Favorite Song: White and Nerdy by Weird Al Yankovic. Geek anthem for the current internet generation, the video was leaked/removed/leaked until Weird Al showed support for it's presence, and it strikes way too many chords with me because I know I'm too uncool to be listening to hip hop.
Favorite Album: Gnarls Barkley's St Elsewhere (Youtube has videos). When you realise an album is nothing like you've ever heard before, you get the same kind of feeling people must have had when the Beatles turned up. Kind of magic, kind of special, and I loved the cartoon element of their performances. Too many people were distracted by the hype (mostly thanks to radio stations overplaying Crazy) to listen to the new album properly, which is sad, but I bet they'll get around to it at some point in their lives.
Favorite Game: Nintendo's Animal Crossing - Wild World. Simple concepts of moving into a new town, maintaining it and collecting new furniture for your house = for the win. There are masses of websites for the online community, as the free Nintendo Wifi connection that comes with the DS handheld console makes it possible to not only visit your friend's towns, but make completely new friends at the same time. Pre-WoW, this was my gaming addiction.
Favorite UK TV series: Doctor Who. Goodbye Rose. Even searching for a clip makes me emotional, and there were other great moments throughout Series Three. Cybermen versus Daleks, for instance, and more information about Torchwood.
Favorite US TV series: Heroes. I've long been disinterested in the majority of classic superhero stories, hating the inhuman perfection of characters like Superman. So I watched the, fully expecting to dislike it and not expecting to think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Of course it didn't help that Lost has gone down the pan, and isn't likely to recover in the second half of it's third season. Premise: real people evolve superhuman abilities and are trying to hide them, while other people try to find them, and a nuclear bomb is set to destroy the world. The comic book influence is prevalent, there are plenty of nice gruesome parts, and some of the characters are quite likeable (while some are a little irritating). Not sure when it will hit UK shores though.
Favorite Film: Mysterious Skin. Yes, I know this came out two years ago, but I only caught wind of it halfway through the year. Marks the return of Greg Araki to my life after a few years of absence. Themes: gay sex (of course), shocking violence/rape/paedophilia, young Hollywood/TV star cast playing outcast small town kids, rock music, and alien abduction. Film doesn't get much better than that for me.
Favorite Book: Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. An indirect recommendation from someone at Ask Mefi seeking out one of the short stories (linked behind the title), I admit I bought the book because the cover was beautiful and I knew Bradbury is someone I will always intend to read more of. It tracks the future movements of man migrating from Earth to the inhabited Mars, eradicating the culture to replace it with our own. And I think it ends up being more reflective of the Western world's modern history, rather than what our future will be like (but then, you could say that about most sci fi, no?), which is profoundly sad and maddening. I wish that things weren't as they are.
Honorary Mention: Torchwood. Originally the code name for the first new Doctor Who series, the spin off tracks Captain Jack Harkness (the American from the Blitz episodes, remember?) hanging out in a secret base in the middle of Cardiff with a pterodactyl (that has been ignored far too much in this first season) and a couple of nerdy horny lonely scientists. For all that the Doctor fixes, Jack unwittingly fucks up in a mournful attempt to find out the truths of the universe he kinda knows he'll never understand. There's are many links to the original Who series (to delight geeks like I), and a hell of a lot of bisexual/gay/straight sex going on. I loves it.
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