Tag Archives: Netflix

4+ years of Fandom

Posted by on July 11, 2011 3 comments

For many years I have held a secret. Something that many of my friends would gasp about and possibly revoke my Geek card. It’s been no secret that I am a huge Sci-Fi fan. I own more props, costumes, wall art, toys, etc. than most people (except other geeks like me), but there is something that I had never done that causes most geeks to shiver down to their internal power core.

I had never watched Doctor Who.

Sure, I knew what a TARDIS was, and I was familiar with most of the mythos due to most of my friends being huge fans, but I had never actually seen a single episode. So while browsing through Netflix streaming the other day I noticed that all of the new series (2005-current) was available. I had heard from various friends that if I were to start somewhere, that the 2005 stuff was the way to go. I realize that some purists would say that I should encounter all incarnations of the Doctor, but we are talking baby steps here people!

This is not to say that I won’t go back and watch some early stuff. Since undertaking this task of cramming 6 years of TV into my head, I have already watched 1 story line of the 4th Doctor, and 1 from the 5th, but this is about the newer series that I am going full steam ahead with. That’s not even a joke. A week and a half ago we started with the Christopher Eccleston episodes and have been watching every night, and most of the weekends to catch up to the current Matt Smith seasons. Both Sarah and I have become incredibly addicted to the series.

You may think that this is a good thing, right? Lots of people enjoy The Doctor! Problem is that when I dive into a series like this, I dive into the deep end and keep swimming down. Because of this, I have been stuffing, not only the TV information, but (currently) 4+ years of Who Fandom into my noggin. Catching up on props, T-shirts, costumes, videos, etc.. It’s almost maddening, but I love it so much! I am even now drafting plans for the building of a full scale TARDIS. I have the tools and the space, and I love woodworking, so why not?

So what about the shows? Well, I agree with all of those who told me to start with the 2005 series. The pacing on them are much more up to date with current shows. I went back and watched a few of the older shows and it just seems so much slower and wooden. I will work my way through them slowly but I really love the new format. As far as Doctors go, I really feel bad for Christopher Eccleston. He was a great Doctor and should have been given more time. it was pretty clear that they used him to springboard off of and show that the regeneration of the Doctor is still ongoing. CE was also a great tie in to the older shows as he took that campy brit humor and ran with it (and holy cow, the hair!). We have just finished up with Season 4 and the end of the David Tennent run. I liked DT as a Doctor and he certainly added a lot of the genius ramble to the character, but I think that CE will remain as “My Doctor”.

Which brings us to where we are now. We watched the first episode of season 5, the Matt Smith Doctor. It is way too early to decide my feelings on him. He certainly has that campy but modern feeling down. Time will tell. In the meantime, look for progress posts on the various builds I am doing and well as follow along as I dive deeper into a fandom that spans almost 50 years!

iPad Day one

Posted by on May 6, 2010 No comments

My soul is now sitting in a neat little jar on Steve Jobs shelf.  For my birthday Sarah gave me permission to get an iPad.  I picked it up on Tuesday night on my way home from work.  (yeah, I know my birthday isn’t until NEXT Friday but my inner Verruca took over.  I was orginally thinking of getting the low end 3G model just to have the capability to do OTA internet when I needed it, but after a long dialogue with myself I realized that, I have a 3G phone for things like that and that extra $130 could be used for better things! (Like buying my wife flowers for being nice enough to tolerate my gadget addictions.)  So I ended up buying the 16gb WiFi only model.  They way I figure it, I do a lot of cloud computing so space on the device isn’t really important to me since most of my files are already out there.

So, when I got home I connected up to iTunes and, after the long install of the updated iTunes (I guess I should have used it more) I managed to get my first batch of apps loaded and started the casual using!  So I want to break this down into a few catagories for what I would be using the device for:  Reading/Browsing, Media (Videos/Music/Photos), Games, Apps.

Reading/Browsing:
This is probably the main reason for getting the iPad.  While I have a smallish laptop, it’s still a pain to sit on the couch with it and read, not to mention being more upwardly mobile.  So with Sarah’s Kindle account and the Kindle app now allow me to access all the books she has been buying.  So now I can finish Lost Symbol while she can still keep the kindle.  So far the reading seems ok.  It’s not as easy on the eyes as the e-ink screen but not as harsh as a computer monitor.  The web browsing is awesome on the device.  Most of the news sites I read came through just fine, even with the lack of flash.  Many of the site that use embeds have been using you-tube, and since you-tube has started using HTML5, you don’t miss much.  As a side note on the browsing, I downloaded the app Goodreader for use with PDF’s and ported the PDF’s I have for D&D.  They look amazing!  Very easy to use and search through and easy to read!

Media:
I didn’t plan on using the media all that much on the device but it looks pretty good for what it can do.  The Netflix app streams perfectly, though I haven’t had enough time to sit and watch a movie.  Not to mention,  could just watch on the Xbox.  I loaded a few episodes of DS9 on it that I had ripped in for my droid, so the resolution is still 320×240, but they still look good.  For music I copied over the mandatory albums of Journey, The Cure, and Depeche Mode, but again, I have streaming audio on my Droid (and the Pandora app on the iPad is cool).  So honestly, while I may use it every now and then, the Media side of the device is just there.

Games:
The iPhone/iPad/iPod platform has started to hold it’s own in the gaming world, and the iPad versions of the games really shine because of the size of the screen and the power of the device.  I told myself that if I got an iPad, I would get the Plants Vs. Zombies game (HD version) and I don’t regret it.  On the iPad it’s exactly the same as playing it on the PC and it’s easy!  Outside of that I am sticking with the freebies until I find something that’s really good.  Even the free games run and look great.

Apps:
Ahh the other reason for getting the iPad.  As I have stated many times, there are a lot of developers of applications that are only doing work in the apple environment.  While Android is the “up and coming”, it’s still not there yet, and I want access to the available apps that are out there.  Yes, we have an iPod in the house, but that’s Andrew’s and he rarely lets me play with it. Given that I have my Droid, I will have access to all that is Android, and now that I have the iPad, I have access to all that is Apple.  There really are apps for just about anything too.  There is only one little problem….. The iPhone/iPod apps are very small.  the iPad has a beautiful screen and when you run the iPhone/iPod apps, it’s tiny.  Yes there is a 2x button that doubles the size, but the pixels look bad and often it makes the app blury.  Case in point, the Facebook app.  There is no native iPad app for Facebook so I get to use the iPhone one for notifications and photos, but everything else is through Safari.  The iPhone Facebook app just looks silly when stretched out to iPad size.

The last two nights I have been able to sit on the couch, browse my Google reader and catch up on my news sites, sit with the family while we watched TV, and occasionally look up some info.  I am very happy with the purchase(present?) and will be doing much much more with it in the future.

Trying to resist.

Posted by on April 4, 2010 No comments

So back in January we saw the announcement of the iPad and now the time of the tablet is upon us.  I wrote up a small preview back when it was announced and mentioned a few of the issues I have with the device.  Mostly it came down to some of it’s capability and it’s price, two things that I still hold as the primary reasons for holding off on buying one.  The problem is that there are so many reasons to check one out.

Let me explain.  I have a Droid, and before that I had a Blackberry Storm.  I am on the Verizon network and have no plans to change that anytime soon.  My phone plays music and runs apps and plays videos just finr so the things I would use an iPod for are all covered…..except the litany of custom iPhone and iPod apps that are available.  It would appear that since Apple was first to really grasp the App market mentality that many of the primary developers have embraced that as the high visability area to produce their applications.  Due to this, most of the more utilitarian and high quality apps are produced for that platform.  Not to say that there are not any good apps for the Android market, there are, but they are still playing catch up.

Because of this, I have been kind of yearning for the ability to make use of some of these apps.  Until now, the only way to acomplish this has been via the iPod.  Andrew has an iPod and I have toyed around with his for a while, but it would be wrong of me to monopolize it.  So, that means my option has been go out at buy myself an iPod touch.  But again, my phone does more of that and so getting yet another small touch screen device for only a little functionality doesn’t seem like a wise use of funds.

Enter the iPad.  So over the last 4 months there has been a lot of talk about what the iPad will be able to do, as well as an ongoing war between Apple and Adobe over Flash.  (FYI, for those interesting, I am in the Flash camp.  It’s damn hard to do things on the Internet without flash.) Other things that have gone on are all about showing how many new and cool things the iPad can do.  From Specific games designed for the larger screen to the ability to stream Netflix Watch now movies.  (Which personally, I think is huge.) So now we have a device that is 1/2 way between a netbook and a iPod, that has full access to all the apps available to the iPod and iPhone crowd.

Gizmodo has a great set of articles that covers why you should, and shouldn’t get the iPad.  I am still riding the “Not gonna get one” side of the fence, but from what I have seen as of late, it’s becoming increasingly difficult.  The biggest issue, of course, is still the price.  I can’t see dropping $500 on something like that just yet.  I also have a feeling that we may see a price drop within the first few months.  I have changed my original estimate of $300, to a good solid $400 for something of this worth.  So a simple $100 price drop on it would totally entice me to buy it.  It is just still too early to jump on the bandwagon and grab one.

But the gadget guy in my is screaming in the back of my head.  It’s gonna be a long month or two.