Their banter was great

That's true! I'm sure it'll work out.

Yeah it sounds sweet - and coming out soon! I'm looking forward to The Outer Worlds a lot. Seems like a mix of Fallout New Vegas and Mass Effect and I loved both.

And Happy New Year!

He was pretty entertaining! I thought the writing was pretty clever with all the references and inside jokes. The first episode especially had a lot of laughs. I love when Oliver was being the Flash for the first time and he didn't know what to do, so he just said "You have failed this city!". . Yeah I would have love for some cameos!

I'm holding out hope. It's weird there are no Pacific Northwest dates, even like Seattle and Portland, and none in Western Canada. You could be right!

Merry belated Christmas! Hope you had a good holiday!

Elseworlds was great! I'm not watching Supergirl so it was nice to see a Superman on the show for the first time. I thought he was a likeable Clark Kent. I actually finally stopped watching Arrow, after watching the first few episodes this season . Last I saw he was still in prison, so clearly stuff went down to get him out by now.

Still no Vancouver tour date

That's what I'm thinking, yeah!

Still no snow , just a lot of rain. At least I got my shopping done! (most of it )

Had finals for the last two weeks though, and lots of marking. Last one on Wednesday. Looking forward to a break! How about you?

Even though I pre-ordered the album, I did too I just couldn't wait!

Yeah the gospel version isn't great either... ahh well. The visual style of the album and music video will translate so well live, too . I'm picturing lots of lasers.

YEP! Since we have Thanksgiving in mid-October here, we don't have a buffer between Halloween and Christmas, so the Christmas feels have been going around since November 1 . Hitting December is pretty exciting though. There's already snow on some of the mountains nearby. As always, hoping for a snowy Christmas!

Nice! Have fun! Huh, maybe being a muse.mu member got you the code? I dunno. Either way I'm glad you got a ticket!

SO good. Break It To Me and Propaganda are so ridiculously weird but they work so well! I love how in-your-face Propaganda is. I don't know why I wrote Dig Down in my last message, I meant Dark Side not a fan of Dig Down but The Dark Side is one of the best on the album for sure. I was a huge fan of it when it was released and it works so well on the album too. Yeah a lot of them are going to be so great live! I can already see them opening their concerts with Algorithm or their encores with The Void or something - they're both so immersive. Agree about the music videos too. Love the feel of them and they fit the album perfectly.

I just started watching Sabrina! I'm enjoying it. About halfway through the season. The production quality is really good.

Thanks!

Yeah that's fair. The 2nd Law concert was my favourite so far. Also they'll most likely go back to their traditional stage rather than the 360. Vancouver hasn't been announced yet , nor has Seattle, so I wouldn't be able to bus down either. They haven't filled in the Pacific Northwest so I can only hope that means it's still to come - I'd love to go to the next concert.

It's always fun watching the board when a new album comes out . I'm a huge fan of Algorithm - it's the perfect opener. I really like Propaganda and Break it to Me too (though my brother didn't at all). The other strong ones for me were Dig Down, Thought Contagion, and The Void. Also while I didn't like Something Human that much when it first came out, it grew on me when I listened to the album in order since it's kind of a nice breather after Propaganda/Break it to Me. What did you think?

The crossover this year looks pretty cool. Yay! Glad you're enjoying Santa Clarita Diet! I actually started watching Titans and I was expecting it to be pretty terrible based on the trailer but I'm actually really enjoying it, especially after the pilot.

The Supernatural episode was kind of a Halloween special and it was great! I know it's a few days after Halloween but I did end up carving a pumpkin. Not everyone got the reference.

Based on the tour dates does it look like you'll be seeing Muse this tour?

I noticed the Alienist on Netflix when I was flicking through and it looked interesting! Unfortunately school has been a lot busier than expected . And I forgot I'm still not caught up on Preacher so I'm finishing up season 2. Flash and Arrow are both back now and both of them have actually gotten off to a promising start. Flash especially! I hope they keep it up.

Any plans for Hallowe'en? I TA an astronomy lab on the 31st so I think I'm going to teach in my Star Trek costume... still deciding on a pumpkin carving too.

I stopped watching the Walking Dead years ago now... my dad's been staying up to date but even he's been saying it's getting boring. I remember watching the premiere! Are you still up to date or did you stop watching too? I was surprised that they killed off Carl.

Speaking of shows, I've been trying to find things to watch before my regular shows get back. Any recommendations?

Thankfully the hurricane hitting Hawaii wasn't that bad. But I've been reading about Hurricane Florence and it seems terrifying. Hopefully it weakens

Yeah, this seems to be the time!

I took a little while to warm up to it but I really enjoyed it in the end. Good mix of comedy and horror, with zombies

Well apparently there is a hurricane arriving while I'm here so, that will probably not be likely

Man the exchange rate for us up here is terrible. I took $200 USD out for $270 CAD . I remember when we were on par!

Yeah Netflix is usually pretty solid. Lucifer got picked up by Netflix, and I'm also looking forward to Bojack Horseman, Umbrella Academy, and Santa Clarita Diet.

School starts up next week for me. For the first time ever, no classes! I'm just being a TA, for first year astronomy students this time , on top of doing research. In a couple weeks I'll also be going to Hawaii for a few days to take some data with a telescope down there.

I heard about Moviepass being more restrictive to members, that sucks. At least you always have... streaming .

Thanks!

That's annoying about the texting. So distracting!

I guess school will be starting up for you again soon?

I've heard so many different things about the sound! It seems like some theatres were all over the place and others were okay. For us the volume wasn't that over the top, but the sound mixing was definitely inconsistent. I agree with your account; the start and end seemed to be the weirdest but the middle, both editing and sound-wise, seemed the best put-together. It was still fun though!

 

I'm not sure what the crowd was like for you but the crowd here seemed pretty... low-key. Like, there were a few bobbing heads every now and then but nothing else. I guess depending on what you prefer that's a good thing or a bad thing . My friend and I were pretty into it though, mouthing along with the lyrics, borderline headbanging, etc. We actually wished we had sat in the back so we could have more freedom with our arms . I kind of wish the whole theatre was belting out the lyrics together but no way was I going to start that happening

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Did you decide on the movie tickets? Or do you have other plans for your birthday?

 

Glad you had fun in Las Vegas! I've been once (for a *cough* Star Trek convention) and yeah, the dry heat was something. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

 

Too bad about Royal Blood. Bands skipping your city sucks. Hopefully next time!

It's been alright so far! Been doing a lot of research and so far I'm ahead of schedule for finishing up my PhD, which is a relief. I have it planned out to be able to finish in two years, so I've started thinking of where I might work and live once I'm done. So far I'm thinking UofT in Toronto, NASA in California, or somewhere in Europe, who knows. The Canadian Football season has finally started up again and I'm really excited for that. Nothing planned for the summer though, trip-wise, so it should be a pretty quiet one!

 

How about your summer? How's life

IT WAS SO BAD! It was perhaps the most underwhelming and boring Supernatural season finale; it looked bad with the terrible wire-fight choreography, and I'm not sure if you saw it but there was also a terribly cheesy freeze-frame zooming into Dean's face at the very end to finish the episode off. And as you said, season 5 was rendered totally pointless with how "world-ending" the fight between Michael and Lucifer was. And it was entirely predictable that Michael would obviously not stick to the deal with Dean and he'd be the new big-bad for next season. Ugh, it was all terrible.

 

Hmmm nothing this season can come close to that season 4 hacking one I showed you last time. There weren't really any scenes that stood out. It was more just storyline and dialogue choices that didn't work.

I watched a bit of Legends when it was first out but never caught up, but on reddit I keep seeing people saying stuff like what you said about it being so enjoyably bonkers! I've just starting going through season 1 again so I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone's talking about . Yeah Arrow last season was better thanks to Adrian Chase. But with him no longer the villain and Felicity still being her usual whiny, selfish, Mary Sue, screen-hogging self it's back to mediocre. There was one episode with Chase in it (as a hallucination) and it was one of the best of the season.

Get your ticket!

Yeah, I would agree , there has indeed been a fair bit of filler and the plot's pretty easily summarized. I take it you're probably not up to date on Flash and Arrow? Flash had great promise early this season but it's gone downhill quite a bit. And Arrow is... well...

Nice!

I managed to rope a friend into going with me . Yeah I have no idea what to expect, like are people going to be singing along with the songs? Or watching it basically like you would any movie? I mean, I imagine pretty big Muse fans would be the only ones who would go to something like this, so who knows, it's a unique audience... I'd be interested to see if there are differences in the crowds between your theatre and mine! Hopefully neither of us get cringey dancing.

May the 4th be with you.

Yeah, they've got a lot of content! Listened to a few of the songs off Automata and like what I hear so far. Haven't heard that one yet, will check it out.

Ahh, nice! That sounds like a good way to catch up. There are still some not-great episodes so you've saved yourself a bit of time . How far back have you had to catch up on?

Heard lots of good stuff about it from friends. I've been spoiled about some stuff already but ahh well, as is expected.

Nice ! That's a nicely-timed birthday present! I'm thinking of going as well since there's also one in my city (although, my brother is away that night so I'd be going alone ). Figure seeing Muse on the big screen nearby is a rare opportunity and could be pretty cool.

Oh, I know Between the Buried and Me! Found them a few years ago. Parallax II: Future Sequence is a great album. I haven't listened to several of their other albums though so I'll definitely start with Automata. Thanks for the recommendation!

Guess you can never quite escape the Supernatural fandom, eh . Season 13 has been such an improvement, seriously. Here's hoping they can carry this momentum into season 14... goodness...

Heh, thanks. We had to come in again on Monday for more marking but we got it all done eventually. I'm all done now! Been taking a break for the last week .

Nice!! Hope you enjoyed it! It looks great.

Yeah nothing really has jumped out at me so far. Though to be fair I've been in a bit of music rut and haven't really tried to look for new music. Any bands you could recommend?

It was surprisingly dark! I think my favourite part was when the gang were having a meltdown. "We've been stopping real estate developers when we could've been hunting Dracula? Are you kidding me? My life is meaningless!"

Best of luck on them! I just finished mine yesterday. Feel alright about it. Can't quite relax yet though, I'm invigilating and marking a first year physics for engineering course tomorrow. Almost 800 students and only 10 TA's . But then, freedom

Yeah, that was my thought as well. I actually really love it now. It's so catchy.

I was gonna ask if you tuned in for Scoobynatural . It was fantastic! All it could have used was Dean eating Scooby Snacks.

School terms probably winding down for you, do you have finals?

Well, Shape of Water won a well deserved best picture oscar! I may have been listening to the soundtrack a lot... it's so well done.

Thoughts on Thought Contagion?