I’m thankful for…

• my family that love and support me.
• my friends that make me happy.
• my best friend who I enjoy talking and listening to almost everyday.
• my independence for the last 2 years.
• my job that I absolutely love and enjoy doing.
• my apartment that I have slowly but steadily furnished.
• the CTA for providing me with transportation everyday.
• my laptop for without it, I’d be lost!
• CSS3, jQuery, Ubuntu, Chrome, VLC, and Eclipse (to satisfy my inner computer nerd).
• Tumblr for providing me with hours and hours of enjoyment and distractions.
• Netflix and its instant streaming for providing me with hours of television to watch.
• Joss Whedon for Buffy, Firefly, Dr. Horrible, and Dollhouse.
• my newfound love for free movie screenings.
• J.K. Rowling for HARRY FREAKIN’ POTTER.
• the finale of Lost.
• Schubas and Lincoln Hall for having lots of awesome shows.
• Chicago Comics for being my local comic book shop.
• Fables and The Walking Dead for being consistently entertaining comics.
• relationships; even though they can be turbulent, they still provide lots of good memories.
• the city of Chicago for being a wonderful place and giving me a home.

What are you thankful for?

Glee
Wednesdays at 9/8c on Fox
I never knew that I wanted a musical comedy-drama in my life… until now. I actually saw Glee’s pilot episode a couple months ago and have been eagerly awaiting for the start of the series. Glee centers around a high school show choir, also know as the glee club, and the faculty that work there. The characters are already both deeply complicated, yet lovable. Some are annoyingly self-centered, but the actors and actresses pull it off so well that I want to see more of them! At first I sensed a little bit of the O.C. or perhaps even Gossip Girl, but this is set in Ohio, not exactly the setting for glam, money, and fame. But the dramatic elements are there to keep things intriguing. It is also sprinkled with moments of comedy, providing a balance to the cut-throat world of high school. But what really makes this show are its song and dance numbers. As a guy who now appreciates musicals thanks to Dr. Horrible’s Sign-Along Blog, this show totally brings it to the forefront. The song selections work really well with the stories and don’t feel awkward or mistimed at all. There’s something to be said when I get a good feeling in my heart when I see a high school football team do a dance number on the field to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” I really recommend this show, so be sure to catch up on it on hulu!

House
Mondays at 8/7c on Fox
An awesome, awesome show. The medical Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Gregory House, and company return for a sixth season to bring us more episodes of medical mysteries and drama. Every episode from past seasons usually seem to follow a strict formula: a patient checks into the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital with a undiagnosable symptoms, House and his team attempt to find out what’s wrong while trying not to bicker too much, try out some treatments, almost kill the patient as he/she gets worse and worse, House has an epiphany, and the patient is cured. All the while, House pops some pills, causes sexual tension between himself and the super sexy Dr. Lisa Cuddy, annoys his friend Dr. Wilson, and is a jerk to everyone around him. Nothing wrong with repetition, mind you, because there was hardly an episode that I didn’t like. Now at the end of last season, House looked like he was at the end of his rope and needed to kick his drug addiction habit or suffer from constant hallucinations. I caught the last half of the season premier, where House had checked into a psychiatric hospital. It was all Dr. House and none of rest of the cast made an appearance, so this was a big change in the show’s format. I’m not sure if I liked that nor not. But House looked to be maturing and changing as a character, so I guess it’s a step in the right direction in an evolving story. If the last 5 seasons have proved anything, I’m ready for what season 6 will bring to the table.

How I Met Your Mother
Mondays at 8/7c on CBS
A show that I just got into a few months ago. I can’t believe I’ve been missing it. This and the Office are the only two sitcoms that I absolutely love right now. It’s actually a story being told by a father, Ted Mosby, to his children about his life and events that lead him to meet their mother. The show follows Ted and his group of tight-knit friends in New York City as they live their young adult lives. I find this show very appealing for a number of reasons. One is that they’re right around my age group: mid 20′s-30′s, out of college and living independent, adult lives. I find myself in awe as they all live their lives, going out, having fun, dealing with issues that I think will pertain to me in the near future. Another reason are the characters/actors. With a cast that has Jason Segel (from Freaks and Geeks and Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Alyson Hannigan (from Buffy and American Pie), and mother-fucking awesome Neil Patrick Harris (wtf if you don’t know NPH, I refuse to acknowledge your existence) I truly feel their connection and bonds as friends. One other reason I love this show is Ted’s quest for love. He’s done the partying life (thanks the legendary best friend, NPH’s Barney Stinson), and now he’s ready to love the woman who will love him back. I’m a bit of a romantic myself, so I identify with Ted’s plight. It’s a great heart felt story that I don’t think much other shows have been sympathetic to. Please give this show a chance if you haven’t yet.

There are a couple of other shows that I’ll be keeping an eye on: Mad Men, Gossip Girl, Dexter, and Breaking Bad to name a few. I just haven’t caught up on all the episodes yet, so I can’t watch the new seasons until then. I might have to spurge and get some new DVD sets soon…

What shows are you excited to see this new season?

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Ionburn had been dormant for a long time, but I had been working on it for a while. It’s now updated. When you first go, it may look the same, but hang around for a minute and then you should notice something. There were more features than what’s there now, but I’m still working the bugs out. I made that one from scratch so I hope you like it.

JayNCoke got a total makeover as well. I made that one myself; and I’m really proud of it. I really want the site to be a sort of online portfolio more than a blog. I had to incorporate some nifty javascript fade effects as well as some full-on AJAX navigation. Also on the home page I created a sort of “lifestream” to pull my various web activity and put it in one place. There are several sites that do this to varying degrees, but I thought it’d be a cool project to do on my own.

So that’s it for now. Like I said before, I got some posts in the works as well. Hopefully I can keep my promise and update regularly now. If not, someone please remind me with a nice kick-in-the-butt.

Guess who.

I’m having a small dilemma. Where am I going to get the time to do all the things I want to do? There are a ton of tv shows I need to catch up on. I have a couple books in the pipeline I want to read. There are some comics that I need to get back to. And then the video games… well there wasn’t a lot out before other than GTA4. MGS4 actually is coming out and I’m dying to play that, but I really want to get into Crisis Core. I had this game sitting by my desk for the month now, still in its plastic wrap. I had been saving it, not playing it until I got a job. It actually was quite an incentive to get me motivated. And now that I have a job, why not?

I think I’ll get back to my roots. I’m gonna go on a Final Fantasy VII binge. All things FF7 for the next few weeks. This includes: Crisis Core, watching Last Order, playing FF7 over again, and finally finishing up with Advent Children. Not sure if I want to get into Dirge of Cerberus though; maybe, if I’m up for it.

Okay. Time to fire up the PSP.

Aeris ♥ Cloud.

Aw, they’re all cute together!

Well… I’m just glad there is a variety of them out there; I’d be sooooo bored if everyone were exactly the same.

Hehehe. New episode of Lost premiered last night.

If you’re a fan of the show, you probably have a lot of theories or questions (most likely the latter). I just wanted to pass along this site: Lost: A Theory on Time Travel. A fun site to kill some time reading. The writer presents a very good case, and I find it very entertaining and thought provoking. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he’s spoiling the rest of the series, but shows us another way to go back and watch the series over again in a different view as well as giving the fans something to debate and mull over.

I won’t go over every single detail of the show… there’s just so much. Let the Lost Wiki Page do that for you.

Ooooh… this one looks good.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I just read this post on one of my favorite authors, George R. R. Martin’s, blog. He does a great job summarizing the Super Bowl, one of the greatest games I’ve ever seen in my life. Hehehe, and he does some nice comparisons to ASOIAF characters.

Watched more of the O.C. today. Got finished with the whole Oliver saga… God, I love all the characters but Marissa’s. I mean, she’s a beautiful girl and all, but she is so self-destructive, immature, and ignorant. She sends all the wrong signals to Ryan and he’s always trying to do right by her, but the whole thing with Oliver just made me crazy. How can she not see how obsessed he is with her? She should have just trusted Ryan from the start… I can understand how he could have looked like he was jealous, but when I’m seeing Oliver’s true nature… GAH! I wanted to hit Marissa upside the head so bad. She totally doesn’t deserve a dude like Ryan.

And now I’m also at the point where Seth is totally with Summer now. At first he was with Anna, but he was still obviously having feelings for Summer. So much so that he always spent more attention to her than his supposed girlfriend, Anna. I felt so bad for Anna because of Seth’s treatment of her. There he is at his house, supposedly spending time with his girlfriend, but instead she’s stuck next to him while he’s introducing Summer to the awesomeness of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. I can totally understand her frustration when she finally gets him alone and away from Summer.

Seth: You know how excited I get turning people on to comics.
Anna: I know how excited you get turning Summer on.

And the post title is from one of my favorite episodes, The Heartbreak. And now I can’t get “Hello Sunshine” by Super Furry Animals out of my head. hehehe… The music selections for the show are just the best…