Doctor Who Season 6 part 1

WARNING!!!! Spoilers ahead!!! Spoilers ahead!!! Do not read if you haven't seen this season.

So they decided to split the Doctor Who season into two parts, 7 episodes for the first half and 6 episodes for the second half. Which I don't mind and kind of understand why. Normally they run all 13 episodes during spring and then we have to wait until Christmas for a special and then again a few months until spring for the next season. So this way there is less waiting for new Who.. every few months we get a little Who instead.

Today I got to see the mid season finale (7th episode of the 1st half). And it was AWESOME!!! I can't say that this season has been my favorite but it has had some of the best Who episodes ever (Doctor's Wife).

This season started off with a bang..literally with the death of The Doctor and continued to have OMG moments in this and it's second episode. The third episode was more of a one off / fun episode. Then the big Neil Gaiman episode The Doctors Wife which was very emotional and so well written and acted. Next was another two parter that set up the mid season finale with an OMG moment of Amy not really being Amy this entire time but  a duplicate fleshy thing. Didn't see that coming. And of course we had the midseason finale which I really enjoyed and had a lot of big OMG moments but the biggest was the pay off at the very end when we find out who River Song is.

I actually called this at the beginning of the season and was happy to see that I was right. Amy and Rory's daughter has timelord genes because she was conceived in the TARDIS while in the time vortex, but the biggest bomb shell was that their daughters name is Melody Pond and when translated to on the planet she was raised she was called River Song!!! River is Amy and Rory's daughter.. I LOVE IT!!!! Can't wait to see where the second half of this series goes.

Overall this season had some high points and some low points. The Doctor was angry alot during this season and we don't see that often. I'm sure it's leading up to something so I'll be patient but I miss the fun whimsical doctor. Also I was a HUGE fan of Amy Pond in season five but I haven't liked her much this season. But then again it wasn't the real Amy and she was pregnant so that might explain some of it. I look forward to seeing where she goes in the second half. I've always been a fan of Rory but he has really come into his own during this season.. and I like that. And of course River Song, who I loved in season four and her return in five and finally some answers in six.. great character and great actress.. looking forward to seeing where she goes next.

Season 6 part 2 starts in the fall.

Power Outages and Podcasts

Well my morning didn't start off so hot. Around 5:30am the power went out and the reason I know the time is because I use a fan to help me sleep. I'm an extremely light sleeper and any noise will wake me up. Harry stays up late watching TV while I'm trying to sleep and I can hear the TV. So many years ago I started turning on a fan to drown out the noise of the TV. I know it sounds crazy to create noise to get rid of noise.. but the fan is like white noise and I found I slept better with it. So I've been using the fan for years. So when the power went out and the fan turned off I immediately woke up. Not that there was any sounds but now because of the lack of the fan I couldn't sleep. So I laid there for a few hours and finally dozed off around 7:30am but again was woken up when the power came back on and the fan started up again around 9:30am. I figured it was no use that I might as well get up and reset all the clocks and start my day.

First thing that popped into my head was that I was doing a Doctor Who podcast for the first half of season six with my friends Meds and KC for the Treks in Sci Fi podcast. Only problem was that I hadn't seen the mid season finale. It aired in the UK last weekend but because of Memorial day we in the US were pushed back a week. So I went to my DVR and noticed that it didn't record and couldn't figure out why... but I had "found" it online and had it on my computer. Now I hate watching shows on my computer but it was almost 10am and the skype chat was at noon. So I watched the episode (review to come) and then suddenly realized that it was Saturday and the episode doesn't air here until 6pm and for that matter the Doctor Who skype chat is set for Sunday at Noon.. so I'm off an entire day.
 
So after that crazy morning and me realizing it was Saturday I had a ton of things I had to get done this weekend, and actually Saturday since I'm extremely busy on Sunday. So around 10:30am I got started on editing my next Knights of the Guild Podcast episode 32. Got done with that around 3pm and then started on my next MASH 4077 Podcast episode 10. I had worked on this a few days ago and only had to add audio clips and do one final polish pass. Three hours later and a few technical issues this podcast was also done.

I built both show notes pages on the website and uploaded both podcasts to podbean and set them to be released at Midnight on Wednesday June 15th.

So my busy day ended around 8pm, Harry and I had dinner and watched the midseason Doctor Who finale (for me again) and called it a night.

The Guild S5 Wrap Party

Tonight I got off of work around 5pm so I could make my way over to Universal City walk for The Guild's season five wrap party. This year it was being held at a fun arcade/bowling alley called Jillian's. Traffic was as I expected and it took me about an hour to get across town. Once there I paid to park, as I didn't feel like driving around trying to find a spot. The great thing was where I parked was right to Jillan's.

My plus one was my buddy Chris, who I met during season five of The Guild. He drove down from the Santa Barbara area to join in the festivities. As I was waiting outside for Chris I saw Greg Aronowitz looking down at me from a window on the second floor. He waved me up so I joined him upstairs where the party was taking place. I happen to be the first guest so I hung out in the lobby area with Greg and waited for others to arrive. Rebecca showed up second, then Brian, Kim and my buddy Chris. We all went inside and started to enjoy the party. There were chips and salsa, pizza and chicken wings to eat and all you can drink soda (diet for me), there was also alcoholic drinks which I did not partake in. I'm not a big drinker but I also never drink and drive.

About ten minutes in we all decided to get a game of bowling in before the crowds started to show up. This place was alot of fun. There were about ten lanes of bowling. And huge TV screens above the lanes where they were showing sport games and 80's music video.

So the night progressed and more and more people started showing up. My bowling team changed a bit and Adam and Scott joined Chris and I for the remainder of the night. We must have bowled about six or seven games, from 6pm to 10pm... It was tons of fun. In between turns I would head out and try and say hi to folks, take pictures and mingle a bit. At 10pm the bowling was open to the general public but we had a side room that was reserved for us and it had a Wii system projected on the wall and some mimic dancing game. So about 1/3 of the party wound up in there and various folks (including myself) had some fun dancing like crazy people.

It was a great night. I didn't get to take as many picture as I would have liked or get to visit with everyone but I did have an AWESOME time hanging with the small group in our bowling section.  And the dancing was a blast.

You can see over 100 pictures that I took of the night HERE

Planning a Trip

So I'm starting to plan for my trip to Orlando Florida to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I have been wanting to go there since it opened last June and for whatever reason (job) I haven't been able to make it over there. So I decided no matter what I was going to take a week off at the end of my current job and go. So I started to make plans. This job was to end in the middle of July, was going to go to San Diego Comic Con and then the week after go to WWofHP. Well those plans fell through as my job was extended to the end of July, then middle of August, then first week of September. So I kept pushing back my plans waiting to hear if this was my actual out date. I was this close to purchasing a plane ticket for Sept. 12th to the 16th but something in me said to hold off and luckily I did as they extended me another two weeks to the end of September.

Now I now for budget reasons I will not be extended any more and actually still might be able to get out of here mid September but I'm not taking any chances I'm going to book my room and plan for the first or second week in October. And since I'm going to be out of a job and never been to Orlando before I'm hoping to stay an extra week to do Disney world and all the surrounding parks beside my 3 days of heaven at The Wizarding World.

So that's my plan.. I'll be going to Orlando Florida sometime in early October and partaking in the wonder that is Disney world (for the first time) and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

My MTV Gig

Well we started back in November of 2010 but we finally finished our very first episode of the new show that I am post production supervisor on for MTV. Today we were in online and reviewed final video and final audio. There were a few tweaks but for the most part it sounded and looked great. This show is going to be pretty good.. the more I see of it the more excited I am to be part of it. Of course it's not officially done until the executive producer views it in New York and gives her final thumbs up (which should happen by weeks end). This is been a long, long process to get to this point but it finally feels like we are accomplishing something. So 1 down and 11 more episodes to go. Let's hope finishing up the rest of these episodes go as smoothly as the first.

I did manage to squeeze in some edit time during my lunch to work on the next Knights of the Guild Podcast. Got all of our intros and outros done for episode 32.

Podcasts

Today was pretty much devoted to my podcasts. Got up around 9 am to start to prep for my Knights of the Guild podcast recording. Jenni was coming over at 11am and we were to record our next two episodes. I got everything ready and Jenni arrived at 11am and we got started. Episode 32 had quite a bit of pre-recorded stuff that we are going to use, ie interviews, guild something and so on. So we got done recording our part in about 45 minutes. We then continued to record episode 33 which had a bit more of us so it took a bit longer to record that episode.. maybe an hour or so. Both shows were lots of fun. We tried to do more of the Kenny Jenni banter that everyone loves. Also when I go to edit I'm going to leave in more of the mistakes and fun that we have behind the scenes. Episode 32 will be out on June 15th and Episode 33 will be out on June 29th.

After we record we hung out and chatted for a few hours catching up on each other lives. When she left Harry and I went out to lunch and then grocery shopping.

When we got back I went back to podcasting and decided to start editing my next MASH 4077 Podcast episode 10.  This edit went much smoother then the last episode. All the audio was intact and laid together very nicely. I did my first pass, which is just taking out all unusable audio, like when the hosts talk to each other or I explain what section we are doing. That can take an hour or so. My second pass I clean up the audio and make sure it sounds as good as possible. This too can take an hour to complete. By this time I was tired and just wanted to go watch some TV before heading to bed. Still got two more passes to do for episode 10 but they are much easier. Pass three is where I add audio clips from the episode and pass four is where I smooth out the transitions and do my final polish pass. Both of those combined should take about an hour... but that will have to wait for a later day. I have until June 15th to get this one done.