Buffy keeps me up at night

Yawn! Its Sunday, October 16, 2011, one of these days I'm going to feel rested after sleeping, and this is The Side. Its completely due to the amount of sleep. It seems I'm not capable of functioning as well on six hours of shut as I used to. Used to be I'd get maybe four hours of sleep and then its off and running, but I don't think I'll be able to pull that one off anymore.

Its kind of a drag because its not until the kids finally hit the sack that we can watch whatever we want on TV, or put in whatever movie we'd like to watch. Its also less often when the Missus is hanging out with neighbors making it so I can play whatever video games I like and have full carté blanch over the viewing choices.

It used to just be a choice of what I wanted to watch or do. Now, I've got to choose between that and sleep. Right now, it feels like I chose poorly.

COMIX!!

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: SEASON 9 #2 starts us off this go around. Last issue we got a dose of where Buffy Summers is with her life, and its pretty normal stuff. She's working as a waitress. She's got an apartment with a couple of fun roommates. She's got to worry about paying her student loans. She just got relate-able again. That's good, but the bad is on the horizon. Bodies are popping up all over town and the police are thinking our favorite blonde Slayer has something to do with it. Andrew Chambliss steps in as writer after a strong series start from Joss Whedon, and he doesn't miss a beat. He's right on top of the distinct dialogue that the Buffy-verse is known for. We got to see where these characters are with issue one, and issue two let's us know that there's stuff going on. We do get an answer as to where all the John and Jane Doe corpses are coming from and that answer leads us to a lot more questions. We don't get a ton of over-the-top slam-bang action, but we do get good solid storytelling that's fun and engaging. Highly recommended.

PILOT SEASON: CITY OF REFUGE #1 makes me feel like I've dropped into a story halfway through. Its very possible since this is the first time I spotted this book and its an issue 1, but it seems I may have missed a previous series. Still, its not hard to fill in the blanks. Something really bad has happened, and people have come to a secured city for safety. The people in the city all receive implants which eliminate the capacity for violence. How it does this isn't spelled out all that well, but it works on the brain and that's all we really need to know. This city has not had a violent crime in eleven years. Security forces receive injects that temporarily counteract the implants. The implants are believed to be causing health problems. People don't like having their minds messed with. This story reminds me a lot of the film EQUILIBRIUM with some of the themes. Unfortunately, the comparison ends there. While the film was stylish and featured a ton of suspense and amazing action scenes, this comic is pretty slow. Its tough because there's so much going on that it requires a lot of exposition, unfortunately it doesn't have much going on to balance that. Yes, there is a hostage scene, and an element of danger, but the way it plays out doesn't really 'pop'. Its not a bad book, but you'll have to be a patient reader to really get through it.

MUSIC!!

Jumping in the wayback machine to visit a Van Halen tune. I used to really love this song. I didn't know the Blue Angels used it in a video, so that was a pretty pleasant discovery.



That's all for me for today. Time for about half a pot of coffee. See y'all Wednesday.