Friday Thoughts: Butt-cracks and Wizards

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The third episode of season five plays out like a buddy cop detective show as the college tries to crack down on the infamous asscrack-bandit. The Dean is on top of his game and all the characters are used sparingly, keeping the mystery going beautifully. Only on this show can such a ridiculous concept become a well-executed parody of another type of show. Probably the weakest episode of this season so far, but it's still great. Well done.

Off to be the wizard.

A curious book. It’s about a guy who finds out that reality is a computer program that can be manipulated. His manipulation of his bank accounts gets the attention of the FBI and he runs away to medieval England to live as a wizard.

It sounded like a fun romp, but it wasn’t as I expected. The story is less about living as a wizard as it is about finding a group of people that did the exact same thing. It avoids and ignores the issues of time-travel shenanigans and instead looks into the issue of trust and abusing power. At times it felt like the characters were just in a video-game (A much better novel for that would be Ready Player One), but the story is a fun, light read either way. The world and characters don’t really go anywhere (I couldn’t get emotionally invested in any of them), despite the interesting plot hooks and ends up sort of anti-climactic despite the big battle. Nothing amazing, but it was an interesting read and it kept me turning the pages nonetheless. I think it was because I expected something else that I left a bit nonplussed, but the story really did need some sort of emotional anchor or stakes.

Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the 8^th Grade.

This is one of the best comic books I have read. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, it looks really kiddy, but I’d say this book (A collected volume of the 6 issue mini-series) is akin to Disney with its take, it’s an all ages superhero book. Something that is a rarity in this day and age.

I mean, how can little kids have supergirl as their hero if they read one of the latest issues that involve supergirl murdering, getting beaten to a pulp and in all, living in a really crappy, gritty and not very nice world. Kids need fun comics about fun heroes that deal with issues they are going through. In this book, Supergirl goes to school in the eighth grade and has wacky adventures; keeping her identity a secret, accidentally making a bizarro version of herself, being room-mates with Lex Luthor’s little sister and saving the school from disasters. It’s a well-written, funny and heartfelt take on the titular hero that is for young and old alike (In fact, the amount of references shoved in for older fans is actually incredible). The reviews don’t lie about this book, it’s just fantastic.