New Year's Eve 2011

Another year in the books bye-bye 2011 and hello 2012. I'm not one to make new year's resolutions mostly because I would never write them down and after a few weeks forget what it was I was going to try to do or not to do for the year. I guess I do have some ongoing resolutions though: Get better organized, try to keep up with all the various intenety things I do (yeah like that one will happen).

Soon I will post up the December DVDs and Books. I got a ton of books in December. I went Ebay shopping happy. I was going to try to do those tonight for the last entry/entries for the year but fell a bit behind in planning things. OH well "the best laid plans of mice and men".

UPDATE: Internet Annoyances

Final Update for The Internet's Little Annoyances Now the dreaded blue bar is gone. Must have been a temporary glitch. Hopefully it wasn't a virus.

UPDATE: 02 Dec 2011:  I spoke TOO Soon the dame thing is back. CRAP! I hate when webservices make changes without giving advanced notice they are making a change. Stupid mofos.

UPDATE: 03 Dec 2011: FINALLY Found a sollution. Had to add some "filters" to my Adblock Plus:How to Hide blue "Click here to start sharing Google+" bar Fenistil's 3 filter solution worked. The "LOG INTO" Google solution didn't as I was already in Google when I noticed the damn thing.

Book Update: November Books

NOVEMBER 2011 BOOKS

Not much this month. I did get another book from the MLB Insiders Club I have to double check to see the title I think it was "Greatest Rivalries" or something of that nature. I'm not really concerned about that right now. Anyway the bulk of what I got I found at decent prices on Ebay since I haven't been to a proper bookstore lately and the ones I've dashed in didn't have these books when I looked.

STAR TREK (2009)

First up the Novel version of the most recent Star Trek Movie (2009) by Alan Dean Foster. His adaptations of stories for films are usually pretty good. I hadn't planned on getting this book but it is the first book to read for a sci-fi book club I joined at goodreads.com. The schedule for this group as it stands right now seems to be that every other month we will read a book and discuss it while reading it. I think the wide birth of reading time is to give people time to pick up the next book to be discussed.

WAREHOUSE 13: A TOUCH OF FEVER

Next up is the first book based on the Sci-Fi Channel hit show Warehouse 13. Hopefully there will be many more books in this series. This one Warehouse 13: A Touch of Fever by Greg Cox sounds interesting but I'll find out when I read it if it is an exciting enough story to start a book series with. Who knows.

Incoming:

DOCTOR WHO: THE STONE ROSE

Speaking of "Who" this final one is a more recent Doctor Who book with the David Tennant Doctor (#10). Another book I'm getting via Ebay due to arrive in early December Doctor Who: The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner. It is the second book for my goodreads sci-fi book club which we don't start reading till March. I'm not sure if I can wait that long. The companion for this story is Rose Tyler.

The internet's little annoyances.

ARGH! Don't you just hate when a website, service or browser you have used forever makes a sudden unannounced change that you can't opt out of?

Take the latest annoyance from Google.

I am talking about the blue bar with this blue bar:

As far as I can tell there is no way to remove the advertising blue bar that wants you to start using Google Plus and ignore anything you are enjoying with the standard Google. Once you start using the regular Google search the thing goes away until you click refresh, or in my case go back to your browser's home page because I have Google set as my Home page.

I use the latest version of Firefox with AdBlock Plus and that doesn't hide the dang thing yet, that I know of.

When will the programers for major internet programs/applications realize that making sudden unannounced changes with no opt out feature really pisses of your customers/users?

UPDATE: Weird my machine at work doesn't show the bar. I thought I had the same settings for both home and work 'puters. Maybe the extra security blockers that my company's firewalls block out have something to do with it. More likely it hasn't hit my work computer yet.

Need to catch up on Book Reviews

I have really fallen behind in my book reviewing. I have 13 books that I have read over the last year and a half (closer to almost two years) that I have not written a "recent read" for. I am trying to catch up on that the next two I have the drafts set up with the book cover image and the publication history info I like to include at the end but I don't have the book quote or the actual review written. So technically the next several reviews will not be "a recent read". Maybe I should do away with the "recent" bit and not bother with numbering my reviews... I might do that when it hits #20. I don't want to have juggle with two review lists the other one would be something like "a classic read" or "a not so recent read" but I'm sure I would soon get confused and also confuse anyone who bothers reading my reviews.

So I will probably just have to title the future reviews as whatever the book title is plus "review" and forget about being anal retentive with numbers.

DVD Update - August thru October

 AUGUST - OCTOBER 2011

It has been many many moons since I've updated any of this blog, ACK the last few minutes of October are passing me by. This update has just August and September DVD purchases since I didn't get any in October, although I do have a couple of discs in transit from Columbia House.

NOTE: At the time I started working on this post my Amazon Associates link thing wasn't working properly so I couldn't add the links I wanted to, perhaps I'll have to edit later to improve this entry.

 

Source Code

First up in August I went to Target and got a DVD that I had forgotten I also had on order from Columbia House. It was the Sci-Fi Action Time-Loop movie Source Code. It is a blind buy. The first thing about the film from the trailers I've seen is the main plot of having to go back into the past just before some tragic event and try to make it right, re-doing it if you fail. Sort of along the lines of the 90s TV Show Seven Days.

 

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Moving back a little further through time we have the Third installment of The Mummy Franchise The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I haven't watched my DVD of it yet but I have seen the flick. Got this from Columbia House.

The Jerk: 26th Anniversary Edition

This Classic Steve Martin comedy I got for real cheap at one of my local Safeway stores. Excellent comedy with the classy Bernadette Peters. They worked well together, too bad it was only because they were dating at the time.

Termination Point

A sight unseen very B-grade Sci-fi Time Travel movie. Perhaps straight to DVD starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Jason Priestley. Again a very cheap purchase from Safeway.

National Lampoon's Pucked

Yet again a Safeway sight unseen B-Grader this time a Sophomore or perhaps Freshman comedy from National Lampoon called Pucked looks like a parody of high-school Hockey flicks with a girls team. These movies can be very Hit or Miss.

That was the August fair next the two September Flicks I got.

Thor

First up from Columbia House as the Director's Choice of the Month pick one of the latest Superhero flicks from Marvel Comics Thor. Looks to be 10 times better than that Hulk vs. Thor Made for TV movie from the late 1980s.

Zulu

The last entry was a DVD I got from one of my friends so it was a Freebie. He upgraded to Blu-Ray so he gave me this copy. This historical action Classic starring Micheal Caine might make one want to chant weird things.

Marlins change name in 2012 (sort of)

 Just a quickie. Next season the Florida Marlins will become the Miami Marlins. Technically the name changes on 11 November.

I wonder could this be their new logo?

It's Almost like 2005 all over again!

The Washington Nationals finished the 2011 MLB season in a pretty good state. Since moving to DC and becoming the Nationals the Ex-Montreal Expos have never had a winning season. In their inaugural season of 2005 the team was at an even .500 with 81 wins 81 losses. The franchise's last winning season was 2003 when they went 83-79 and were in 4th place in their division. The year before 2002 they had the same winning record 83-79 but landed second place. You have to go back to 1969 with the Washington Senators (the franchise that would become the Texas Rangers in 1972) to have a winning season in Washington Baseball they went 86-76 finishing in 4th place.

Since being in DC the team has usually finished in last place (5th in the NL East) well 2011 the Nats had their second best season of 80-81 just one game under .500. They had a rained out home game with the Los Angeles Dodgers so they could have been 81-81 the way they had been going this season, or they could have been 80-82 two games under .500. Oh and they finished 2011 in 3rd place just 3 games over the NY Mets and 8 over the Florida Marlins (who will be the Miami Marlins next season, actually their name will change this November 11). They were .500 in the division at 36-36 and had a winning Home record with 44-36

So 2012 should be a pretty good season for the Nats. Watch out National League East the Nats are beginning to be contenders and not pretenders.

July DVD Update

Here is my DVD Update for the month of July.

These first three DVDs were ordered in late June. Two were released on the 28th but Columbia House didn't ship until the 30th the last day. The other one was released on 21 June and was my Columbia House Director's Choice for July. It arrived on the first of July.

The Adjustment Bureau: From the previews of this it seems like a sort of Inception meets Dark City sort of movie. I generally don't go for Matt Damon adventure movies but this one looked like it would be pretty good and it has some nice eye candy in Emily Blunt.

Warehouse 13: This is season two of the show.  It introduces the character Helena Wells AKA: H.G. Wells as a bad character who redeems herself later on, or tries to.

Sucker Punch: I think this movie is based on anime characters or a video game of some kind? Not sure, but I really liked the previews when I first saw them.

Blazing Saddles: 30th Anniversary Special Edition: Classic Mel Brooks. Classic Gene Wilder. What else could you want? Actually I'll have to find a comparison of this edition to some of the others. I might have to dubble dip.

July Books Update

Here are the books I got in July. This first batch I almost thought about making it's own little post since they are from the same series. I still might have to do a special posting on this series sometime. Anyway on with what I've gotten during the month of July.

These first four books are from the series of sci-fi books based on the early 1980s television series "V" which fans know is about a race of reptilian aliens who disguise themselves as being more humanoid. They pretended to come in peace but really wanted to conquer and take all our water and resources. I didn't know it at the time but after about a year or so the series of books switched from being published by Pinnacle Books (the same US publishers who published a 10 book series of Doctor Who Novels from televised stories) for the first 11 books to being published by TOR Books (the folks who published the popular Fantasy series Gor by John Norman) for the final 5 books + the new novelization of the original story (of the original mini-series and "Final Battle" mini-series in one book) re-edited to tie into the "Second Generation" which is the novelization setting up the reboot television series. With the change in publisher I noticed a slight change in the cover designs. The Original Pinnacle books have the book title and author's name at the bottom, while the TOR books have the author's name and book title at the top of the cover.

 

The Crivit Experiment by Allen Wold. When I first saw the author's name I thought it was weird (my contacts were not focused right) that someone would use the pen name Alien World. Silly me.

Path To Conquest by Howard Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein might be more well known for his involvement of Star Trek novels and Trek Conventions.

Below The Threshold by Allen Wold. There is that Alien World guy again.

Symphony Of Terror by Somtow Sucharitkul. This is this author's second V series book the first one I already have (but haven't read) was called The Alien Swordmaster. From the synopsis on the back of this one it looks like the author is once again pulling from his Thia heritage since there is a Ninja in this one.

I found a nice cover gallery on a website for these books plus the UK versions of the books which I think I will try to pursue sometime. www.tonystrading.co.uk V Books Gallery The only thing they don't show is the very original green cover to the book "The Pursuit of Diana" I think that was only a hardback version. They even have the "Annuals" that were published in the UK (they do that thing over there). I have the 1986 one.

Switch to another genre completely.

MLB Insiders Club 

I got another installment from the MLB Insiders Club Book Library. The series that is like those Time-Life series that have 20-30 books or more and you get one book every 6 weeks or so for about $20-$30 or whatever they charge. This latest book is "Inside The All-Star Game". I get a little frustrated with these books and the occasional DVDs the MLBIC sends me because they are never in any database of known books or DVDs in the collection tracking sites I use. So sorry there is no picture of the books cover. I don't think I'll get a chance to scan mine in before I post this at the end of the month.

Next up to Bat:

Safe At Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic by Alyssa Milano.This is sort of an autobiography mixed in with a fangirl's ravings of her fave team and the sport that she learned to love because of her father.

June DVD Update

OK Time for the DVD stuff I got in June Starting with some Doctor Who DVDs I hinted at in the May report that I technically ordered and paid for via Paypal on 30 May. They came in on Thursday 02 June, but I couldn't pick them up from the post office til Saturday 04 June.

Doctor Who: Dreamland This is the second Animated Doctor Who DVD that I know about and have. (The first one is Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest with Martha Jones as the companion) Both animated adventures were shown on TV in the UK but not here in the States. This adventure though has two new companions not in the television series, they are one time companions or "one-offs" I suppose (I still prefer to say "one-of"). I have watched this one and it is a fun watch. The animation is computer generated and is a little choppy and jumpy in some spots but once I got into the story I hardly noticed the problems with using computer animation. This DVD has a bonus disc that contains the 2009 mini-series Doctor Who Greatest Moments. I'm not sure if this has been shown on US television or not. BBCAmerica has shown the occasional Doctor Who Mini-Series or inserts the interview clips from these things (Doctor Who Confidential - the extra bits they put on some of the DVDs) so often I can't keep track of which have been shown.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol This is the 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special. Yes it is based on the Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" story. It is not bad, it is very enjoyable even if a little predictable.The producers of Doctor Who probably at the fan's requests have wanted to do a Doctor Who Christmas Carol for many years.

Doctor Who: The Complete Specials This is what should have been Series 5 (Season 5 for Americans who get confused by the use of the word series) of the Doctor Who reboot series. It is the final DW "series" for actor David Tennant as The Doctor (he makes a cameo in the next DVD I got).

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Third Season As I hinted at above for the specials DVD this DVD has The Doctor show up to help out Sarah Jane Smith.

 

Doctor Who: The Complete Fifth Series Season 5 of Doctor Who the first season with Matt Smith in the title role will Karen Gillan as his traveling companion Amy Pond.

Star Trek: The Animated Series Before there was The Next Generation and a few years before The Motion Picture there was an animated series of Star Trek with the Classic Original Crew (TOS - The Original Series). The cartoon series lasted 2 seasons "finishing" the original five year mission of the USS Enterprise.

Highlander: The Source I haven't yet watched this movie so I forget if it is a prequel or series ending sequel for The Highlander Franchise.

Highlander: The Complete Animated Series I vaguely recall seeing an episode or two of this series on afternoon television. I don't recall if it was a weekday when I was off of work or on a Saturday afternoon. It might have been a Saturday morning.

On an outing to Target I picked up a couple of animated (well one of them is live-action with CGI animation) discs.

Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel I've got the first one might as well get the second one. Need to watch them.

Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! Hard to believe that this was the First full length movie for Hanna-Barbera. I haven't seen this in it's entirety for ages. I've seen a few clips here and there but not the full thing.

Well that is if for the June DVD's close to my biggest month of 13 DVDs August of 2009.