Tag Archives: streaming

4+ years of Fandom

Posted by on July 11, 2011 3 comments

For many years I have held a secret. Something that many of my friends would gasp about and possibly revoke my Geek card. It’s been no secret that I am a huge Sci-Fi fan. I own more props, costumes, wall art, toys, etc. than most people (except other geeks like me), but there is something that I had never done that causes most geeks to shiver down to their internal power core.

I had never watched Doctor Who.

Sure, I knew what a TARDIS was, and I was familiar with most of the mythos due to most of my friends being huge fans, but I had never actually seen a single episode. So while browsing through Netflix streaming the other day I noticed that all of the new series (2005-current) was available. I had heard from various friends that if I were to start somewhere, that the 2005 stuff was the way to go. I realize that some purists would say that I should encounter all incarnations of the Doctor, but we are talking baby steps here people!

This is not to say that I won’t go back and watch some early stuff. Since undertaking this task of cramming 6 years of TV into my head, I have already watched 1 story line of the 4th Doctor, and 1 from the 5th, but this is about the newer series that I am going full steam ahead with. That’s not even a joke. A week and a half ago we started with the Christopher Eccleston episodes and have been watching every night, and most of the weekends to catch up to the current Matt Smith seasons. Both Sarah and I have become incredibly addicted to the series.

You may think that this is a good thing, right? Lots of people enjoy The Doctor! Problem is that when I dive into a series like this, I dive into the deep end and keep swimming down. Because of this, I have been stuffing, not only the TV information, but (currently) 4+ years of Who Fandom into my noggin. Catching up on props, T-shirts, costumes, videos, etc.. It’s almost maddening, but I love it so much! I am even now drafting plans for the building of a full scale TARDIS. I have the tools and the space, and I love woodworking, so why not?

So what about the shows? Well, I agree with all of those who told me to start with the 2005 series. The pacing on them are much more up to date with current shows. I went back and watched a few of the older shows and it just seems so much slower and wooden. I will work my way through them slowly but I really love the new format. As far as Doctors go, I really feel bad for Christopher Eccleston. He was a great Doctor and should have been given more time. it was pretty clear that they used him to springboard off of and show that the regeneration of the Doctor is still ongoing. CE was also a great tie in to the older shows as he took that campy brit humor and ran with it (and holy cow, the hair!). We have just finished up with Season 4 and the end of the David Tennent run. I liked DT as a Doctor and he certainly added a lot of the genius ramble to the character, but I think that CE will remain as “My Doctor”.

Which brings us to where we are now. We watched the first episode of season 5, the Matt Smith Doctor. It is way too early to decide my feelings on him. He certainly has that campy but modern feeling down. Time will tell. In the meantime, look for progress posts on the various builds I am doing and well as follow along as I dive deeper into a fandom that spans almost 50 years!

What are you playing?

Posted by on July 20, 2010 7 comments

I have been thinking of trying to get a weekly post up of what I am playing and maybe put it out to see what you guys are playing as well. I have seen a lot of sites do this to get a good discussion going and maybe get some ideas about a game I wouldn’t normally pick up.  So, seeing as how I am the only one here, I’ll go first.

The past week or two I have been working on some house type stuff and reconfiguring things on my network.  After picking up the new Xbox 360S (I traded in my old 20gb Xbox) I decided to upgrade my router to a Wireless N to use the new Xbox’s N device.  I bought the Belkin Play Dual Band Wireless N router and replaced my crappy Netgear G.  Long story made short, I can’t stream media from my PC to the xbox anymore and have no idea why.  While I am not a hard core network guy, I still know my way around a subnet and have spent the past 2 weeks tweaking and such to figure this out.  It’s kind of a pain.

Outside of that I have been playing some Lego Harry Potter with Sarah.  It’s one of those games where we pretty much only play together.  I believe we are towards the end of Book 3 right now.  the Quick review on it, it’s a Lego game.  Same basic premise and humor.  That’s not a bad thing, because I love the Lego games.  Aside from that I have picked up Risk: Factions from the Xbox Live Arcade.  They found a way to really make a Risk game fun for everyone!  We have played as a family, as well as through the solo campaign.  Enjoyable all around.  May have more of a full review on it up soon.

In the life department, I also picked up an Elliptical machine and am using it to get back into some sort of shape that’s not “round”.  My hope is to turn some of this belly fat into muscle in time for DragonCon at the beginning of September.  We’ll See, as of this morning I was at 192lb.  My target is Around 175lb but I would be happy with a strong 180-185lbs.  The goal is not so much loss but re-distribution.  Wish me luck!