2015-01-04 · 18:00

Year Anytime

I don’t know when you’re reading this. You might be reading it on the day of up load, it might be the middle of summer, you might be reading it in the year 4247 for all I know. Goodness imagine how many web pages their will be by then. Allow me to get to my point a year can start anywhere.

We all have those moments where we decide to try something new. It could be a diet. It could be anything. If you’re anything like me you might feel that a Monday or a Sunday are the only days to begin something. You might even feel like the 1st of the month is the only day. You might want to wait until a month where the 1st falls on a Monday.

At the start of a new year people set resolutions. The year though is arbitrary. I’d like to switch to a calendar starting in March, like the Roman calendar, because then winter would be over. That is, of course, a northern hemisphere centric view of the world – however that is where I live. To me it always feels like winter should be over with the start of a new year. With all the talk of new beginnings its strange to me that winter straddles both years.

If you do have a new plan start now. It might be Thursday. Poor Thursday the runt of the weak. Monday and Tuesday start the week; Wednesday is midweek, and Thursday is the annoying thing that prevents Friday coming sooner.  Thursday is just as good a day as any to begin something. The Royal Navy practice battle maneuvers on a Thursday.

Secret Santa

As it is a new year, this is a do as I say not as I do situation, I have started something new. Actually I did start it on a Thursday or rather Christmas Day. I started writing a happiness diary.

I heard of the idea through a friend. The idea is to write something that makes you happy every day. I know it may sound a little hokey but it can actually be quite effective.

For my diary I’m actually writing a bit more fully. So its not just the one happy paragraph but an account of the day too. Whether or not its helpful to remember bad things I don’t know. Maybe a happiness diary would be useful to you.

1st January 2015

Busy day at work and it rained. My God it rained.

Happiness day#1 Watched the BBC adaptation of Esio Trot. It was delightfully done!

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2014-12-28 · 18:00

The End of It

This is the last post of 2014. When 2015 comes around it will feel, once again, like a new period of hope. Then, before you can look round, you realise it’s February and you’ve already failed to keep up with any new year’s resolutions.

This blog is my success this year. I have posted on it every week. I think one or two posts were a little late but the average was one a week. I didn’t however manage to start doing You Tube. With that I was doing the classic thing of the procrastinator – waiting for the right time and thus never doing it.

Exercise is another slight fail. I went to the gym for a while, I joined in June, but lately I haven’t been using it so much. To be honest I live too far from the gym. It takes three hours to do a one hour gym session. That’s when you factor in the train journey, waiting for the train, showering, and going to and from the station. I realised though that if that is the case I could just go for a walk for a couple of hours. Two hours of walking would probably equal the exercise of half an hour on a rowing machine.

For the new year I’m not sure I want to codify my resolutions. One thing I have thought about is learning to drive.

Leaning to drive has never been a priority to me. Until the beginning of this year I was within cycling distance of anywhere I wanted to be. Now I live further away and have to rely on trains. That is fine most of the time. The only exceptions are: Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, the occasional Sunday, and when I want to be out later than the last train. Having a car would be more convenient. If you leave five minutes late, when getting a train, you miss the train and have to wait for the next one. If going by car you can basically stay five minutes late.

The idea of learning to drive though is rather terrifying. I might just be better off putting some money aside to afford a taxi now and then.

And I know I say this every year but finishing my novel is a priority too.

Happy New Year!

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2014-12-21 · 18:00

Best Sci-Fi Characters of All Time

This will be my last post before Christmas. I don’t want to talk about Christmas.

The other day the BFI uploaded its picks for ‘The Best Sci-Fi Characters of All Time.‘ At the top of the list was The Doctor.  This to me is no great surprise. Doctor Who is probably the most versatile science fiction that exists. You can tell any story you can imagine in that universe.

What did surprise me was that Kerr Avon was number 4. This is not because I don’t like the character but rather because I’ve always thought as Blake’s 7 to be a little obscure.

For Star Trek Mr Spock was the highest ranked at number 10. Spock is certainly the most iconic of all Star Trek characters. For me he was always more interesting a character than Kirk. When watching TOS I always wonder why Spock isn’t in charge.

Babylon 5 was well represented too with: G’Kar, Londo Mollari, Susan Ivanova, Captain John Sheridan, Delenn (twice), Alfred Bester, Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, Lyta Alexander, and Michael Garibaldi.

For Stargate SG-1 we have the whole team with the exception of Cameron Mitchell, which I can understand, and Teal’c which I can’t.

So who would my top ten be? Well I’m going to limit myself to names on their list…

  1. The Doctor
  2. Ambassador G’kar
  3. Captain Benjamin Sisko
  4. Ambassador Spock
  5. Captain Picard
  6. Ambassador Londo Mollari
  7. Brigadier General Jack O’Neill
  8. Ambassador Delenn
  9. Colonel Samantha Carter
  10. Admiral William Adama

There are many others I could mention. I may put together my own list of 100 names.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Best of the Season.

See you on the other side.

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2014-12-14 · 17:53

Less Than Two Weeks!

It’s time for the cliffhanger music to play. Next week will be my last post before Christmas. Unfortunately Christmas will be a little different this year. I have to work over Christmas week. I get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off but, for all intents and purposes, it will be an ordinary week. Presents are bought, though not yet wrapped, so I guess I’m ready.

I mentioned last week about the grotto at work. There was something not quite right about it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on – now I know. Some of the songs are not the proper versions.

This is great:

The version at the grotto not so good. Insistently I don’t think the economical implications of this have been considered.

To be honest I’m becoming a bit of a Scrooge lately. I’ve passed from childhood excitement, to adult apathy, and landed on a slight dislike. Only a slight dislike mind you.

Christmas will be strange this year. Working Boxing Day is not fun.

The above shows it could be worse.

Every year we, as in society, talk about the new year being a signer of a change. “This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.” (Douglas Adams – The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.)

It would be nice to believe that 2015 will be the year of peace. It won’t be of course but its nice to dream.

I might at least be able to make it a great year for myself. At the very least I’d like to encourage a few more green pieces of paper my way.

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Best of the Season, Happy New Year, and any other celebration that may be coming up – and lets try to make 2015 a fantastic year.

Peace and long life.

…

Live long and prosper.

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2014-12-07 · 13:17

Father Christmas

There was a grotto at work yesterday. It was right next to the area I work. I started to feel just a bit more Christmasy. Only a bit mind you. I do still have a bit of a humbug approach to Christmas but that shell was pierced just a tad.

The grotto was playing music all the day. There was the obvious tunes like Stop the Cavalry and Mary’s Boy Child. The former is a favorite of  mine and latter… well the less said about it the better. They also played Baby One More Time and Rollercoaster. What do they have to do with Christmas?

The grotto also had very few tunes in total – they repeated all day.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was why I stopped believing in Father Christmas. I do remember being in Primary School and talking to a girl who’d already figured it out. I actually thought she was silly and remember coming up with a fairly cogent argument: ‘Father Christmas must exist. How could my parents afford to buy two sets of presents?’ Apparently I thought a man with flying reindeer, who would have to travel several times the speed of sound, was more believable than that mum and dad had managed to save a bit more!

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2014-11-30 · 20:12

Chrismas

Christmas is less than four weeks away. It is time to start panicking.

Well panicking is optional but it does seem to be a fairly typical response to the forthcoming season. It is the season of goodwill – or the season to fight people to get a cheap TV. If you don’t know to what that refers just try googling for black Friday and Tesco.

I went into town today and picked up a few things. Actually I only got a present for one person and somethings for myself – so I suppose I rather failed at that. I have bought something else on line though.

For obvious reasons I can’t tell you what I’ve bought. Amazon seemed to have missed that and still suggests that you tweet about purchases – or am I the only one who’s parents might see his Twitter.

I think that I’ve only got two or three presents left to get. Some people are very had to buy for. Hell I’m hard to buy for. I have most of what I want and what I don’t have is expensive.

I received excellent customer service in the shop I went into today. Again I can’t tell you where that was… maybe I didn’t think this through.

I hope you’re doing well with your Christmas shopping.

Why does Christmas always seem to be far away and a shock all at the same time?

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2014-11-23 · 18:00

Regeneration

We all know that when the Doctor is injured he regenerates. Originally this came from a necessity of having to replace William Hartnell. They could simply have replaced the actor. I remember they did this in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman with the character of Jimmy Olsen. However in Doctor Who they chose to make it a part of the plot which is wonderful. (Obviously not a option for Superman)

I think that regeneration was handled better in the old show. I don’t like the knew graphics used for regeneration. The explosive orange looks silly. Obviously explosive orange was impossible for the original series. In the time The Tenth Planet was made there was nether orange nor computer graphics.

The fading from Hartnell to Troughton looked more natural than the modern series. This is supposed to be a biological function after all. That’s just my two sense.

I wonder though might regeneration be possible for us? Immortality is discussed in many science fictions and some say it might be a real possibility one day.  If you know anything about biology, which I don’t really, you’ll know that human cells replace themselves every seven years. In essence there isn’t a cell in your body that was there seven years ago. As we age this replacement process becomes less and less efficient. So what if there were a technology that could assist the body in cell replacement but not lead to weakening and death.

I rather like the idea of immortality – I’m assuming that your immortal body was one that was still a nice place to live. If you could find a job you enjoyed then you could see the world. Boredom would be impossible. There would still be millions of books to read, TV series to watch and places to visit. And if you left it a few decades between visiting each place, watching a TV series, or reading a book it you would have forgotten about it and, in the case of a place, it would have changed a lot.

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2014-11-16 · 18:00

Reading

On Goodreads I set myself the challenge of reading 30 books this year. I’ve read 37 books. By the end of the year I hope to be at forty-five. My total does include audio books. I think they count.

Next year my target will be about fifty books. I’m wondering how many I can get up to as my maximum. Some people manage to read 200 books in a year which seems a little excessive. I’d like to work up to 104 that seems like a workable maximum.

As I’ve said before reading on the train is the only good think about my journey to work. I’m currently reading Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs and listening to The Nano Flower by Peter F. Hamilton.

Books are very important to me. It doesn’t matter how you read – just read. You can get a lot more from a book than a TV show or movie.

I’ve recently joined OkCupid. This differs from Plenty of Fish in that it matches you based on answers to questions. Finding someone who reads is important to me. It would be nice to read to each other or even just sitting together reading our own thing.

I’m 27 but that’s what I want.

So finishing these two will bring me to 39 books. Then I just have six more to go in the next six weeks. Maybe forty-five is a little optimistic. We shall see…

I suppose I could just read a few Mr Men books just to make up the numbers.

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2014-11-13 · 13:24

Perfect

Had to share this video by Emma Blackery.

A great song.

Enjoy.

All I need to do now is believe it!

Hope you all have a great day.

 

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2014-11-09 · 20:43

Doctor Who – Death in Heaven

***Spoilers***

***Spoilers***

 

The latest series of Doctor Who has been something of a mixed bag. Yesterday’s episode was fantastic! Often when I’m watching TV I end up doing something else, Facebook or Tetris, this time I was thoroughly gripped. Being from Cardiff it was a little strange seeing a street I know well which has, apparently, translocated to London.

The cyberman are, to me, the most interesting of the Doctor Who villains. To become one of them is far more terrifying than an enemy that simply wants you dead. Speaking of being dead I’m not entirely sure how the cybermen can use the dead. They’re supposed to be cyborgs so they need the organic components. Am I thinking too much into this? Maybe but science fiction is supposed to make you think.

Some people, yes I know citation needed, apparently guessed that Missy was going to be the Master. For me though she was never interesting enough for me to think about it. Had I thought about it I wouldn’t come up with the Master. For one thing I didn’t know Time Lords could change their gender and for another we saw the Master die.

The scene where Osgood was murdered was very well done. I was watching it by myself and I could see what was coming. I was saying ‘No, don’t do it.’ To Osgood. It never goes well when a restrained person asks their captor to come closer. Moffat definitely showed how evil Missy was with that. I know Osgood was only in one other episode but it was very well done. When she was killed I wanted Missy dead from that moment. Having the Brigadier kill her was the perfect end. If Clara or the Doctor had done it wouldn’t have worked.

I have two gripes and one wish for the next series.

Grip 1: They are continually doing stories of global incidents. These seem to either have no lasting effect or there is a global amnesia plot at then end. If big scale events are going to be shown then I feel their should be a lasting result. There have been so many incidents. I would rather they reverted to the ‘base under siege’ plot. If we’re dealing with people in an isolated location its far more interesting.

Grip 2: As well as the attacks being big scale so are the solutions. Rather than the invaders being driven off it always seems as though they are being utterly destroyed. I would rather a… well a more subtle approach. I suppose Captain Scarlet would be a good example, especially as it was mentioned, each episode the Mysteron problem is resolved, but the Mysterons aren’t obliterated.

It could be argued that these weren’t ‘real’ cybermen. Rather Missy had the blueprints; for lack of a better way to put it.

1 Wish: A companion from somewhere, or some when, else. Don’t get me wrong I’ve liked all the companions of the modern series but they are all from contemporary earth. Rose, Martha and Clara are all from London. I just think it would be interesting to have companions from other places. Someone from the future, someone from the past, even just someone from another continent would be interesting. Again there is nothing wrong with any of the companions but variety would be nice.

And now with have the Christmas episode to look forward too. I have another gripe about that which is simply this: why is December such a popular time for invasions and dastardly plans?

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