Freakin' Cybermen! Everywhere!

I've got to come out of the closet on this one - I am a huge fan of the Cybermen. I like them even better than the Daleks. That makes me a minority of a minority in Doctor Who fandom. So my new Cyberman action figure purchase this weekend does make me happy, along with my new copy of The Invasion on DVD.

First of all, let's talk about The Invasion - a rather good, if not somewhat long story from season 6 of Doctor Who. Clocking in at eight episodes, it was rather tedious I'll admit when watching it right through when it was released on video tape with Nicholas Courtney providing linking information for the missing episodes one and four. However, on DVD, and breaking up the viewing over a couple days the story holds up a little better. Especially after the restoration work done on the surviving six episodes to bring the look of the episode back to what it would have been like when broadcast originally. The VidFIRE process used on the surviving film elements to bring back the look of studio-bound video tape portions of the episode, plus restoration on the film inserts does bring the story back to life. VidFIRE was first used for the DVD release of Tomb of the Cybermen and the effect is as dramatic with that story as it is here. Watching it, you would have little idea that you are looking at processed 16mm film and would think it was a surviving video tape as shot and as originally broadcast with elements shot on location and edited into the episode.

For the missing two episodes, the BBC commissioned Cosgrove-Hall to animate the episodes in Flash. The results are pretty good and fit the tone of the episodes and allow the viewer to see the story in its entirety for the first time in many years. With the animation done in black and white and synced to surviving audio recordings of the two episodes and having original camera scripts available for reference, the animators help show what the episodes would have been like back in late 1968. While I thought the experiment with animating and syncing to existing audio tracks was a success (and all missing episodes of Doctor Who do indeed have audio soundtracks available), the BBC apparently have declined to extend this project out to other episodes that are no longer available in their archive. This is a pity, especially for some story arcs that no longer exist at all save for their recorded audio like 1964's Marco Polo which would make for a fantastic episode in animated form.

Of course, some fans are already aware of the reconstructed episodes of Doctor Who that use surviving film fragments, telesnap shots of the actual episode and reconstructed still images and limited animation. But this is primarily a fan-driven effort and the BBC at this time still turns a blind-eye to the project as they are not profit driven. However, for the wider audience out there if the BBC reconsiders it would help in bringing some long missing stories back to life.

Now, still on the subject of Doctor Who, lets talk toys...specifically my rather spiffy Cyberman that I picked up this weekend. It's my second Cyberman, the first being the 7 inch Product Enterprise Classic Series Cyberman. The Cyberman that will never have it's batteries replaced - mainly because the provided instructions on how to do so are completely wrong, and I don't want to risk breaking mine to figure it out. Unfortunately, I really would like to get those batteries out of there before they leak all over the insides. This new Cyberman is from Character Options from series 2 of the 5 inch Doctor Who line. One day I'll have the 12 inch version of the figure, but for now, this will suit me just fine. The detail and articulation from these new figures beats the pants off previous attempts from Dapol toys who had the Doctor Who action figure license for ages before it was handed off to Product Enterprise for the classic series. "Sad" would be the polite way to describe how these toys were. Even by the standards of the time in which they were produced. I've only a couple of them. A K9, which honestly, isn't THAT bad, and some pull back action Daleks. But the rest of the line, while having an admittedly good representation of characters and monsters from the show, well... Any toy collectors out there remember the really early Toy Biz efforts for both DC and then Marvel after Marvel bought them out? Yeah...the Dapol figures weren't as good as those efforts. Garishly colored blobs of plastic in a basic shape designed to suggest the possibility that what you held in your hand was, in fact, supposed to be Ace, or the Doctor. Disappointing to say the least, but apparently these figures have a following and are highly collectible. Just not to me.

So right now, my new Character Options Cyberman stands proudly next to the rather out of scale Product Enterprises Dalek on my Mac mini at work. I'll have to now get a scale Dalek I suppose - and the Doctor, naturally. I almost got the last remaining tenth Doctor action figure in the toy store at Heathrow when I was in London. But he didn't have his sonic screwdriver, so I passed... Now I regret it...

Hawaiian Time!

I have come to peace with my local, can easily walk to it, Hawaiian restaurant, Hawaiian Time. My first visit there a couple months ago was average. Meh. OK. Nothing to crow over and my loyalties remained with the must get in the car and drive to it Hodgepodge. Well, all that changed today with a visit while my friend, Jordan was in town and I ordered the number 6. Of course it would have to be number 6. It's just right - spicy and sweet. Perfection on a plate. Yum.

After that we hit the town, as much as Eugene can be hit and discovered that the local Suncoast now carries Doctor Who action figures. So after some pondering and considering, I now have myself a Cyberman to call my own. Well, a second one...and a smaller scale version from the first...and one that I will actually bring in to work to display along with one of my Daleks.

Oh...yes...and then there is this...Iron Man...



Giddy with glee and anticipation to check this out. I've still yet to see Spidey 3 and Fantastic Four 2... Perhaps next weekend. I'm just not feeling the energy to see them. Even at the cheap theatre.

The good news is that I am now officially done with the medication needed to take before, during and after the India trip, and the even better news is that I didn't suffer any psychotic breaks (that I am aware of) as a result! Double plus bonus! I expect my regular, more relaxed demeanor to return shortly.

AAAPOP.com relaunched

Well, it's not 100% complete, but it's still looking pretty good. Do please check it out for yourself. As of right now, only one page is using frames and not CSS for formatting, but that should change soon enough.

The only thing we're lacking is of course, my habitual lack of progress on the cover gallery (simply because our Mr. Allred is too darn prolific) and the blog feature which is a source of consternation. Apparently what I wanted to use, the easy to set up, point and shoot Blogger.com requires passive FTP to upload files. This is normally not a problem, but the domain host for Mike's site requires active FTP and there is no getting around that.

So, we're weighing our options to see what alternatives we may have. Needless to say, it's a bit disappointing to launch and not be 100%, but what can you do?

Oh, and just because and to keep it random...

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

I love this movie. I really do. Apparently the last time it was shown on network TV was in 1978 and I know I was watching it. This film was funny enough to stick with me so I'd want to get the DVD edition that came out a few years ago. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is also apparently going to get a sequel according to the Wikipedia article.

Hmmm... We'll see. Some times you need to let the classics be. This might be such a case.

But speaking of mad, and by mad I mean furious, and by furious I mean about to burst a blood vessel and actually strike a contestant, let's talk about Hell's Kitchen. Lovable Scot, Gordon Ramsay does love to shout. He does it for many reasons. To motivate, to startle, because he is truly annoyed, angry, frustrated, disappointed, irritated, whatever. It's also grand theater to watch and see what sets Gordon off week after week. Last night, however, the mood at dinner service was a little different. I had seen the previews and knew that someone was going to get the boot right from the kitchen, but still...Chef Ramsay did seem a little agitated from the start.

Now for those watching, it was obvious why with Joshua being completely incompetent in the kitchen at the final five stage and thinking his strategy of cooking food before it's ordered was a good idea. This wasn't flying with the Chef and after repeated warnings to knock it off, Ramsay flew into a tirade and then kicked him right out of the kitchen and out of the competition. Normally as you'd expect, Ramsay would have harsh words and shout and yell, but last night when it was directed at Josh it was more than the usual bluster and it was obvious that there was some deep-seated dislike and downright seething hatred of Josh that Gordon was venting and he wasn't going to put up with his games any more. This was punctuated with Chef Ramsay throwing a kitchen utensil after Josh as he left the kitchen area and then following Josh out and giving him a second helping of abuse - all well deserved when looking back at Josh's performance over the past few weeks. But wow...hot tempered ex-footballer? That's our Gordon!

On the flip side, it was very kind of him at the end of the episode after Julia was kicked off to tell her that she has a considerable amount of talent and to also send her to culinary school on his own dime. Kind-hearted Scottish Chef? That's our Gordon!

Just don't cross him - and if you do, make sure it's for a good reason and not to be a jerk on television...because next week apparently Bonnie gives Gordon a taste of his own medicine, and for good reason, and it looks like he sucks it up and takes it like a man. Of course, editing can be deceiving...

Mea Culpa

I had made a slight mistake when I told my nieces (who were rather excited to hear this news, more for their mother's sake) that James Marsters would appear in series 4 of Doctor Who. My mistake, he will actually be appearing in series 2 of Torchwood. A simple error, and this makes the second Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast member to join the extended Doctor Who family - the first being Anthony Head who has appeared on screen in School Reunion, was the narrator for series 3 of Doctor Who Confidential and was the voice of Baltazar in the Infinite Quest animated special. Because this is Torchwood, this means of course the girls won't be able to watch the episode in question until they are in their early 30s. News article from Outpost Gallifrey is here. For those who watched the late, lamented The OC, Alan Dale will also be appearing in the same series of Torchwood.

Back to work...

The AppleTV is really fun and I like playing around with it, and now I'm done converting over .avi files to H.264 format (again, with no real quality loss that I can see) for it to play, added appropriate tag information and it's all in iTunes and synced over.

Time for a break from that and time to get some real work done. I've been slacking on my efforts to update Mike's page for some time now. I know what I have in mind, it's just getting the implementation all done. Of course, what's stopped me was a burning desire to do it in all CSS, and was barking mad enough to want to do it in what I realize now is the least efficient way possible. Now I have my plan and it's simple, and I can do it, and I can hopefully say goodbye to HTML Frames forever. If I'm lucky. On the main page there will be one static image, with embedded links and then the rotating image stacked on top via CSS. This will work - I will make it work. Then the rest of mainly massaging the existing CSS to make it look nice and uniform and I'll take the time to implement some long-overdue features such as Mike's blog to he can post what he's currently working on and the genuine Ask Dr. Flem page. You'll all see - and you'll all be sorry. Or something.

For those who have seen, the gallery will remain relatively untouched other than the CSS for the text. It works, and it's not broken. But I would like to make some changes down the road once this iteration of the site is complete. I view it almost as an entity of its own with a life of its own and new covers that need to be added in as well because I am months behind on that. Hopefully I can get caught up once the main work is completed. If I'm lucky and have little in the way of interruptions, I can get it done over the weekend.

As always, I expect at least some interruption...that's the way of things...

India pictures now available...

After a considerable delay, of which I of course blame squarely on the AppleTV, pictures of India are now available for your perusal. Not the greatest, but I never claimed to be Ansel Adams. The last couple mop-up pictures of London and Los Angeles may or may not be posted. It's just a picture of a 747 and the entryway to LAX.

New iTunes and QuickTime

Yesterday Apple released iTunes 7.3.1 and Quicktime 7.2 fixing various issues and returning after a long absence the ability for QuickTime to play movies in fullscreen without shelling out for a QuickTime Pro key. It's about time, really since there are lots of other players out there on lots of other platforms, including the Macintosh that allow for this. What Chairman Steve takes away (in QuickTime 3.0) he gives back.

Meanwhile, experimentation with the AppleTV, iSquint and Lostify took place last night. Converted episodes of Doctor Who over to the H.264 format supported by the AppleTV with iSquint, used Lostify to mark it as a TV Show and add broadcast date, broadcaster, season number, episode number and synopsis to the file and then moved it into iTunes which then proceeded to sync it to the AppleTV. Picture quality on the AppleTV is perfectly OK and comparable to the original file format used. Therefore, mass conversions of the rest of the season and the previous two seasons will commence...Doctor Who on demand...

Thailand pictures uploaded!

Pictures from the airport in Thailand are now available for your viewing pleasure... Make with the clicking...

At long last luggage...

The missing luggage showed up yesterday, finally. This officially brings my travels to a close for now. It only took British Airways a week to get it to me, a bit of a far cry from the 48 hours I was originally quoted from the representative. Still, only two items got crushed in the ensuing time between Chennai and Eugene, and of those two items, one actually might be recoverable, the other item, sadly crushed beyond hope of repair. At least by me. So I'll be handing off both items and their representative pieces for my archeologist sister to reassemble as best as possible. Hopefully something can be done with these rather nice marble items. I was surprised that the raw cashews given to me as a gift actually made it through customs without being impounded as being technically seeds. Still, now I can look up some recipes on roasting them for a very nice snack. A big shoutout to Horizon Air for staying on top of the missing luggage and getting to me as quickly as they were able to once it was handed over from BA.

I was going to get some pictures up this weekend from the trip now that everything is calmed down. But yesterday I took some extra cash stashed away and finally got my Apple TV. This little box is dang cool, especially for someone like me, and I don't mean being an Apple fanboy. A long time ago I grew tired of looking at tall stacks of CDs in the living room and as a result, imported all my discs into iTunes and packed the originals away in my closet for storage. This is good because it freed up some room downstairs, this is bad because now I could only listen to music while I was at the computer upstairs or on the iPod. Now all my music is available on demand when I am downstairs futzing around. Same with photos for impromptu slide shows for people who might want to see pictures from my latest trip or anything else out of iPhoto for that matter.

I've watched some video on it of course as well. Free shows mainly from the iTunes store and the video quality, while not outstanding, is certainly acceptable. Especially for free. If I were paying for shows there could be a bit of a grumble, but if it was something I really cared about, I'm still the sort of person to get the DVD box set anyway. With the introduction of the higher capacity Apple TV (160 gig vs. the original 40 gig model), I suspect that there could be higher definition content on its way, and I'd be stunned if there wasn't some sort of Netflix/Blockbuster Online killer in the pipeline where you can rent movies from the iTunes store. People don't want to rent their music, but even in the era of relatively cheap DVDs, people are still all about the movie renting and have been since the dawn of the VHS era. With the iTunes store they could in theory have a set number of movies "out" for rental and when they're done with one, remove it and start the download of another movie in their queue to watch when it's ready to go.

Certainly however, having lots of storage available locally for your media wouldn't hurt.

But here's what people aren't paying any attention to, at least that I can tell, it's the Podcasts menu item. Podcasts of course started out as the radio shows of the 21st century, and still are of course, and are fantastic since they can speak to a very specific audience who will seek out and subscribe to the show to listen to. But there are also VIDEO podcasts, and let me tell you, TikiBar TV was looking pretty sharp on the big screen for a video podcast. This, like the regular audio podcasts, could also trigger a revolution for anyone with a computer, a video camera or two, and some basic editing software to create their own television shows and distribute them online for free, or donations/fee of course if they so desire. Can't stand According to Jim? Think Battlestar Galactica is inaccessible (and it isn't-but stay with me here)? Make your own show and let fans subscribe directly, download and sync to the Apple TV and they're not just limited to being huddled around a computer monitor watching, but now can sit around a reasonably sized television with a reasonable sound system watching YOUR show. All you need to do is provide the bandwidth for downloads, and you can link your show to the iTunes store for people to search for and subscribe to, or use Feedburner, etc. and get the word out.

The latest update adding YouTube integration is also welcome. You can log into your YouTube account, view the latest and most viewed videos, or search on specific videos to watch of varying quality of course. The searching feature isn't the best, but since you're stuck for now with just the Apple Remote to highlight letters to perform your search, there isn't much more that can be done. However, if you do happen across a video you do like, you can add it to a favorites to watch again without having to do a new search. With that I can watch Chad Vader pretty much on demand. Which is the whole point of the product - audio and video pretty much on demand upon availability.

So I'm still playing with this little thing still and so far I'm impressed - it does what it sets out to do, simply and being an Apple product, fairly elegantly. This very well could get me to subscribe to even more podcasts to listen to and now watch when regular TV lets me down yet again.

Stateside...

But not home yet. Yesterday I was feeling every one of my almost 38 years an certainly every mile I have traveled so far. For those who would like to point out that 38 is almost certainly still very young, let's not forget that when I do arrive back in Eugene I will have circumnavigated the globe.

Right now I am in lovely Los Angeles, and this time actually, not by choice. My twenty-plus hours of torment began, naturally enough, in Chennai as I was checking into British Airways to fly home and saw for the first time posted information that only one carry-on bag would be permitted per passenger when there are connecting flights via the UK or some such nonsense. The practical upshot is, my second carry on, the one with the majority of family gifts, had to be checked in. This was the last I have seen of that bag so far. Apparently it was not scanned into my connecting flight in London and with luck will be reunited with me within the next two days.

That it was not scanned in is a bit surprising due to the fact that my London flight left and hour and a half late due to the incident in Glasgow this past weekend and that the enhanced security screening for both passengers and personnel triggered issues with getting a cleaning crew on the plane. For someone who had just had a ten hour flight from Chennai and really wanted to be back in the US, this was a concern. More of a concern was the growing realization that no matter what, by the time I set foot in the US once more I would feel completely grimy and filthy, and I was completely correct in this matter.

But after another eleven hours or so of flight, I set foot on US soil again, one bag light with assurances that it is on it's way and in desperate need of a shower after over twenty total hours of airtime under my belt for the day. Unfortunately, due to the lateness of the plane, the dancing around on the missing baggage and the shuffling through immigration and then customs meant that the last plane bound for Eugene was long gone. Thus I made the executive decision that I would get accommodations (and a good hot shower) here in Los Angeles and take the first flight out tomorrow morning at 9:00 am. Unfortunately, due to the loss of the one bag that I never expected to need to check in the first place, my brush and toothbrush are separated from me. However, British Airways does provide it's passengers for long flights a small travel toothbrush and an amount of some toothpaste with the weirdest consistency and flavor that isn't quite foul, but still is nowhere near fresh. So that helps the pearly whites until I get home and can use the Sonicare on them once more.

More, I hope, when I get home, which will be soon. I hope.