COMICS

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Book 1 by Eastman and Laird, the first 16 issues of the TNMT. It is incredible to realize that the big TV kid phenomenon had its roots in comics and were almost a fluke. The creators worked on it, got a loan to self publish and then somehow their little project became a hit comic and suddenly they had all sorts of deals. The issues are in black and white (only the covers were in color and only after the fourth issue). The series is a fun read and it is surprising to me to realize how the beginning of the Turtles was kind of a parody of the beginning of Daredevil (in fact the Turtles were hit with the same ooze that gave Daredevil his powers). It was cool to see the Turtles in crazy time traveling or dimension traveling adventures and it was interesting to see how the Shredder is defeated in the first issue. It was a fun read, I am glad I read the original Turtles.

Amazing Spider-man #601 by Mark Waid. The issue was okay. It promised a lot with the return of MJ, but didn't really deliver all that much. The backstory by Bendis and Quesada was good.

Amazing Spider-man #602-603 by Fred Van Lente. #602 was good and #603 was fantastic. #603 might be my favorite issue of Spider-man in over a year. The issue has suspense, humor and a different point of view (as it is told from Chameleon's perspective). Fred van Lente seems to be a perfect writer to bring back lame villains and make them better. He did it with Spot (a great issue for Spider-man, it was #589 or maybe #588) and now with Chameleon. A great read.

Marvels: Eye of the Camera #1-5 by Kurt Busiek and Jay Anacleto. The miniseries is supposed to be 6 issues long, but the sixth one won't come out till November. However, I had the five issues and hadn't read them so I started them. They are great. I love the artwork and I love the stories. Phil Seldon is a nice guy to read about. I like seeing the Marvel universe from an everyman's point of view. It is cool to see how the crazy things that happen in the universe affect the population. Marvel has always tried to make their stories be about how the world would be if superheroes really existed, but Marvels is where it actually analyzes this commitment and gives great stories around the premise. I love the issues, maybe even more than the original Marvels (although this might be because I don't remember how I felt when reading Marvels). Great stuff, looking forward to the final issue.

Thor Vol.1 and Vol.2 by JMS. I had forgotten almost everything about Thor and since I have been loving JMS stuff (Babylon 5, Midnight Nation), I decided to re-read Volume 1. I liked it a lot more this time than last time I read it. It was very funny and it made me care about Thor (a hero I've never cared too much about). The volume also analyzes (a bit) how the world would accept (or reject) a God. Making references to kids much more interested in reading Norse mythology and playing role-playing games with Asgardians in mind.
Volume 2 was also pretty cool, bringing in the main villain of the story and making him (in a woman body) a great villain. It was cool to see how Loki got to be part of Thor's family and how he manipulates people around him. In a way it is very funny that he is able to do this given that he is the God of Mischief and hence nobody should trust him at all. He always finds a way to deceive. Great writing by Straczynski.

Fables Vol. 12 by Bill Willingham. Issue #75 was the climax of a long storyline, so it was strange in a way to have the story continue, I was curious about what would happen (although it's been 8 months since I read issue #75). The book was good but not great. It clearly wasn't as good as the last 5 or six volumes, but it was still good. I will keep reading, the new villain is interesting. There were some important things happening, such as the death of Boy Blue. Fables is a great series and it is a series I would recommend to anyone, however I would recommend up to #75, I would have to wait before I recommend the new storylines.

BOOKS

Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin. Yuliia has been reading a lot of books by this Russian author and this was a book that the Dartmouth library had both in English and in Russian. The book follows Erast Fandorin on a murder case, Fandorin is kind of the Russian Sherlock Holmes, although a detective that is able to fight very well after training in the samurai ways in Japan (he is also fluent in Japanese). I think the book is very good, I specially liked the second half of the book which is written in the point of view of Achimas, a very interesting character. I really liked the second half and because of it, ended up thinking the book was very good. I will probably read another Akunin book this year (he has written about 12 Fandorin novels and four of them have been translated to English).

MOVIES

District 9 I was very excited about this movie and drove to Manchester to watch it (so that I would see it in a worthy cinema). I wasn't disappointed, this movie was terrific. I loved it. The storytelling was original, the story itself was exciting and the movie was overall very well made. It might be a little over the top with the action at some points, but I loved it. Yuliia couldn't stand some scenes and left the theater in the middle (good thing, we plan for this sort of thing by bringing books to the movie so she could read outside). The scenes that made Yuliia left the theater made me realize that she won't like Cronenberg movies, which is a bit of a shame, but I guess Cronenberg movies are not for everyone. Great movie, I recommend it.

Failure to Launch Saw this movie on the bus back from my trip to Morelia (bus from Boston to Lebanon). The movie is okay, not a movie I would recommend or watch unless I was at a bus. I probably wouldn't watch it in an airplane as it would require paying a dollar which is not worth paying for this. The movie had its funny moments and it was fun, but the plot is terrible.

Bridget Jones Diary I watched the second half of this movie with Yuliia, she was watching this through Netflix and she was enjoying it, so I joined in for the second half. I laughed quite a bit. Not bad.

Bruno They showed this at Dartmouth and I had free passes so Yuliia and I went again. Yuliia didn't like it as much upon seconnd viewing, but I liked it a lot. I laughed so much and I even had more value from some scenes that I didn't enjoy that much before. I love this comedy.

Post Grad Watched this last night after a long time looking for airplane tickets for Yullia and me (we have weird restrictions that needed a lot of looking around to find the best price). The movie wasn't good, it had its funny moments, the story wasn't terrible and I like Michael Keaton in this movie, plus I think Alexis Bledel is gorgeous, but the movie is just mediocre. However I would recommend it over "Failure to Launch".

TV

Babylon 5 Season 1 This show is really good. A lot of the episodes have very interesting themes. I love the episode "Deathwalker" about an evil scientist who destroyed many planets in her research and was kind of a Hitler character being a dictator of a species that wanted to destroy the other species. She has been thought dead for decades, yet she is in perfect shape now. It turns out she created a medicine that makes you live forever. Should you put her to death penalty or led her make her medicine available to everyone (she is needed for the development of a medicine that can be distributed to the masses). A very interesting episode.
There are other great episodes in this season and the characters grow each episode while more and more questions keep popping up. I am looking forward to continue watching this series. Great stuff.

I finished reading George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows a while ago (beginning of July). The fourth book in the series out of the four books published so far. After finishing I have been reading online forums to look at cool discussions regarding the book from where I discovered things I hadn't noticed on my first read (Loras + Renly, Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon, among other things). The books are fantastic. The best so far for me is Storm of Words (the third one). The fourth is great even though it restricts to half the world (as the book Martin wrote was so big they had to divide it in two: North and South). It has a multitude of great moments. I loved reading about Pyke, about Oldtown, Bravos and Dorne. It was fun to follow characters like Brienne around and it was interesting to read about Cersei. It is incredible how much worse a person she is than I thought. I always knew she was horrible, but reading in her point of view made me dislike her much more. She is incredibly bad. The ending has quite a bit of cliffhangers, but cliffhangers that made me happy (except for Brienne, although before reading online forums I thought it was no cliffhanger, I figured she was dead). Great book, great series, I want to keep reading.

COMICS:
Amazing Spider-Man #598 Part Four of American Son was a good issue. We find out what happened to Spider-Man and we see the introduction of the American Son. I am hyped about the next issue. It came out yesterday but Marvel hasn't sent it to me yet (argh!).

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #36 A good issue showing a new villain (Raptor?) and showing us a bit of Spider-man's past to understand what was changed with Brand New Day and what wasn't. Not an issue I would recommend. Last year's annual was much more interesting.

Chew #2 The second issue of the series is solid. Not great like the first issue, but I'll definitely give the series a shot for at least five issues. It should be a fun ride. The story is about a dude that when eating something he gets visions of all that has happened to that food before (where it was, how it was killed, or how it was grown, etc.). It is very funny, very strange and quite fun.

Irredeemable #4 The series is getting back on track after a weak third issue. This issue has some cool stuff like seeing how the world leaders cope with this with a scene in the UN, but it also shows us the extent of Plutonian's villainy. He is as cruel as they come.

Buffy #26 The issue was quite cool, I liked the dialogue and it had plenty of funny moments. I am interested in seeing what will happen next, we finally are gearing to more serious storylines that need more than one issue to tell.

Gotham Central The series went for nearly 30 issues and it is finally being published in collections. This collection has the first ten issues. It consists of a two part story by Brubaker + Rucka, a three part story by Brubaker and a five part story by Rucka. I like both authors a lot. The first story was weak but it was good to get us started. It established the feel of the series in terms of artwork (kind of noir from great penciler Michael Lark) and the role of Batman in the story as a background character. The second storyline was a really good detective story, while the third storyline was a really cool story that deals with homosexuality, hispanic hate towards homosexuality (to their own children), a villain framing a cop and other cool things. The third storyline was the best of the three.

Incognegro A really great (albeit short) graphic novel about a black person born with white skin who infiltrates ku kux klan to write stories of the cruelty of it in newspapers. Stories that list people's names etcetera. This has some inspiration in real life events (the idea of incognegro does), however the story is fiction. It follows Incognegro to try to rescue his brother from murder charges (of murdering a white woman). People don't know they are brothers even though they are twins because of one of them has light skin (white) while the other doesn't. Really good book dealing with race, showing a great story about the past in the US, while also being an interesting mystery. The ending was fantastic. Highly recommend it.

Invincible Ultimate Collection #1-#4 and Invincible #48 I recently bought the fourth collection and while reading it, I decided to go back and look at the other three as I didn't remember much besides the main plot of the first collection. I was surprised to see how awesome it was. The comic is fantastic and it gets better with subsequent readings. Anything can happen in this comic and the story takes you to all sorts of wonderful adventures while revealing more and more about Mark Grayson and his friends. I love this comics. I read all of them last weekend and today I read issue #48 after realizing Book 4 ends in issue 47 and Book 5 (comes out in September) starts at issue #49. #48 was cool, but I want to know more as there are so many plot threads. I love how Kirkman (the author) puts in little pieces here and there until a story explodes many issues later and then all of a sudden the other plot develops. It is great how he manages to put in so much in each issue and still manage to make it feel smooth, natural and fun. If you like superheroes at all, you MUST read this book. If you don't like superheroes than it might still be worth the read. They claim to be the Best Super Hero Comic and it might actually be true (at least it is true for me).
I must also comment on the artwork as it is very different from anything I see anywhere. Ryan Ottley does a great job of making beautiful drawings that are very smooth. He manages to make it look great without resorting to too much realism (it is fantasy after all, I don't want it to look real, I want it to look awesome). The drawings are very dynamic and best of all the color palette is just unique. Bill Crabtree might be my favorite colorist, this book looks like no other and at the same time it looks better. Can't praise this book enough.

Urban Myths #1 This series didn't survive after one issue even though the issue was quite fun. The story lives in Greek Mythology world full of minotaurs and other crazy beasts. There are drugs that put you in a coma that permit you to go to Hades. The Sun comes up because Apollo brings it up (I really liked this scene). The main character is the son of Medusa how inherits her powers, so he puts on a mask and works as a detective. Pretty cool issue, I enjoyed it.

Captain America: The Man with no Face I absolutely love Brubaker's Captain America, but this trade is not that good. It is solid, it is a quick, fun read, but it is nowhere near the greatness of the first 42 issues. Hopefully the story will pick up, I guess the main thing I had been liking about Cap was how Brubaker developed this long story that needed 42 issues. Now that it ended I wonder how he will continue. His Daredevil has gone through slumps in my opinion, maybe it is time for Cap to go through slumps too. Maybe I am just getting tired of reading too many superhero comics.

The House of They I bought this not knowing it was a children's book. Nevertheless it was fun, although too quick a read. Essentially it is just 40 paragraphs and it cost $15, so not worth the price, but I guess 10-15 years from now when I have little kids at a reading age, I can show them this to help teach them to not follow authority blindly. The book has a great message and it was entertaining, but I definitely won't recommend it to people that don't have kids.

MOVIES:
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince The movie was great. I liked that the movie didn't try to follow the book piece by piece, adding a scene (for example a Muggle waitress hitting on Harry) and cutting out things (such as too much Ginny-Harry moments or too many Voldemort memories). The movie essentially focused on Harry, Hermione, Ron and Dumbledore. Any other character had almost no screen time. The Ron-Lavender scenes were great, the Slughorn scenes were also cool and Dumbledore just kicked butt. I really enjoyed the movie, I thought they made many good decisions. Books can cover way more characters than movies, and it was a wise decision to keep the narrative to as few characters as possible.

Borat I loved this movie when I first saw it, but it is not as good upon reviewing. I laughed a lot, but nearly as much as last time. Yuliia liked the movie even though she didn't laugh that much. She just found interesting the use of real people for the jokes and what Sacha Baron Cohen was capable of doing.

Bruno I loved this movie. I laughed so hard. Yuliia, who didn't laugh much at Borat, was hysterical in this movie, laughing all the time. The movie had many really funny scenes and it had some kind of narrative (although not a great one) to keep the story going. I've read about people complaining that the movie shows homophobes in a much better light than non-homophobes, but I think it casts a light on hidden hate people have for homosexuals, the wrestling scene being a great example of this. The main reason I liked this movie was that it made me laugh a lot.

Sin Nombre This movie was filmed in Mexico, being the directorial debut of Cary Fukunaga, an American director. The movie was very good. I think the characters were very real and the story was very interesting. It shows the desperation of many people and how a young boy can be bad because he was taught that way. I liked the movie and it was very thought provoking. It was engaging. Great movie.

Ice Age 3 The first half of this movie was not good at all, but it resuscitated in the second half with the introduction of Buck, a really funny dude. The second half was funny and it made it become not a waste of time. My mom and Yuliia liked it more than I did, my mom even liking the first half.

Public Enemies The latest movie by Michael Mann with performances by Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. The movie was quite good. Yuliia absolutely loved it and kept mentioning tidbits about it days later. I am happy that she loved it because this gives me a good excuse to show her Michael Mann movies like Heat and Manhunter. I liked the movie but I didn't love it. I think the story of John Dillinger is movie worthy, but somehow I think the movie could have been better.

COMICS
This time I read a bit more comics since I finished "A Storm of Swords" and hadn't bought "A Feast for Crows" yet:

Amazing Spider-Man #595-597 by Joe Kelly. This arc is called "American Son". It will be a five part miniseries. These three issues are the first three parts. The first issue has a really good ending. The second issue was really good, specially the Fantastic Four inclusion, it was just brilliantly done. The third issue reveals a lot and has a crazy cliffhanger at the end. I really want to read the fourth issue already. In theory it already came out, but I usually get it by mail a little late, which for some time bugged me very much (since I would receive it before the newspaper people before and now I don't), but it is not something worthy of being annoyed. In any case, I am glad Spider-man is an almost weekly comic so I can find out fast.

Punisher MAX Vol.5 This comic consists of two storylins: "Long Cold Dark" which was good but not great. It had an interesting premise and story, but it just had too much over the top action. The Barracuda-Punisher fight lasts about three issues and that is just too much. However the story was solid. The second storyline was "Valley Forge, Valley Forge" which was awesome. Definitely top 5 (which would be top half) of the Punisher stories, without analyzing heavily, I think I would place it in third (the first two are clearly "Slavers" and "Up is Down, Black is White"). It uses images from Vietnam to tell a story, it also uses prose in parts which I don't recall seeing in a Marvel comic. But the idea of having Delta force go after Castle is pretty cool. I liked it a lot. I like finding out about crazy criminals a la "Slavers" but this was a pretty good Punisher story, a story that depends on his character every step of the way, it explains us who he is. Really good.

I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly. This is a comic published by Image Comics (the biggest "Indie" company). The comic has very strange art for American comics, but it was great. The story was just really good. It reminds me of Pan's Labyrinth in how it mixes fantasy and reality. It started slow and almost boring, but by the third issue it grabbed momentum. The whole thing with the monster in the upper floor became interesting by the third issue and the reveal was just very satisfying. Very good comic.

BOOKS:
A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin. This is the third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. It is the best so far. It is so complex, it is so ambitious. I can believe it. This book is a tour-de-force as people like to say. I can believe how he can juggle so many characters and make everyone so interesting. The growth of Daenerys and Jon has been great. The characters have changed so much, but in such natural ways.
I enjoy Tyrion very much, he's wit is awesome. Martin is fantastic in being able to become each character per chapter.
It was cool to have Jaime in a point of view. It was great to get to see his angle and emphatize with him. He is not the monster he seemed. I also enjoyed getting to know more about Beric Dondarrion, Mance Rayder and other cool characters.
The book made me go from excitement (Arya seeing Harwyn) to despair (Red Wedding). The red Wedding was so sad. I am still in shock. I am two thirds into the fourth book (which is also a thousand page monster) and I still think of the red wedding.
Really good book and one that felt more like it ended. The other two books felt too much like "To be continued" at the end, but this felt like it could actually be an ending (although an ending with many things left open).
Loved it.

Comics:
Amazing Spider-Man #592-593-594 592-593 is a story called 24/7 by Mark Waid. It was enjoyable. It had a good villain and plenty of laughs. It was about Spidey being Spidey for a full week without sleep doing lots of good things to make JJJ mad (JJJ is now Mayor). 594 is the start of "American Son", which will be a five issue mini-series by Joe Kelly. The issue wasquite cool, had a pretty big reveal and it is gearing up to be intense as Spidey seems serious about taking out Norman Osborn.

Irredeemable #2-3 The series by Mark Waid started great. I loved the first two issues, but the third one was kind of lame. It didn't have enough in it, but I forgive it as it I am used to reading trade paperbacks and not single issues. I like what it is happening, but I am a little worried that it is using too much comic book archtypes. It seems like it could get to being generic soon.

Buffy Season 8 #25 Pretty good issue explaining a lot about Dawn going through those transformations. The last five issues haven't been great in terms of arc, but have been pretty good in terms of funny stories. This one was also funny, although the funniest had to be the Vampy Cat, that was hilarious. I am looking forward to more arc driven plots to come our way though.

Chew #1 by John Layman. I decided to try something new and try this new series (since I was happy with my decision of trying Irredeemable, I've been trying a couple of new series). The first issue convinced me to keep buying for a bit. We'll see how far I go, so far I will plan on buying at least two more issues. The main premise seems like it could bring good issues and funny ones too. I liked it.

Unwritten #1 This issue was great. I won't continue buying the series because I prefer reading in trades and with this series I am certain that it will be compiled in trade paperbacks later on (Vertigo almost always does and this series has the look of a winner all over it). Great premise, great storytelling, I want to know what happens.

BOOKS
I haven't read many comics because I have been reading the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin:

A Game of Thrones The first book in the series, it kicks off with a really interesting prologue that doesn't seem to be talked about in the book until much later. The story is just very entertaining and complex, there are just too many characters, but it is told in a superb way. I really like how the book switches in different perspectives every chapter taking you from one character to another to tell the story from a different set of emotions, plus allowing the reader to see what is going on in far away places. I love the structure. This book was full of surprises and the character development is incredible. Loved it.

A Clash of Kings As good as the first book, it almost feels like it is just a continuation, it seems like the series will be one long book. A lot of really cool things happened in this book and I keep being amazed at how the author can juggle so many characters and so many situations. I just have to say, I love Tyrion, he's a really fun character to read about. With some characters I have a love/hate relationship, but I feel close to nearly all of them (Theon would be the exception).

Currently I am a quarter of the way through on Storm of Swords and I am loving it.

On Thursday there were several cool math talks. The combinatorics class we proved a cool lemma that seemed very unnatural and then used it to show that a conjecture was false. The former conjecture by Borsuk (written in a famous paper of his) is that any space in R^d could be split in at most d + 1 guys all of which have diameter less than the space itself. Example if you grab a circle (disk), then you can split it in three parts via the peace symbol to have three parts of smaller diameter. The counterexample to the conjecture has dimension 44^2 = 1936. Pretty awesome.

After combinatorics I went to number theory seminar, which was given by Bjorn Poonen. The talk was about undecidability in number theory, the talk was mostly about Hilbert's tenth problem. Poonen also gave the colloquium lecture which was also about undecidability but he gave examples from different fields, included were the problem of determining whether two manifolds are equivalent. There was a combinatorial example, but I already forgot it (something about words). In any case what this talk made me think about wasn't so much about the question of problems where we can't prove true or false, but it made me think of Galois and the fact that quintic equations are unsolvable. It seems like these two things are similar. Everybody believed there would be a cool formula to solve polynomials and then it is shown that there isn't, however, with numerical analysis we can solve with good accuracy. With respect to decidability, it is similar as people thought there would be an algorithm to decide true/false, but there isn't one for everything. With polynomials in turns out that most polynomials are not solvable by radicals, I wonder if there are theorems about whether most problems are undecidable (I guess there are because decidable ones would have to be countable). It seems like philosophically they are the same sort of beast. Interesting talks.

At night, Yuliia and I went dancing. It was very fun, this time there were more people. I had a lot of fun.

On Friday, after class I went to play basketball. The first game, my team was losing 36-11 (counting 2's and 3's) and then we stopped when Brad got hurt. The next game Nick replaced Brad and it was a better game. We played to 27 (counting 1's and 2's) and even though we were losing 17-6 we made it a close game as it was 25-23. I had a really cool shot where I was fouled while shooting a three pointer and the shot went in in dramatic fashion. We played two more games, but they weren't as fun as we played with some people that were ball hogs. I would like to play more often.
At night I went to Nick's house with Nick and Natasha (Yuliia stayed home, she was too tired from 7 hours of Guitar Hero). The game was boring as the Lakers crushed the Nuggets, but it was fun chatting with Nick, Asa and Natasha.

On Saturday, Yuliia and I went to watch Up 3D at Hooksett, NH. I really wanted to see a 3D movie in the big screen and what better chance than a Pixar movie, so we decided to make the drive. The movie was fantastic, heart warming and funny. The storytelling is superb, it really makes you feel the love between Carl and Ellie. Plus it was fun to have so many dogs in it. I highly recommend this movie. On the other hand, I don't recommend the 3D aspect, it doesn't seem to add enough to a movie to warrant the extra price ($5 dollars more per person).

The rest of the day I did a lot of reading (which I've done a lot of on Sunday too). I am really loving the Song of Ice and Fire series. I am still shocked by the death of a character, but not saddened as I was with the death of Ned in the first book.

Star Wars: Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn is the second book in the Thrawn trilogy. The book was pretty good. The book shows the greatness of Admiral Thrawn and it has a really good little story involving Luke and Mara (reminiscent of when Luke and Han save Leia from the first Death Star). It also has pretty good scenes involving Leia and the Noghri, which was set up at the end of the previous book and delivered tenfold in this book.

Star Wars: The Last Command. The last book in the trilogy. It is really good. I feel as if the whole trilogy is just one story which makes it great. The ending felt a little rushed to me and too focused on the Luke storyline, but I loved the trilogy. Grand Admiral Thrawn is an awesome villain, one worthy of a three book story. The whole book incorporated many adventures and subplots that all seem to be important to the overall story, I liked that a lot. I liked how a lot of "problems" were solved. It also has a very Star Wars feel to it, I understand why this series is so highly regarded among the Star Wars novels.

Amazing Spider-man #588 The last part in the "Character Assassination" story arc. It was pretty good. I liked how this story connects the last 43 issues. I liked the identity of Menace and the cameo appearance by Norman Osborn (my favorite Spidey villain). Harry had a nice appearance in this issue too. Spidey was funny throughout and his heroic self. I was annoyed that I had to buy this issue outside of my subscription (due to technical difficulties with Marvel), but I enjoyed it.

Buffy Season 8 #23 by Drew Greenberg (one of the TV show writers I liked the least). The comic is very funny with the Andrew dialogue and the story is pretty good. The art I thought was subpar, as in several frames it made Buffy looked ugly (not as in Buffy is ugly, but in the drawing doesn't look like Buffy and it is ugly), it also had several scenes where it just looked as if the penciler ran out of time.

Invincible Iron Man: The Five Nightmares by Matt Fraction. This comic gets a lot of love by reviewers and the Iron-Man movie was great, so I had to read it. It was pretty good. The story shows us how intelligent Tony Stark is, using the usual thing of having him play chess versus Reed Richards (multiple games at once), it shows us how much power Stark enterprises have around the globe and it shows us how Stark is doing as the director of SHIELD. All of that was fun to read, but the main thing that makes this story good is giving us a really good villain in Ezekiel Stane (Obidiah's son), who manages to use Iron-Man's suit to destroy many Stark enterprises. It also shows Stark's humanity with a heart warming epilogue featuring Peter Parker (Spider-man). Pretty good story and it used its seven issues very well (usually story arc in comics take 6 issues). I am most excited about the next story arc, as Stark is wanted by the government for the outcome of the Skrull invasion.

Daredevil: Hell to Pay Vol.2 by Ed Brubaker. This collection has issues 100-105 and continues the story arc of Hell to Pay Vol.1. The craziness surrounding Hell's Kitchen is revealed to be due to Mr. Fear's fear gas. Mr. Fear kind of wins as Daredevil's wife goes insane due to the gas and while Mr. Fear goes to prison, his time in prison isn't bad as he has a special fragrance that makes everyone treat him nicely (including prison guards). Pretty good story arc. Issue 100 was particularly interesting as it used 6 different artists and it was well employed as in the issue Daredevil is hallucinating due to the gas. Pretty clever story. The art everywhere is great, I really like Michael Lark.

Daredevil: Cruel and Unusual by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka (collecting issues 106-110). This story starts with Daredevil almost paralyzed by the guilt he feels over what happened to Milla, but then he finds out about a guy that is on death row for a crime he didn't commit and his sense of justice makes him defend him and get back into life. The story leads one to realize that the whole mess leads to Mr. Slaughter and the CIA, as the CIA uses Slaughter to keep track of the smuggled goods into the US (for Homeland Security). The CIA tries to protect Slaughter but as Daredevil gets to the bottom of it, the CIA has to back off and let authorities deal with Mr. Slaughter. It was a pretty good trade. I enjoyed it.

Daredevil: Lady Bullseye by Ed Brubaker (collecting issues 111-115). The trade introduces Lady Bullseye, a new villain, that borrows the name from one of the main Daredevil villains, Bullseye (who killed Elektra and Karen Page, both former lovers of Daredevil). The story involved the Hand, a ninja criminal organization that was lead by Elektra and it is now fractured after Elektra's death and wants Daredevil to lead them to past greatness. The comic is pretty good, with an interesting subplot involving Daredevil having a romantic evening with Dakota and this leading to probably having to divorce Milla (as her parents find out), it also introduces Mr. Izo a really impressive fighter. A really good comic, worth the read and the price (the comic is pricier than usual as it has the same price as 6-issue trades).

Saturday was about grading exams. Ralf and I graded the midterm. I was surprised how well the students did. My students' average was 80.66 and Ralf's was 84. I thought the average would be below 75 so I guess the level of difficulty of the exam was right.

At night, Yuliia and I watched The Namesake, a recent movie directed by Mira Nair about an Indian family living in the US. The movie is quite good. I enjoyed it and I am very happy I watched it, as I had been watching it for a while (since I saw the trailer when it came out).

Sunday was a relaxing home day. As I write this, it has been snowing for 8 hours (and it is slated to keep going). Yuliia and I went out to walk to the library and the grocery store. The library was closed but we got some food at the grocery store. On the way back Yuliia said it was perfect weather for building a snowman. When she found out I had never built a snowman, it meant time to build one. Yuliia and I built a very good looking snowman. The buttons were little pieces of carrot, the nose was a little carrot, the mouth was a piece of red beet (in shape of lips) and we put one of my hats for pictures. It was very fun. I am excited to see the snowman from the window.

I also finished reading a book I started a little over a week ago Star Wars: Heir to the Empire the first book written accepted as in the Star Wars universe. This book influenced most, if not all, Star Wars books since. The book was really cool and fun to read. It introduced Mara Jade (the future wife of Luke), it introduced the ysalamari and the Noghri which are recurrent races in the Star Wars universe. The book is the first part of a trilogy and I intend to read the sequels in the next week (assuming the library has them).

I also read a pair of comics:
Batman #686: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader Part 1 by Neil Gaiman. The comic was really good. It gives different possible tales for Batman, possible pasts, an interesting study of what Batman is for different characters in Gotham. I liked it quite a bit.

Tek Jansen #4 I have to say I don't think it has been a good idea to buy these comics (Tek Jansen), not only have they not come out on time (this came out 6 months late), but the stories just aren't very good or that funny. The four issues have had mini stories in the back and they have been much better than the main story. I think the jokes are better in short stories with this character.

Classes went well. I was particularly happy to have Friday off (due to Winter Carnival). I also taught Ricardo a bit for the problem solving club and I tutored a guy for Galois theory (I am very rusty on Galois theory, but I wasn't as rusty this week because I had just read some pages of Paul's number theory book where he goes through some Galois theory to explain some cyclotomy stuff). The classes this week focused on integration by parts and it seems like most of the students got it (although many students skipped the lecture where I actually taught it).

This Thursday Yuliia and I didn't go to salsa because we were tired, but we went Tuesday, now that they are teaching some intermediate class. It wasn't so good, but I think it will get better.

Yuliia has been coming with me to my office as she discovered that it is a place where she can be very productive (to study for her courses).

On Wednesday I played indoor soccer. I joined a league and I play goalkeeper for a team. They have a strange rule where if you're winning by 5 goals the other team can use an extra player. I was holding the fort and not letting any goals in, but once they had an extra player they put one past me. Later we scored another goal so they had the extra man again and they scored another one. We won 7-2, it was very fun, the only bad part was that my hamstring acted up again. I must do something to get my hamstring back into shape. I guess I'll have to do special stretching exercises for weeks before it goes back to normal.

I am excited about Valentine's Day, I have a special surprise for Yuliia.

Review time:
Persepolis 2 The second volume in the story of Marjane Satrapi was very good. It showed more the problems of being a teenager than the repression in Iran (as half of the book is her stay in Austria and feeling alienated). The book was quite good. I am glad I read it.

Amazing Spider-Man #585Pretty good issue, the arc "Character Assassination" is heating up and after many issues we finally know who is "Menace". Good issue with lots happening.

Amelie Watched my favorite movie with Yuliia and was happy to see her enjoy it. I really love this movie, so happy, so clever and the narrative is extraordinary. While watching we had to pause several times because Yuliia doesn't read as fast as she can understand English, it was good practice for her to become an expert of the language.

Hancock Watched this super hero movie which I thought was good but Yuliia thought it was mediocre. It was not as good as the other superhero movies this year (Dark Knight, Iron Man, Hulk are all much better). I thought the plot was interesting and liked the explanation but it wasn't super good, just above average.

Battlestar Galactica I have been watching the last five episodes every Friday (by that I mean, one each Friday) and it has been great. The first one after long hiatus was wonderful, the second one was good, the third and fourth were really good with the mutiny story and this last episode was great. Almost every question was answered and without being ridiculously stupid. I enjoyed the episode very much, I liked the way they narrated the story and answered questions.

Dollhouse I have been looking forward to this TV show since last year. Joss Whedon is definitely my favorite TV creator (Buffy, Angel, Firefly). The first episode was very good and I was happy that there were very few commercials (it seems like the episode was 5 to 7 minutes longer than usual). The plot is very interesting and the setup is great. It left questions to develop in the long run while at the same time having a self contained, entertaining episode that at the same time exposes what the show is all about. I am looking forward to watching this show on a weekly basis.

I have less comics than usual to review as I didn't finish the Immortal Iron Fist comic I was reading (have read about 80% of it) and I started reading "Heir to the Empire" the first out-of-movies Star Wars novel, written by Timothy Zahn. I figured it would be an entertaining read given that it is one of the most famous trilogies in the Star Wars universe and that I used to enjoy reading novels in the Star Wars universe.

Se7en I love this movie. The movie keeps you on your toes throughout the movie, has a great ending and creates a consistent scary atmosphere throughout. Yuliia didn't want me to take her to a movie like this again, but she agreed that the movie was very good. Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt deliver great performances.

Marley and Me Went to watch this movie hoping to make Yuliia feel better after Se7en. The movie created some laughs, some heartfelt moments, but it turned out to have its sad parts. I liked the movie very much, it is much better than the trailers seem to show.

The Spirit I like a lot of Frank Miller's comics, so I had to watch this even though it had bad reviews. Well, it has bad reviews for a good reason. It is boring and doesn't have much of a plot. It has its funny moments, but not as many as it should. The main redeeming factor was when the back story of the Spirit came to light and his funny interactions with other women.

Bride Wars Yuliia had been wanting to see this movie for quite some time and it finally came out. I thought the movie was very funny and although the premise was a bit ridiculous, comedies are allowed to have ridiculous premises now and then. I was the one that laughed the most in the theater by a wide margin and Yuliia was second place, so maybe the other people there didn't like the movie. After noticing it has 12% on RT I can tell other people didn't like it.

Stotan by Chris Crutcher. A short book for young adults which I got from the Country Inn hotels. I liked it quite a bit, it is a fun book about a young swimmer in his last year of high school. It is a nice story. Fun read.

The week can be summed up as eating, reading, shopping, dancing and watching movies. I have eaten very tasty stuff, like some tacos, the lamb curry I love from Sinbad, some delicious desserts and a Ukrainian soup. I finished the Christmas shopping. I went to dance salsa with Yuliia and my mom. I also played some American football. I was playing superbly, we were winning 4-2 and I had two touchdowns and three interceptions but I got injured and I continued to play but without being able to run, so we lost 6-4. I feel better already, but it was very frustrating to not be able to run.

The movies I've watched are:
Horton Hears a Who The very cute animated film has a very nice message about acceptance of others and harmony between people. I liked the movie, it was also quite funny.

Rounders A really cool movie about poker. The main thing to take out of this movie is the conversation of Matt Damon's professor where he explains how he is a lawyer in a family of rabbi's. A very good message that one should do what one feels like doing and makes them happy and not what other people tell you to do. The movie is entertaining too.

The Notebook Given that there are many women I know that consider this their favorite movie, it was time to finally see it. I thought the movie was good but not great, I can see why women would love it, but I didn't feel moved by the story. Yuliia loved the movie and cried for half the movie + one hour after the movie ended. A good movie to watch with a girl.

Yes Man The new movie with Jim Carrey. The movie is hilarious and it has a good message too (be open to new things). I loved it. Yuliia, my mom, my sister, her boyfriend and I were laughing almost nonstop. Great comedy.

The book I read:
Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K Rowling is a book with five fairy tells set in the Harry Potter book. It is supposed to be a very famous book in their universe. The fairy tales were good, specially the Fair Fountain and it was cute to have Dumbledore give a commentary on each fairy tale.

The comics I read:
Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson volume 1. The volume consists of 16 issues where Frank Miller was the artist and the last five issues he is both the artist and the writer (he is the co-writer in two more issues). Essentially the volume gets good once Miller is the sole writer. There were one or two issues of those first 11 that are good, but the last five are at a different level. I had read the first half three weeks ago, but I decided to read other stuff because it was a bit boring. I am glad I came back to the comic, because Miller's run was worth reading.

Fables: War and Pieces This book compiles issues 70-75 of Fables and it is essentially what the first 70 issues had been driving too, the war between Fabletown and the Adversary. The story was great. This series might be the best series I have read. It is truly fantastic. The story relates some cool spy stuff involving Cinderella, then the marvelous plan Fabletown had to win the war, which included blasting all the portals to different worlds, sleeping all of Imperial City by getting Sleeping Beauty to pinch her finger, and using Blue to teleport all over the place with the special robe. The plan seemed to work perfectly, but there were some difficulties because of a special arrow that could miss Bigby and a special dragon plan that destroyed the Arabian flying wooden ship. Prince Charming did a wonderful thing to blow the last gate and Bigby fought the Emperor with the help of blue and the super sword. An awesome story.