TV

Outlander

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkizwJUiVjA

This started almost as a quid pro quo with a co-worker that I got to watch Orphan Black, but now I’m kind of waiting impatiently to see this.

In our conversations of TV shows to watch she mentions that she is excited to see that one of her favorite book series is finally coming to the screen. Starz is producing a TV series of the Outlander books written by Diana Gabaldon. She tells me it is about an English Army nurse from WWII who gets transported back to the mid-1700’s Scotland.

I’m a sucker for time travel, books or movies, so I’m interested. I check out the trailer(s) and now I’m intrigued. I read a bit of the blog that the author writes and I like her style and sense of humor, so now I think, maybe I should read the book. Jamie has a copy of the book on her Kindle, but can’t seem to find her, you know, ink on paper with a glued binding, circa sometime last century version, so I will have to see if I can find a copy of a book that was published in 1991.

Turns out it was pretty easy. My local supermarket has a paperback copy on their book aisle because book No. 8 of the series is just out in hardback and the paperback was re-issued because of the upcoming TV series (even has the two main actors, in character, on the cover.

Now my favorite book series will always be Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, tough guy private-eye with his own moral code that always gets his man, usually in a one on one violent confrontation. The writing is direct with short sentences in short chapters, double spaced on pages with large margins. A couple hundred pages of the literary equivalent of a can of sour cream & onion flavored Pringles.

Outlander is the polar opposite. There are densely packed pages filled with minute, detailed descriptions of the surroundings and stuffed with personal observations, sort of the literary equivalent of a Martha Stewart Poppy Seed Grapefruit Torte. Think Stephen King length, this baby is 850 pages. I’m not a big fan of period pieces, but I’m still with this one at the 500 page mark. I think I recognize the seed in all the flowery, descriptive text as the writing I liked in her blog. Still, I’m not sure I’ll read any more of the books, but if the TV series turns out as good as it looks in the trailers, I’ll be watching.

44,000 Teary Eyed Fans

Tonight is the MLB All-Star Game and I considered tuning in just to see all 44,000 teary eyed fans at Target Field watching Derek Jeter’s final tip of the hat. But then I realized that Atlantic Broadband, in their continuing efforts to force a cable box on me, has removed the HD feed for FOX from my available channels, so I didn’t turn it on.

It wasn’t until the 4th inning that I realized I could watch it in HD using my MLB.TV package. This turned out to be a good thing as Jeter was already out of the game so I didn’t have to listen to the FOX announcers lavish praise on him. That reminds me, I have been lax in keeping up with Grantland.com’s fictional Derek Jeter Diary, The Captain’s Log.

I was also very lucky and missed the FRS’s “all-star” pitcher John Lester give up a single and two doubles, allowing two runs in his 2nd inning appearance.

The Purple Whale swam past the 44,000 mile mark on the way to DD this morning.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1391

Clone Club Emails

In my personal quest to broaden the TV viewing horizons of my co-workers I have managed to get 13 other individuals to watch Orphan Black. To keep their interest up I have taken to issuing a Clone Club email about once a week of tidbits discovered on the web about the show. This week there were actually two emails sent because right after I mailed the first one, something really interesting came to my attention that I wanted to share.

First Wednesday’s:

Subj: A Clone Phone Ringtone, A Video and A Romantic/Scientific Relationship

A Ringtone – Now all you need is a pink cell phone cover…

A YouTube video – Tatiana Maslany talks to Space Channel about Season 2

A “Spoiler:”
Show runner Graeme Mason says that season 2 will explore Cosima and Delphine’s relationship, “That Cosima-and-Delphine relationship is as complex as ever. It stays romantic and stays scientific, but there’s a lot of gamesmanship going on”

Brian

Delphine: I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.
Cosima: Ah, like in a… not bad way?
Delphine: Oh, like… I have never thought about bisexuality. I mean, for myself, you know? But, as a scientist, I know that sexuality, is a… is a… is a spectrum. But you know, social biases they, codified attraction. It’s contrary to the biological facts… you know.
Cosima: That’s… oddly romantic. And totally encouraging.

Now today’s:

Subj: 10 Weeks, Down Under & A Fan Based Award

Only 71 more days, so if you watch one episode of Season 1 every Saturday night starting tomorrow, you will see the finale on the 19th of April, the same night as the premier of first episode of Season 2.

Last Tuesday night at 8:30pm in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide & Perth a combined 4.2 million Australians were watching the second half hour of a show called My Kitchen Rules. On Network 9, 1.9 million people were watching a re-run of The Big Bang Theory while only a total of 26,000 people were watching Orphan Black on SBS 2. Just like the continent, their idea of quality TV is upside down…

No Emmy, no problem. An OB fan has created a crowd funded award to give to Tatiana. There are several donation levels to choose from with different “perks” for each. My favorite level is The Helena, a $500 donation and you will get your own replica of the award, but I’m probably only going to be donating on The Beth level. This is already 1/3 of the way to reality, so hurry before it is too late to get in on it.

Brian

Mrs. S: I was tempted to claim the remains and feed them to you both on toast.

Resurection

While updating a blogging software plugin this evening it some how crashed and took the whole site down. I restored the database from a weekly backup that runs on Sunday nights. Everything previous came back, but things are just a little off.

The top transition text has changed and weirdest of all is when I try to edit a post, the text box where everything is entered, is blank. There is nothing to edit, yet the post still exists. And now I also have a yellow bar across the top of every backend page telling me that an automated WordPress update has failed to complete – please attempt the update again now. When I try, nothing happens, and the bar remains.

And if you would like a different take on the resurrection of the dead, I highly recommend a French (oh, no, subtitles) eight episode TV show called Les Revenants, or The Returned for us English speaking types. Very creepy story of the dead come back to life in a small mountain village, but not as shuffling zombies, but as exactly as they were just before they died with no recollection of the passage of time.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1279

Utopia

Utopia

I read an online review of Orphan Black the other day from a source in England, they are just getting it shown over there now, and the biggest complaint he had was the crummy British accents. They sound just fine to me and I watch a lot of British TV, but I’m not from there so…

The reviewer compared OB to a show called Utopia which I had never heard of. He said the way they were similar is that it put seemingly ordinary persons in extra ordinary positions and watched how they reacted. It had a six episode series run earlier this year on Channel 4 and after watching half of them I see that similarity, but that is the only one.

It is beautifully shot in very wide screen with a bright palette. The top image is from the opening shots of episode 2, click to see it full size to appreciate it. After episode one you see that there are two parallel story lines that will intersect sometime. The soundtrack is kind of quirky, but fits the show to a T.

If Orphan Black was a movie it would be rated PG, Utopia on the other hand would be rated R. While I have been busy spreading the word and coercing my co-workers to watch OB, the violence in Utopia is so Quentin Tarantino-esque that I don’t know who I would recommend the show to.

The Holy Grail of Watching a Televised Red Sox Game Realized

After trying all kinds of shenanigans over the years to get it so I could watch the Red Sox on television and listen to the radio crew call the game, turns out it was available all along. No audio and or video delaying software required, all I had to do was subscribe to MLB.TV, install their NextDef add-in and that combination is right there for the selecting.

I don’t see it tonight, but last night I could select no audio and just have the stadium crowd noise while viewing the game. Tried it for a bit, and while interesting, I couldn’t do it. Maybe if I just watched the game instead of my usual internet surfing multitasking…