), and how the script was developed, and how he found a shooting location, and how he found funding... Hey, it was a Q&A session with a theatre of film students. They know their priorities!


Don't forget about Zombie leash laws!

A while ago I ordered a couple commissions, and I'm always on the side of there being *more* awesome in the world.

The first time around, I was torn between getting a Kara pic or an Amanda Waller one. I finally went with the Kara one because my love for the artist was all about the action pics, and Amanda rocks the potential energy pose far more than the kinetic. But lately he's been showcasing a wider range of pictures, and my trust, it got big enough to team up with my niggling sense my collection was incomplete.

So was it right? YOU TELL ME YOU GUYS!

 
( LOOK EVERYONE, IT IS AMANDA! )

 

I got all Smallvilled out pretty quickly, but the end bit of this scene is still *damn* awesome (because it is shiny):



It was all worth it, you guys. I can stop watching happy.

It is standard knowledge that if you want your birthday presents to be the most awesome possible, it's usually best to pick them out yourself. So I ordered a couple art commissions!

I just got the scans of the finished pics, and I am PLEASED. OMG, you guys. This is my PLEASED FACE.

( LOOK EVERYONE, IT IS STEPH! )

 
( LOOK IT IS KARA! )

I should note for the edification of those viewing that she is fighting Parademons and not actually Evil Ambush Bugs as was my first theory (which just goes to show that they're going to revoke my comic-fan license one of these days I guess).

The pictures are drawn by this guy, who just blows me away with the amount of energy in his stuff. Look it is Peej! Reddy! Barda! Supergirl vs zero-G which, I am sorry, remains hilarious.

So the meme is this: Spend a couple minutes listing women who are awesome, and fuck you if you want to disagree.

I jumped all over this one, and at the end of those couple minutes, I had a hella long* list of names. Which was great for bringing up my level of happy and all, but a simple text c&p didn't seem enough to pass that sense of shit yeah y'all.

*although it could always be hella longer.

( Warning: Awesome )

If the new Blue Beetle series was summed up in one word, that word would be, and I think there is no disagreement, 'awesome'.

Which I had the privilege of explaining for Girl-Wonder.Org this month!

If you're not yet reading Blue Beetle, you should reconsider this tragic life decision. If, as I hope of all humans, you *are*, g-w's got other recs that may make your soul similarly smile.