Podcast Prep & New Who Review

Spent a few hours prepping for my next MASH 4077 Podcast, we're recording Sunday Oct 5th and I haven't even started gathering all the information. Instead of our usual six episodes we're going to record seven as these are the last seven episodes of season four. Our next session after this will be begin season five of MASH. If you're a MASH fan and are not listening to this fun podcast then you should check it out. Download from itunes tinyurl.com/MASH4077itunes , listen on Stitcher Radio ow.ly/iZJIz or Listen, get direct download from our main website MASH4077Podcast.com

During the evening my friend Jes and I watched the latest Doctor Who titled The Caretaker. It's the sixth episode of the new season.  Which takes us halfway through this season.

The terrifying Skovox Blitzer is ready to destroy all humanity - but worse, and any second now, Danny Pink and the Doctor are going to meet.

After last weeks amazing and fun adventure "Time Heist" this weeks episode had a lot to live up to and though it wasn't a bad episode (there are very few of those in my opinion) It wasn't an episode that I could watch over and over, which is how I judge good Who episodes.

I enjoyed Clara's and Danny's interaction. I liked the beginning when Clara was trying to go on adventures with the Doctor then come home and go on dates with Danny. I thought it was funny that the Doctor mis-took one of Clara's co-workers (the one that resembled Matt Smith's Doctor) as her new boyfriend. And there was a lot character development in this episode.. the only downside for me in this episode was the Doctors anti-solider rants. This new Doctor has disliked war and soldiers so much more then the other previous Doctors. I mean the Doctor has always hated guns but his like of people who were soldiers is really starting to annoy me. I guess the Doctor's disdain for soldiers is clearly shown to be another example of his self-loathing, likely triggered by actually remembering everything that happened in the Time War following the events of the 50th anniversary special. Anyways a good episode but not one that I will watch over and over again.

Jupiter Ascending Trailer & Random Geek Question

Here's an extended trailer from the new Wachowski movie called Jupiter Ascending. This was suppose to come out this past summer as one of the big blockbuster movie but for whatever reason the studio has pushed it's release to the movie graveyard (January to February) in 2015. I've enjoyed the previous trailer and wanted to see this movie but after this one I can't wait to see it and I can't understand why the pushed back the release date.

I asked a Random Geek Question on Facebook and Twitter today. I got a few people who responded. Here's the question... What is your favorite Animated (CG/Hand drawn) Movie and/or TV series?

From Facebook:

Ryanne Harding - I adore all the old school Christmas specials in claymation, but my all time favorite was The Little Drummer Boy.

Alynne Schripsema - That's such a tough call! Show that's on the air now: Legend of Korra. But of all time? There's a list I'd have to go through and analyze and recheck. 

Ken Todd -Always loved Disney's TaleSpin. Not brilliant animation by any stretch but I have very fond memories of it. Same for the original 60s Jonny Quest.

Ben Terrill -Have to agree with Ryanne about all the claymation Christmas specials, and will toss in the Charlie Browns as well. But then there is G-Force/Battle of the Planets. There is still so many more to list though.

Andrew Avalos - Movie: Akira. TV show: Robotech.

Moose Rivera - Tom & jerry of course

Bryan Hyland - how to train your dragon 1 and 2 are my favorite

Ripley Adams - ReBoot, Tron: Uprising, RWBY

And there were a few responses from Twitter:

@Josh_TolkienFan - movie: Fox & The Hound, show: Batman the animated series

 

@yensid98 - Movie: Pinocchio Show: Batman The Animated Series

 

@in2toonz - Movie: Sleeping Beauty - 1959 / Series: Batman: The Animated Series

 

@Aradinsc - Scooby Doo, 90's X-Men, Neon Genesis Evangelion

 

@PodcasticJoe - Heavy Metal for movies, and Undergrads for series 

 

@tamarcurry - Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra for series, probably Princess Mononoke for movie.

Unaired Clone Wars

Star Wars Clone Wars released a 4 part story that was part of unfinished season six. They are calling it the Utapau storyline. The voice actors voiced it and a rough pre-animated version was created and guess what they released all four episodes on StarWars.com.

We start with part one - A Death on Utapau - Obi-Wan and Anakin investigate a mysterious death of a Jedi Master on Utapau, and uncover a secret Separatist weapons deal the likes of which they have never seen before. 

Part two is In Search of the Crystal - Obi-Wan and Anakin's investigation on Utapau continues, and they allow themselves to be captured by weapons dealers who possess a focusing crystal of unspeakable power.
 
Part three is Crystal Crisis - Obi-Wan and Anakin must escape from Utapau with a kyber crystal before General Grievous and his droid army track them down.

And final part.. part four The Big Bang - Obi-Wan and Anakin must do all they can to prevent a powerful weapon from falling into General Grievous' hands.

Even though the animation was rough I loved seeing more Clone Wars and the fact that it was a great story was the cherry on top. We got to see the future development of Anikin and Obi-Wan relationship. There is a mention of the much missed Ahsoka Tano. Man I miss Clone Wars.

Big Hero 6 Trailer & How Tattoos Work

First I want to share another extended trailer for Big Hero 6. The more I see of this upcoming movie the more I can't wait to see it. Here's the trailer.

The other video that I want to share with you guys is how tattooing really works. Now that I have four of them it's cool to see how the machine and ink really work. They have close ups and slow mo.

Animated Buffy, Bald Again & Birthday Dinner x2

I have several geeky things I want to share with you all but first something serious. I saw this posted on Facebook and had to read it. It's further proof that not all "religious" people are hateful. Click on this LINK and see how a Pastor says he would deal with having gay children. But be warned don't read the comments as I made that mistake and some of them are very disgusting.

Now for some geeky stuff.. I found several animated Buffy videos online. The first one is older one and is a scene with most of the actors doing the voices, showing how a Buffy the animated TV series could work and the more recent one (second one) is an opening for a new Buffy animated TV series. Both are pretty awesome.

I opted to shave my head for a second time. Now that I have proper razors I figured I could get a much cleaner cut.

I grabbed this photo from up top and was surprised to see how perfectly oval my head is. I don't know if I'll keep it shaved but I do like the look of it.

I watched Red Band Society episode 2 today as well. If you read my previous blog post about the pilot then you know that I totally feel in love with this series after watching the pilot and my hopes were very high for the second episode. And I'm happy to say that the majority of the episode meet my high hopes but there were a few things that didn't. But It's okay as I still love the series and will continue to watch as long as it airs, but that might not be for long. Unfortunately the ratings aren't that great and the second episode did even worse. Fox ordered 13 episodes but that's all we might see of this series unless something drastically changes. Until then I'll keep watching and hoping for the best.

During the evening my best buddy Robert took me out to dinner for my birthday. This is actually the second birthday dinner he took me out to as he was part of last nights dinner but he wanted to have a one on one dinner with me. We went out to Chevy's and had some tasty Mexican food, while enjoying each others company and having some very nice talkings. It was a fun evening.. thanks Robert.

Would I Be Straight?

I'm often asked if I had a choice "Would I be straight?"

That's a tough question, my first response would be no, of course not... Being gay is no different then being straight... Love is love.

But with that said and If I'm totally honest with myself, I do wish I was straight, from time to time. It would make life just a bit easier for me. Like something as simple as hold my partners hand in public and not have people snickers, stare or name call. Or always being self conscious or aware of my surroundings when I go to give my partner a quick kiss hello/goodbye in public. It would be a comfort to know that if my partner was ever admitted to a hospital that I'd be able to get in to see him when it's "family only". But overall it would be nice to not have to deal with the all hate, prejudice and bigotry for just a little while.

So yes it would be nice to be "straight" for those reasons, but I wouldn't be the person I am today. I probably wouldn't have the friends I have and life would be very different. And I'll admit there are days when I wish my life was different but overall I'm happy with who I am, what I've become and I look forward to seeing where I go in the future.

Scorpion pilot - My Review

Here's a description of the series... Inspired by a true story, eccentric computer genius Walter O'Brien and his team of brilliant-minded outcasts cannot function normally in society. One day they are recruited by federal agent Cabe Gallo of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when a serious problem arises. Even though O'Brien and Gallo have history, he and his friends agree to help solve the problem and ultimately become the last line of defense against complex, high-tech threats around the globe.

This team of masterminds is codenamed Scorpion, which includes O'Brien, one of the smartest persons in the world with a 197 IQ and his friends (as Agent Gallo describes them), Sylvester Dodd, a "human calculator" dealing in statistics, Happy Quinn, a "mechanical prodigy" and Toby Curtis, a "world-class shrink" (a Harvard-trained behaviorist). Paige Dineen is a former waitress whose interaction with people translates the real world to them; they, in exchange, translate her young mentally gifted son, Ralph, to her.

Here's the description of the pilot episode... Special agent Cabe Gallo forms a new team of super geniuses, hiring former child prodigy Walter O'Brien to lead a team of his brilliant friends. They are assigned their first mission by the government to help land airplanes at LAX when the entire communication system shuts down due to a bug in an automatic software upgrade at the control tower. They meet a waitress named Paige, a mother of a genius child, with whom they instantly connect.

From the first time I saw the trailer I knew I would enjoy this show.. it was right up my alley. Unfortunately critics are not liking it but then again I never really concerned myself with what critics think.  I enjoyed it so much that I actually watched it two more times back to back. I found the pilot to be fast paced and very tense at times. I enjoyed the characters and since it's the pilot I didn't expect to get deep into their pasts but even with out that info (which I'm sure will come with future episodes) I still cared about them. I liked that they through in a few non-genius so the viewers can relate to these somewhat unusual characters.

There was some very moving moments that tugged on the heartstrings, mostly dealing with young Ralph, and some laugh out loud moments. I didn't care if things seemed impossible or un-real. They had me hook from the very first scene. And I have to say that I've never watched an hour long drama that flew by like this one.

Though the critics are mixed on it the viewers are not and Scorpion did extremely well in the ratings. Let's hope it can hold on to those ratings for future episodes. Speaking of future episodes... I can't wait for episode 2. I think I'll go watch episode 1 again.

My 44th Birthday

Well it's my 44th birthday.. and to conclude my "pic a day" until my 44th Birthday here I am today at age 44. I've enjoyed going back and posting pictures from birth to age 44. I think I have changed quite a bit over the years. I've always had self esteem issues with my looks and it's funny now that I look back to when I was younger I wish I would have realized how cute I actually was but I guess you don't realized what you had until you no longer have it.

I started my day by going to Denny's and getting my free "birthday" grand slam. I knew that Denny's gave free breakfasts for your birthday but never took advantage of it... until today. It was a nice way to start my day.

I pretty much had a relaxing birthday. As I mentioned it's my 44th and I really didn't plan anything as I'm saving up for my 45th. I did get a handful of birthday wish phone calls, which is always nice. I got several text messages and of course a few hundred Facebook/Twitter birthday wishes, which is always great.

I watched the new CBS series Scorpion and I loved it so much that I immediately watched it again two more times back to back. I'm going to post a separate review blog for it. 

My buddy Dallas texted me and asked if I had any dinner plans, I informed him that I did not so he asked if I wanted to have a birthday dinner with him. I said sure and he said he will ask around our group of friends and see if anyone else wanted to join us.

So in the evening I headed to the Chinese restaurant not knowing if it was going to be just Dallas and I or if others would be joining us. When I got there my buddy Doug was already there, then Cait joined us and finally Dallas and Robert. We went in and sat down and ordered some food. My friend Jen joined us shortly after and the six of us hung out, ate some tasty Chinese food and celebrated my birthday. I think my favorite moment was when our waiter, who was Chinese brought me a glass with a few scoops of Green Tea ice cream and a match sticking out the top (they had no candles). He alone sang Happy Birthday to me in his broken English.. it was pretty awesome.

This was a nice semi-relaxing 44th birthday for me... but next year for my 45th Birthday I'm planning a huge celebration... it's going to be amazing.

Outlander S1Ep7, Downton Abbey S5Ep1 & Gotham Premiere

I know they are fictitious characters but I can't help but wish a very Happy Birthday to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. I was always  bummed that their birthdays were only just one day away from mine. I think it would be awesome to share a birthday with two of my favorite characters from Middle Earth.

Speaking of birthdays this is my second to last "pic a day" until my 44th birthday. This is day 43 so here I am from last year at age 43. I really like this picture of me. I attempted to cut my hair (well shave it) and I had the wrong guard on the clippers and managed to cut it shorter then it's ever been but it was a happy mistake and I think I looked pretty good almost bald. One more day and this picture project will be over.

Today I watched the seventh episode of Outlander, titled "The Wedding" Marriage to a Scot seems to be the only legal wayout to save Claire from falling into the paws of Black Jack Randall. And Jamie accepts to become her husband and protect her. Claire is overwhelmed by circumstances that are forcing her into becoming an adulteress and a bigamist. The hasty marriage takes place and, in order to be legal, it must be consummated that night.

Claire's Wedding Dress

This was an interesting episode as the first half was told through flashbacks. It starts off with Jamie and Claire up in their room to consummate there marriage and then jumps back to the process of the quick wedding and how it came to be.

I loved the interaction between Jamie and Claire, the sex scenes were nicely done and not gratuitous. This was pretty much like the previous episode where you had two actors talking back and forth but like with last weeks episode this one worked just as well. And I have to say Claire's wedding dress was GORGEOUS!!!

Next week will be the mid season finale and then we have to wait until April of 2015 for the other half of season one... UGH!!

Downton Abbey season five has started and I watched episode one. Here's a brief synopsis: The general Election of 1924 brings a Labour government into power, to the consternation of Robert and Carson, though many of the staff are pleased to have a prime minister from the working class. A village delegation, building a war memorial to local dead, requests Carson, not Robert, to head its committee and the class-bound butler feels awkward, ensuring the earl is made a patron. Tim Drewe tells Lady Edith he knows that Marigold, the daughter he and his wife have adopted, is her child whilst Lady Mary receives another proposal from Tony Gillingham. Violet organizes a lunch party to match Isobel with Lord Merton though Isobel resists and at Robert and Cora's anniversary supports Sarah Bunting and Tom's that the war was futile. Robert immediately takes a dislike to Sarah. Barrow continues to pressurize Baxter to disclose damning information on John Bates but, encouraged by the adoring Molesley, she tells Cora her secret, that she was imprisoned for theft from an employer, so the plan backfires on Barrow. However he becomes a hero for rescuing the unhappy Edith, who has accidentally started a fire in her bedroom. Subsequent evacuation leads to the discovery of young footman Jimmy, nude in bed with his former employer, saucy guest Lady Anstruther, prompting Robert to call for the boy's dismissal.

Woohoo... it's back. I've been waiting all year for more Downton and they didn't disappoint. Just an FYI it won't air here in the US until early January but I'm watching the original British broadcast. All of my favorites are back and just a bit older. Highlights in this episode for me would be us finally finding out about Ms Baxter secret and what Thomas has over her. It was looking bleak for Thomas but of course they have to keep him around so he saves the day by saving Edith from a fire. Man I hate that guy. Edith's story is heartbreaking and I'm interested in seeing what they come up with to explain why she is seeing "her daughter" on a regular bases. Poor Mr. Molesley, this guy can't catch a break. I really do hope that he and Baxter get together and something good happens to him for once. I'm really looking forward to this season and I can't wait to see what's in store for all the residents of Downton Abbey.

I watched the premiere of Big Bang Theory (both episodes) and I'm still loving it but what I wanted to give a quick review on is the new DC series Gotham on Fox. Here's a synopsis of this new series. A new recruit in Gotham City Police Department, Detective James Gordon is paired with Harvey Bullock to solve one of Gotham's highest-profile cases: the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. During his investigation, Gordon meets the Waynes' son Bruce, now in the care of his butler Alfred Pennyworth, which further compels Gordon to catch the mysterious killer. Along the way, Gordon must confront gang boss Fish Mooney, businessman Carmine Falcone, as well as many of Gotham's future villains such as Selina Kyle, Edward Nygma, and Oswald Cobblepot. Eventually, Gordon is forced to form an unlikely friendship with Wayne, one that will help shape the boy's future in becoming The Dark Knight.

First let me say that I'm not a big fan of Batman, I've seen the movies, some of the cartoons and read some of the comic book but I've never been a huge fan. But overall I enjoyed this pilot, it obviously had a ton of "cameo's" of future bad guys, and I got most of them. I think my biggest complaint is that I didn't like any of the characters... they are all corrupt and bad, with exception to Gordon and Bruce Wayne. How can you like a series when 2/3's of the cast are unlikable. I'll give it a few more episodes before I decide if I want to continue watching or not. But I have to say the pilot was good enough to get this non-Batman fan to watch.

Hobbit Anniversary, Firefly & The Maze Runner Review

Gonna start this blog with a Happy 77th Anniversary to one of my favorite novels of all time, The Hobbit. It was first published on this date back in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book remains popular and is recognized as a classic in children's literature.

I read The Hobbit back when I was in middle school and enjoyed it but I wasn't a huge fan. I attempted to read Lord of the Rings and just couldn't do it, that was until the Lord of the Rings movies came out back in 2001. Before I saw the movies I was determined to read Lord of the Rings again and when I did I fell in love with it. I then purchased the audio books and listen to them over and over. I also purchased The Hobbit audio book and listened to it after all these years and appreciated it much more now. And of course I am loving The Hobbit movies and can't wait for the final chapter in that movie trilogy. Now the world of Middle Earth is one of my all time favorite universe to escape to. I've read the Similarion and currently going through the untold stories of Middle Earth. And it all started with "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit"...

I doubled up on my "pic a day" until my 44th Birthday. Today is day 41 & 42 so here I am at age 41(left) and age 42 (right). I look pretty much the same since turning 40, a bit less hair on top and maybe more gray in the beard but for the most part it's the same face. My age 42 picture I'm wearing my freshly washed Hobbit hair wig. I cosplay as a Hobbit and part of that costume is my long curly hair which I don't have naturally anymore.

I was in a Firefly mood today and I knew if I started watching them that I wouldn't be able to stop and of course I was right. I started with the pilot episode titled Serenity. This has to be one of the best pilots of any TV series. I've seen it so many times but it still continues to impress me every time I watch it. After that was Train Job, Bushwacked, Our Mrs Reynolds and finally episode five Jaynestown. I would have continued to watch more Firefly but during the late afternoon/evening I picked up friends Jes, Dallas and Robert and we headed over to the 20th Century Fox lot for a screening on a new movie called Maze Runner.

I had never heard of this film until seeing trailers a few weeks prior. So if you're like me and know nothing of this movie here's a brief synopsis: The story follows sixteen-year-old Thomas, who awakens in a rusty elevator with no memory of who he is, only to learn he's been delivered to the middle of an intricate maze, along with a slew of other boys, who have been trying to find their way out of the ever-changing labyrinth — all while establishing a functioning society in what they call The Glade. It's based off a young adult novel of the same name. It's actually a trilogy and one day after this movie was released, and made over 32 million dollars they announced the sequel The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, set to be released on September 18, 2015

Overall it was a fun movie, entertaining and adventure filled. I do wish there was better character development but that's tough when the actual characters have no memories of their own. The effects were pretty awesome and the movie is suspenseful at times. You do have to wait the entire movie to actually be told what is going on and then of course it leads into the next movie. 

If this was a single movie and there was not going to be a sequel then it would have been a bit disappointing as this movie didn't feel complete with a beginning, middle and end.

I'm glad I didn't pay to see this and I don't think I'll be buying it on blu-ray but if you're looking for a fun popcorn movie with a good amount of action then The Maze Runner might be for you. I give The Maze Runner a B-

Afterwards the four of us headed to The Habit for some burgers. It was a good evening.