Habby Barfday

Habby Barfday to me
Habby Barfday to me

I look like a monkey
Or a Beeeeg ChimpanZeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Yeah, enough of that I think. It was making my ears bleed too. I’m sorry I put you all through that. Hell I can’t even say I’m drunk enough to justify it. My most humblest apologies.

Yeah, so anyway, as of today I have been around on this little planet for a whopping whole 33 years. A mere blip on the grand scale of things. Am I any smarter/wiser/prettier than I was last year? Not really. Well… Maybe the last one but I certainly don’t feel much different. Though with the numbness that precursors teh onset of frostbite, I wouldn’t feel it now would I. It’s bloody cold here this year. -28C today without windchill, and it was pushing -40 with.

And randomly… I’ve got snow on my birthday *HAPPY dance*. It’s soooooo good, regardless of how cold it is. I love snow!

Anyway, thanks to everyone who’s wished me well today, and to the rest of you !!.. (yeah you can all figure out what that emoticon means if you think hard enough). I’m off to eat some cheesecake. Yar!

A Bit of Blather…

After many months of staring at code, I finally figured out what was wrong with my bloody template that was preventing it from propogating to the blog archive. It was of course the simplest of answers. I hadn’t updated my urls in the code to account for the change to my blog.shadowmyth subdomain. Yeah I know I’m a maroon. It happens. And while I was doing that, I realized that the archive wasn’t showing up properly and probably hasn’t been since I switched over to the new version of blogger. It looks like the archive path changed in the settings for some reason but I fixed it and it’s now is back to pointing at the right place so if any of you were wondering what I had from breakfast 3 years ago, you can now go back and try and find out.

Grumpy

So, I have just heard the news that the powers that be from New Line Cinemas have decided to exclude Peter Jackson from the directorial role in the LotR prequel, The Hobbit.

^%@(*#@@#!!!&*^??!

Stupid idiot wankers who can’t get their collective heads out of their collective arses!. Honestly, who the hell else would you get to direct it? It’s a given. He made you 940 bajillion dollars on the other 3 movies, and you don’t want him to make you more money on this one (probably because he’s suing you currently for a few of those aforementioned bajillions but hey, what’s a few made up numerical figures between colleagues?)

All court case bad blood aside (and from what I’ve read, there isn’t any bad feelings from Peter), I can’t see anyone else who would have the proper scope of vision and passion to direct this. Gah! Right now I can honestly say that there is a very very absolutely strong chance that it’ll be Shite. Yeah, I know that that’s overreacting somewhat, but I stand by my conviction. I may change my mind if/when they announce more details, but I’m seriously hoping for an about face from New Line on this one. Idjits!

An Update and a Test…

Well, just because it’s only been about a week since my last post regarding my nefarious TV addiction I figured it was past time that I give you all an update and as I decided to switch over the “new” version of Blogger I decided that I’d use this post to test and see what our benevolent Google overlords have bolloxed up this time.

First, the fourth episode of Torchwood redeemed the show somewhat for me. It’s still not it’s anagramatic namesake by any stretch, but it’s still fun and I’m looking to see where they’ll go with it. My only gripe now, (other than the pteryodactyl) is the lack of a larger seasonal story arc. It’s all just been individual episodes to date. Hopefully there has been an underlying master plot lurking under the surface of these past four individual episodes that I haven’t noticed and all will be revealed soon.

Second, the nefarious Robin of Sherwood partially hunts again. I’m currently sitting at 55% of 9GB but I’ve managed to D/L all six episodes of the first season, the first two from the second and apparently the whole soundtrack as well (I didn’t even realize that was part of the torrent). It was an absolute and utter joy to watch the show again after so many years. I had forgotten how much the Sherriff berated Gisbourne and how much fun it was to listen to his tirades. I’d forgotten just how damn cool Robin was, how much of a hothead Scarlet was, how much of a sweet, innocent simpleton Much was, and years before Drizzt made two scimitars cool there was
Nasir the silent but deadly Saracen. Best of all, I think I’ve pretty much discovered beyond a shadow of a doubt where my predilection for redheads started. Ah Marian, wherefor art thou Marian. *le sigh*

And finally, I haven’t had any chance to catch up any farther with either Heroes or Battlestar, but I’ve got both series ready and waiting for me. I should get around to them some time this millennia. I’ve just been too busy lately with work and the like.

Anyway, I do believe that this is more than enough blather for me to test out this newer version of Blogger. I guess if you can read this, then it worked.

Stupid is As Stupid Does…

So I log on tonight and go through my regular link trolling and email/rss/blog/forum perusal. When I hit the *cough*news*cough* sites, I suspected there would be at least some information about the Senate and House elections in the US today. Sadly though, the top news story on 3 out of the 4 sites I checked had their main story about the fact that Britney Spears has filed for divorce from her husband Kevin Federline…

How the fuck is this news?!?

It’s a sad, sad little world we live in when the trumped up lives of a couple of trailer trash “celebutants” takes precedence over world affairs.

All bitching about the sorry state of the media aside, is there anyone, and I do mean anyone at all that honestly did not see this coming? I mean what the fuck?

Gah! On one hand I’m utterly disgusted by this waste of bandwidth posing as news, and on the other hand I’m laughing my arse off at the train wreck that is their lives. The mind boggles.

Anyways, that’s about all I have to say about that.

More TV Babble.

I feel so one dimensional lately. All my recent posts have just been about the stupid TV shows I’m watching currently and how I’ve managed to acquire the the episodes I’ve missed. Which I find rather amusing in that hypocritical, quit fooling yourself way, because on any day of the week I would swear blind that I don’t watch that much TV and that it doesn’t interest me at all.

I guess what ends up happening is that I find a couple of shows each season that pique my interest and I watch them for a time and then move on. I wouldn’t even call myself a die hard fan because what ends up happening is I’ll latch on to a particular show for whatever reason early on in it’s run (if not from the start) and I’ll watch it on a fairly regular basis for a season or two and then It will just fade into the background, and if I stumble on an episode at some point I’ll watch it but I never really go out of my way to see it anymore. I did that with X-Files. I watched (and was hooked) from the first episode before anyone else had really clued in to the show and watched it with somewhat religious fervor for two or three seasons and then I just didn’t care all that much anymore, I still liked the show and considered myself a fan and I watched it when I could but I never went out of my way to see it anymore. I think by the time the last two seasons came along I wasn’t watching it at all. The same thing is happening to me with Lost and CSI. I like both shows but I’ve already moved on, and if I see an episode great, but I’m not going to cry about it (That’s a bit harder to stomach with Lost though due to the intracacies of the storyline but I’m surviving).

I’ve also discovered that I hate waiting. I hate seeing only one episode at a time. I find that more and more I prefer to watch something all at once, where i can digest the whole story in one sitting, or at least in sizable chunks. I find it gives me a much better sense of perspective about the overall plot plus there is the instant gratification of (almost) always being able to find out what happens next. I think that was probably one of the things that turned me off of Lost last year, the plot was so intricate and they had so many long breaks between new episodes, interspersed with out of sequence re-runs that I just lost (no pun intended) interest in trying to keep track. I suspect if I watched the whole of seasons one and two in a series of sittings that it might actually rekindle my interest in the show somewhat, so in a way I guess it’s good that I’m not watching it this year as I can just catch up with the box set next summer (though I guess I should probably buy season 1 and 2 first or there will be no point in 3).

In the meantime though, I’ve stumbled on another good sci-fi show that has seriously piqued my interest right from the start. It’s called Heroes and it’s on NBC (don’t ask me what day/time it’s on or any of that crap. This is the intarweb son, figure it out for yourself). It’s about a group of ordinary people who discover they have extraordinary powers and what they end up doing with them. The cast is a fairly large ensemble, ranging from a nerdy Japanese salaryman named Hiro who discovers he can time-travel and teleport to a midwestern American cheerleader who can apparently heal from any injury to a recovering junkie artist who seems to be having premonitions that he’s turning into paintings and a Las Vegas camgirl who seems to have a split personality with super strength. It’s good. It’s fun. It’s interesting and most importantly to me, it’s real. Real in the sense that the characters are believable. They have frailties, foibles, dreams and beliefs that drive them to do what they do. I can honestly say I’m hooked.

And in other TV related news, I think I’ve finally settled on my favourite Galactica character… Chief Tyrol. I like him because I can identify strongly with the way he reacts to situations and I see a lot of myself in him (other than the toaster fetish that is). The other day I was link hopping through that banally addictive site known as Wikipedia and I came across this description of the character by the actor who portrays him and I think it sums him up quite well.

Tyrol is fiercely loyal. He is a very good leader who is very much in tune with his crew. He admires honesty, hard work, common sense, intelligence and integrity. Tyrol is tough but fair and is what someone who possess the aforementioned attributes would want in their leader. Tyrol very much believes in the rule of military law and tradition. He is probably the most prepared of the crew who has not seen real battle and that combined with his natural leadership abilities has caused his rise to Chief. The crew respects and likes him.

Do not, repeat, do not cross Tyrol. If he senses weakness or disrespect you get one chance and then that is it. Tyrol believes in making mistakes. As he puts it, “If you don’t fall down you are not trying hard enough.” Just don’t make the same mistake twice. New people who are really trying get the positive attention and teaching that Tyrol believes will get them where he needs them to be. Those who are not making the requisite effort get a good kick in the ass, and sometimes more than one.

I like Tyrol. He is the kind of person I would respect. The inner demons do not interfere with his day to day work. He deals with his own stuff when he is alone. Sometimes he takes on too much but you will never see it. He can wear his heart on his sleeve but he is very hard to read and get to know personally. Enigmatically simple if I can use those two together.

Now, I think think that this is more than enough babble for one post so I shall now go back to paying my bills and then bed, and tomorrow I will be that much closer to getting all my Robin of Sherwood downloaded.

And for my next trick…

Yay for me! I finally managed to successfully track down torrents for the last 5 episodes of this season’s Battlestar because I just can’t cut a break at work and always seem to be scheduled when the damn show is on and also when it’s repeated. And I don’t have a VCR currently so I can’t record it like a sane person would so don’t bother asking why I didn’t just do that, if I could’ve I would’ve so there.

I haven’t watched them yet. I’m still playing catch up with season 2 right now. I’m at the part where Galactica discovers the Pegasus. I should be all caught up fairly soon though and I hopefully I won’t have to download too many more episodes after this before I’m fully up to speed. Though I suspect due to my craptastic work schedule I’m probably going to end up downloading the whole season just so as I can watch it. And yeah, I will be buying the box set when it comes out as well so don’t worry, no little paramount ad executive’s children will starve because of my actions.

Anyways, now that I have that fun task out of the way (for now), I am currently attempting to DL all 26 episodes of the classic British tv series, Robin of Sherwood. A whopping total of 9GB if all goes well. It was probably one my favourite shows growing up. I loved the gritty realism of the setting. It wasn’t errol flynn or disney’s foxy Robin hood. This was muddy, grimy wet and utterly pagan in it’s realism. It struck a very deep chord in me when I first watched it, and that chord has resonated ever since. There are many parallels between those early Robin episodes and Peter Jackson’s LoTR series that struck very similar resonances with me which is probably why I liked LoTR as much as I did as well (well, other than the fact that I’m a raving tolkien fanboy that is).

Anyway, I’d love to buy the DVD set for Robin but I don’t believe it’s available outside of Region 2 without selling off your thirdborn child (which is serendipitous as my first two have already been promised to the Tylium mines on one of the moons of Kobol due to the aforementioned Battlestar DLs). Nevertheless, I’ll probably try and pick it up eventually. In the meantime though, I just need to see it and feel it and reminisce at the wonder of it all.