September Gone?

Holy "Bleep" Batman September is almost over and I didn't do diddly squat with this. OK I did update my "CDs" Listened to sidebar, and I think a blog link or two. other than that Mrs. Lincoln...

Moving ON, IN or OUT?

Wow almost the end of August and I haven't updated here. That is mostly because of my move at the beginning of the month. All my time has been devoted to unpacking, well and also some rehearsing and performances of My Emperor's New Clothes. Did I mention that here? Well if not I guess I will someday in reminiscing about it. Anywho, due to scheduling errors and my cell phone being packed away in the moving truck I still don't have my cable/internet hooked up. Technically my cable should have been transferred to my apartment as a simple move, but I think the Comcast boneheads screwed it up. I know the guy I was going to have do the work, that my apartment complex uses was going to have me cancel my older cable and then start fresh. I ended up calling Comcast directly to get a clearer idea of what my new service would be, even though it will cost me slightly more than what the other guy was quoting. Why can't they offer the price he was offering? Anyway it is supposed to be just a simple transfer the cable and add the internet and now add a landline phone (apparently the 3-in-1 package costs the same as just having the twofer of cable and internet, weird).

Well next Tuesday (26 August) is when Comcast is supposed to come by and install the internet and phone line and transfer the cable. Hopefully things will be OK then and I can forget about all these problems. Good thing I have credit on my Comcast account, but unfortunately I have the credit because I overpaid last time. UGH! Another weird thing is when I try to check things online it seems that my old account was plain canceled not transferred so if that is really the case I am more steamed, but since things should be fixed on Tuesday I should be fine after that.

Left Turns, Alternate Realities and Stuff

Last week I watched the Doctor Who episode Left Turn on Sci-Fi Channel. Without giving too much away and without giving a full blown review I will just say it was about alternate realities. The episode had sort of a Sliding Doors feel to it, taking a left turn instead of a right turn. See what happens when you do that? I really should get around to doing more reviewing here when I get the chance. I really haven't of late due to equal parts apartment hunting and sheer laziness. I have succeeded in both. I am super lazy and found an apartment.

This weeks episode of Doctor Who is part one of the season 4 finale. From what I've seen and heard it is a recent past companionsfest. As with many episodes of this latest incarnation of the good doctor I am both looking forward to it and dreading it. Looking forward to it because I'm a Whovian (or Wholigan) and dreading it because they are bound to have overdone something and not done enough of something else.

Books, Books, Books And More Books!

Recently I had been having problems with one of the book tracking sites I use, bibliophil.org. First I was having problems logging in, it turns out I was trying to use what I thought was my password except I had an extra character. UGH all these passwords for every single little website. Then their forums go down, well actually it has been taken down now due to problems with hackers and spammers. No problem I rarely use the forum anyway, but the list I tend to refer to now and then, although not very often.

Anyway I had intended to use listal.com as an alternate several months back, but haven't gotten around to populating it too much. There you can also track Movies, TV Shows, CDs and I think make lists of stuff. Then the realization that I didn't have a reliable back-up to my collection as listed on bibliophil sort of sucked. To complicate matters some (besides the fact that I don't have ALL my books listed on any site) the bibliophil site was down for at least a day, maybe it was down for longer, I'm not sure.

Well the time came to search for another reliable book tracking site (similar to my fave DVD site DVDSpot.com, and the long gone GuzzleFish.com Multi-media site) I found an article or two and a blog post or three for possible sites and of course kept running into my longtime book site enemy LibraryThing.com but I don't like that site. The main reason I don't like it is, it is only free if you have less than 200 books to list. If you have more than 200 books you need to upgrade to a paid membership ($10 yearly or $20 Lifetime I think). I also kept running into some of these book community trading/book club sites that would be cool if I wanted to trade books around, but I'm a selfish bastard and want to keep my books. I suppose for some of my books I may sometime trade, give away or sell them, but I don't want that as my main focus.

Long story short I found a site that suits my needs and is similar in someways to bibliophil.org, except it seems to be more reliable and probably gets updated faster. It is called Goodreads.com and it seems to be pretty user friendly. The community aspect of it reminds me of the early days of amazon.com when they had a forums/community section. You can explore the world of books, browse other members collections, contact them, make friends socialize or do whatever bookwise. I LIKE IT! I think I will still keep my bibliophil list active as long as they are still around, or I grow tired of them. LOL.

So in short some collecting sites.

BOOKS:
Goodreads.com - Very Good site for collectors.
bibliophil.org - OK site for collectors.
listal.com - OK fair to midlin site. Seems to cater to those who want a community atmosphere.
LibraryThing.com - OK book site for people with small collections or those who trade their books often.

CDS/Music:
rateyourmusic.com - OK site for tracking CD and Record collections. Mostly alternative and specialized genres, but good for overall. Sometimes the moderators are picky about what gets added or how to do it.
CDComplete.com - Barebones CD tracking site, not updated very often, needs major improvements and needs to become more user-friendly.
listal.com - OK fair to midlin site.

DVDS:
DVDSpot.com - Excellent collection tracking site for DVD collections. This is the creme of the crop in my opinion. The moderators have some strange attitudes, but then you don't have to visit the forums if you don't want. LOL! This site is my litmus/acid test for all other collection tracking sites. Very user friendly and the people there are very helpful.
listal.com - OK fair to midlin site.
DVDAficionado - Was a decent DVD collection tracking site, but is slow to update. A fairly recent update to the site has made it super ridiculous. It isn't as user-friendly as it once was (it was never really great in that department). The front index page doesn't look like a site that would be for DVD collecting, I don't know what to expect from it. Well that is what happens to sites that are run by huge mega corporations.
GuzzleFish.com - Dead and Gone but not forgotten. This site was a great CD,DVD,Record,Video Game collection tracking site, it might have done comics too I forget.

Tragedy For Comedy

This past Sunday (22 June, 2008) the world of comedy lost one of it's true geniuses to a heart attack.

George Carlin

(1937-2008)

Best known for his offbeat very politically incorrect cerebral humor, and clever use of words. One of his best known routines was "The 7 words you can't say on television" those words still can't be said on regular broadcast television but they run wild on cable television. Although mostly known for his stand-up and frequent HBO specials, he appeared in several movies including: Dogma, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure along with it's sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. He also had his own short-live sitcom "The George Carlin Show" and was the very first guest host on NBC's Saturday Night Live back in 1975.

His comedy covered every area of life, from the personal observations to the things in peoples everyday life (the little world) to politics, religion, world events (the big world). He also wrote 3 books were were big sellers; Brain Droppings, Napalm and Silly Putty and When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops? Funny Stuff. (OK I've only read Brain Droppings, but I want to get and read the other two sometime.)

On The Move

I haven't posted lately because I have been doing a lot of packing for moving, and still have a ton of more packing to do. I'm posting this message to get my May posting quota in. I fell behind in my posting my reviews about the sci-fi television episodes of my fave shows I've seen. Torchwood finished up their season 2 a couple of weeks ago (I'm jonesin' for a new episode already), and Doctor Who Season 4 has begun being shown on the Sci-Fi Channel, and the other spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures has been shown on Sci-Fi. In fact this last friday I totally forgot about the shows and missed The SJA episodes, Sci-Fi only shows them once they don't rerun them, I did catch the Doctor Who episode for friday though, they rerun that at least. Comcast Cable doesn't put it on demand but the Sci-Fi Channel at least shows it several times. It was OK, a little better than I thought it would be, but I still don't like the Ood Aliens. They remind me of the Mind-Flayers monsters in Dungeons and Dragons.

TORCHWOOD Episode 2.11 "Adrift"

Eve Myles and John Barrowman

TORCHWOOD
Episode 2.11
"Adrift"

**WARNING - This Episode Review contains SPOILERS!**

This episode was a middle excitement level episode. This one concentrated on yet another mystery within the bowels of Torchwood. Gwen (Eve Myles) learns of the mysterious disappearance of a teenager she soon learns that it is just one of many unexplained disappearances. During her investigation, which she starts unofficially but with help from her former Police partner, she discovers that the disappearances are related to negative power spikes to the Cardiff Rift. Instead of aliens coming to Earth, people from Earth are going somewhere else. She asks Jack (John Barrowman) to launch an official Torchwood investigation into it, but he refuses on the grounds that it is too big a problem in scope for them to do anything about it without exposing publicly all of what Torchwood is. She also learns a Torchwood secret, some of the victims have returned and Torchwood is keeping them in a secret location for many obvious reasons.

As usual I enjoyed this episode, even though as I said it was a middle of the road episode. There was a homo erotic Eww moment between Jack and Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) when Gwen catches them naked together. Moving on. The way this plot was there was no real conclusion, just knew knowledge of a problem that can't be fixed but needs to be dealt with in some way.

Viewed on 07April2008 at 20:00 on BBC America (On Demand)
Promo Picture by BCC - ***

A Recent Read Number 10

"Just because it's not ours doesn't mean it it's the wrong one! We could be from the 'wrong reality'!"

**WARNING THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!**

Doctor Who: Reckless Engineering by Nick Walters Wow another mind-boggling Doctor Who story. This Doctor Who story takes place during the Eighth Doctor's Incarnation. The Doctor is traveling with his novel only companions Fitz and Anji. I'm not sure which story they started with, but since they are from different times, Fitz from the 1960s and Anji from the 1990s or early 2000s they joined at separate times. Any who in this story the Doctor and his companions find themselves dealing with an alternate reality. It is 2003 to them, but in this reality a temporal disturbance called "The Cleansing" occurred in 1843 and to the people in this reality it is the year 160. The industrial revolution never happened in this reality of year 160 and it is against the law to speak of the The Cleansing. Nobody knows what caused the Cleansing, many think it was an act of God so they don't question it. The truth of the matter is that under the influence of an alien from the distant future a young engineer creates a machine called the Utopian Engine he is told will save the alien's race from dying by bringing them back to the past and in return they will help man with all sorts of technical and medical advancements. Well of course it was a lie (in part) true the alien race was dying, but they didn't care about mankind at all typical. The Utopian machine was flawed and instead of bringing the aliens back, it created a temporal jump of forty years to occur within a minute. Children suddenly found themselves in grown up bodies with long hair and fingernails and all the adults and animals were suddenly rotting corpses. The Doctor is faced with trying to figure out what this Cleansing thing is, which he doesn't like from the very beginning, and then finding a way to corrected the damage it has done. The problem is more complicated than it appears and it appears to be impossible to solve.

I'm not a huge fan of Doc number eight so this story dragged for me in some areas. Also the companions Anji and Fitz get boring fast. Fitz is a typical cocky fight first companion who tends to act without thinking things through first, and Anji (who I think is of middle eastern origins from India I think) has to deal with racism and sexism. Even though these characters have appeared in many other Doctor Who books, I think it is only the second one that I have read with them in it. I should try to track down the books where they first appear to get a better grasp of who these characters are. In the meantime I find them sort of dull. By the way this particular book I didn't initially pick up by choice, it was packaged with an issue of a Doctor Who magazine as a "Freebie" but with the price of the magazine and the added cost of it being an import from the UK I don't really think I got much of a bargain with the combo.

Doctor Who: Reckless Engineering by Nick Walters 2003 BBC Worldwide LTD 270 pages - ***

A Recent Read Number 9

"When I woke up that morning, it didn't take me long to realize there were dogs in my nose."

Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin. Before becoming a big box office movie star Steve Martin rose to the top of the stand-up comic ranks. He was a frequent guest host for the original cast Saturday Night Live, often he would be the first host of a new season, which is why some people mistakenly think he was the first to ever host SNL. That honor my friends goes to George Carlin. Anyway it was during this time (late 1970s) that Steve wrote this book, which is just a hodge podge collection of strange, weird and often funny stories and ideas. Some of them are quick one-liners while others run a page or two very few are more than two pages long. Some of the bits, all of which have titles and are listed under the table of contents, get to the point of the joke right away, while some take sometime and make you scratch your head and wonder what the point is. Then there are the totally absurd bits like "How To Fold Soup".

It is a quick and easy read as there are only 120 some pages with many of those having black and white photos from Steve on stage doing his stand up. The humor ranges from slightly humorous and only worth a slight smile to outrageously hilarious. I took about a week to read this as I would read one or two bits and then put it down, but it can be read in a very short period of time depending on your reading speed and length of laugh breaks. Fun and very silly book.

Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin 1977 G.P. Putnam's Sons 128 pages - ****.5

TORCHWOOD Episode 2.10 "From Out Of The Rain"

Pearl (Camilla Power) and The Ghostmaker ( Julian Bleach)

TORCHWOOD

Episode 2.10
"From Out Of The Rain"

This episode started sort of slow, but was quite enjoyable. It wasn't as action packed as last weeks episode but it still held it's own. There was one bit that made me scratch my head thinking they will explain it later on in the episode but they didn't really, I guess I'll have to watch it again to try and find the answer I am seeking. Since I've procrastinated on this review, I peaked at a couple of other reviews of this episode, and found that others seem to be disappointed by this episode. Some call it the worst written episode of the entire series. They seem to do what many do with films and DVDs they take it too seriously. I'm not saying to turn your brain off, all I am saying is don't over-analyze it. I mean come on the whole concept of the series takes a major suspension of disbelief to begin with. The Torchwood team's headquarters is in an abandoned subway excuse me tube station that sits above a major rift in the "time/Space" continuum, and their leader is from some unknown future and is apparently immortal.

Without giving too much away this episode dealt with some beings of unknown origins, maybe alien, that literally take your breath away. They steal the last breath of their victims and keep them contained in a metal flask. Known as the "Night Travelers" from legends, these creatures came from out of an old film of a traveling side-show. A part of Capt. Jack's (John Barrowman) past was partly reviled, but not fully explained. Even thought the Night Travelers threat was stopped, the door was left wide open for them to return someday.

I found it interesting that Gwen (Eve Myles) was in this episode as she is supposed to be on her honeymoon. I guess the Gwen/Rhys homeymoon episodes come later in the series? OK so the series continity is slightly off, since Gwen appears prominently in next weeks episode.

Viewed on 29Mar2008 at 21:00 BBC America ***.5
Image by BBC via The Institute website http://torchwood.time-and-space.co.uk/v1/index.php