This is one of the many reasons that YouTube is awesome. How else could I have seen this?
Share and enjoy.
Category Archives: Television
Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager
Discovered this while checking out G4TV’s ‘daily nut’ video podcast (no link love as its really, really terrible, but does point you in the direction of occasional cool web things).
Check out Chad – proper geek humour right here.
Torch + wood + H + D = Angel + Wales
Thanks to Tom, not only did I get to pretend to be one of the fabulous Lib Dem gliterati (as opposed to the mere Lib Dem sympathiser that I am), but I also got to see a preview screening of the new BBC3 drama Torchwood.
V. exciting. It is basically Angel, in Wales. The leading lady is awesome, and the leading dude, despite his decided Americanness, does have a long coat. And is also called Captain Jack. And whilst he’s no Jack Sparrow, Jack Harkness does like to stand on tall buildings, which, in HD, looks spectacular. Maybe also not in HD, but the HD looked good.
Tom observed that, like Buffy and Angel, Torchwood is a spin-off set in a city to the west of the original**, about a man, who is immortal, with some kind of detective agency. Biggest difference is that they’re fighting Aliens, not demons (though they look similar) and that Torchwood is based out of Cardiff… debatably less glamorous than LA. That said… it looks great!
Anyway, ’twas much of the goodness. Have set my Tivo to record. Would recommend you all to be watching. Very nice!
**…the original being Doctor Who, which the observant of you will notice, is an anagram of Torchwood… and vice versa…
Hero vs. Anti-Hero
Chris pointed me to this review of an early Star Trek: TNG episode. It’s very, very funny, and actually seems to be written by Will Wheaton, who played [[Wesley Crusher]]. But it highlights a choice that the writers made about Wesley: that they were going to make him a very straight-laced hero. Which is the polite way of saying, a complete and utter loser. Which is a polite way of saying all the worse things viewers thought about the character.
I suggested that [[Lobo]] might have made a more appropriate character base for the character – no-nonsense, tough guy, who swears a lot and lives by his own rules. And not even them. Lives by no rules at all. What a crazy cat he would be.
If only it were that simple. I am glad that this decade has seen a slight rejection of the traditional conventions of heroism – there’s a bit more darkness in the heroes lighting up the screen and stage. From Harry Potter to Ghost Rider to Spidey and back again – few have the tedious do-goodishness of Wesley.
[tags]startrek, comics, lobo, wesley, writing, heroes[/tags]
Update
Sorry for relative sparseness of posts of late, this weekend in particular. There’s load of stuff I’ve been meaning to blog on but have been spread fairly thin and have a pretty busy week ahead, so things are likely to continue to be quiet.
A very rapid update on what’s been keeping me out of commission:
I’ve been treating my addiction to Lost, and am getting onto the second season now. It’s v. exciting, and there’s some fantastic storytelling in there. Character-driven fiction; simply wonderful, and something that the big screen really doesn’t seem to do as well (on the whole) than the little screen.
I’ve been getting my “studio” in order. Those of you who know me know that I at least like to pretend to be musical, and have, erm, well, some equipment. And have just finished hooking it all back up for recording – so may bash out some song-attempts, now that I have a drum machine in place to deal with my own rhythmic inadequacies… Now where did I put those MIDI cables? And where’s Pob when you need him?
I’ve been shoe-shopping: I’ve had quite bad shin splints for a while so am finally getting the physio I need for them. Good new shoes are going to be a cornerstone of that treatment process, and a very tedious visit to Oxford Street today is sending me straight to Run and Become (conveniently near the office) to get some proper recommendations. I’m almost glad they have a completely inadequate e-commerce facility, as the in-person-ness is crucial for this.
My cousin David has come to stay for the next few weeks; he’s a media engineer, essentially, interning at a post-production studio for the next month or so. More on that later; David’s a mac-fan and a geek in lots of the same ways I am (comic books, Lost, technology, etc) — so we’ll probably have a few good chats at least ;). I’m not a mac-fan, you may have noticed, so… Mac vs PC… FIGHT.
I’ve installed Office 2007 beta. Yes, yes, I know I’m crazy – further destablising my PC and slowing it all down… but I do like the new MS toys and having spent months reading about it and the last two months trying to implement a version of Sharepoint that really, really does not support blogging (the new version, according to a Scoble interview I watched bits of on Channel 9, supports blogging and Wikis natively)… well, I thought I’d give it a whirl. Initial thoughts? It sure is purty… and of course I decided against installing Sharepoint on my home machine anyway!
We went to the Comedy Store last night for the midnight showing, too. 5 acts, 5 accents (Indian, Welsh, Irish, American, ‘London’, and a geordie compere) — one entertaining evening. Although was knackered by the time it wrapped up at 2.30am…
And, of course, the most exciting thing this weekend was… SUPERMAN RETURNS. But I really need to spend some time crafting that post. It will have some feeling put into it.
Signing out for now… The Arminator.
Movie on demand, oh yeah
I was feeling slightly under the weather yesterday so came home an collapsed in front of the TV – to find that, as we’re out of season for most of my favourite programming (with the notable exception of the new series of Scrubs…) that there wasn’t much on.
So I finally got around to checking out the on-demand experience that is Lovefilm. Now, I really don’t like the Sky on-demand experience – and renting the film off Lovefilm cost exactly the same amount but was in a format that I – as an ubergeek, I guess – was comfortable with, and with a payment method I was happy with. £3.49 on my credit card and 20 minutes later (how long it takes for 1 gig of hi-res DRMmed video content to come down an 8 meg pipe), I had my movie.
An altogether painless experience.
Of course, rather too many stumbling blocks for the average user – I have TV-out, am unintimidated by the need to enter a password into Windows Media Player, erm, have the latest version of Windows Media Player… etc.
So just a little bit pre-mass market. But do recommend it to anyone with the tech-savvy to make it work.
Oh – the film, btw, was the Dukes of Hazzard (2005 remake). And I don’t recommend that, really, for any reason other than the pretty people in it. Which isn’t a recommendation. Don’t see this film. Under any circumstances.
Product placement does work
Just watched an episode of Lost (more on that later…) in which a couple of the characters mock someone else for trying to “pick the lock on a Halliburton.” I had no idea what that was… and Google pointed me to this.
Now, I have no call for an aluminium suitcase, but if I did… I’d want one of them. Same goes for IP phones and self defending networks (one of my clients…).
Procrastination is the root of all daytime television viewing
Have had to bring home some work this weekend (argh!), due in part to looming deadlines and the fact that I go on holiday next week and have quite a bit to mop up. So, what happens? The weather turns nice, after a week of rain, cold and misery – and I lose all ability to knuckle down, and spent half the morning watching cooking programmes on television.
MAN. I need to reclaim my Saturday and soak up some sunshine… as you can see from my new masthead photo, my tan is fading somewhat ;)
R/Micky = Ace Rimmer
Ok, so am quite tired and aware the blog posts are getting less structured, but wanted to get this thought down before it faded into meaninglessness in my notebook. Ricky (or is it Mickey) from the new Dr Who is the equivalent of Rimmer/Ace Rimmer from Red Dwarf, don’t you think? At least if you’ve seen the Cybermen episodes… A moment of redemption for a lifetime of mediocrity. That’s the stuff.
More thought through post on the greatness of the new Dr Who series to come (with the possible exception of the Cybermen episodes, although the jury’s out on that one); when I’m feeling less knackered.
Crikey, some geeky posts tonight. Gaming and Dr Who. Tomorrow I will post about women and sport and, erm, BEER, to prove my manliness. Oh yeah…
Randy is a genius
Have had a number of conversations with people about Earl of late – probably at least in part due to frustration about missing it this week when Sky was down. There is a consistent agreement that the Way of Randy is a reassuring and calming path to walk. Although I always bring it up as a joke to explain to people what the show is and why I like it, a remakarable proportion of the people I’ve mentioned it to who enjoy the show have developed their own empathy for Randy.
What a guy.