A New Project on this Blog…

In the nearly five years I’ve been posting on this site and others, it’s become a bit apparent that my thinking and writing style have evolved quite a lot. To get a good handle on just how it’s evolved and to gauge whether it’s gone in a direction that I’d like, I’m engaged in a little project on the side…

…filing my old blog posts, saving them to Word or Pages, formating and correcting for spelling errors, and finally, exporting the whole unseemly mess as a PDF to post on this blog for free consumption by the sites readership.

I’ve already posted, and again here, the 2009, 2010, and the first 2011 anthology of my selected blog posts from those years, what I perhaps delusionally think of as my least totally heinous ventures into blogging, with a few other volumes currently in the works: the second 2011 collection, and like 2011, possibly two separate anthologies for 2012.

I need to read over these myself, since I am very much aware of the danger of just posting on the same stuff year after year, post after post, and reading my old posts is a good way to refresh my memory and prevent repetition of old and tired topics already better written on before.

Or not.

Whether my style, voice and tone are suited for going in whatever direction I’m going in, if and in what way they’ve gotten better, plus getting a better handle on what new topics to write on, and what’s already been done, will be determined once this project’s completed.

I’m not putting a definite deadline on the posting of the new volumes, but I shall announce and publish them here when they are complete and ready.

Again, these will be free, after all, they will be practically verbatim (minus the spelling errors and such) from material freely accessible on this site by navigating the archives.

You pay nothing.

I’ll also in the meantime be working on a set of volumes collecting the best of the fractal posts on this site, and other work of mine, also in PDF or whatever I find works better with images. This volume won’t be free, but it will be cheap, and will be posted online when complete and formatted.

Thanks, you people are sooo cool. In the words of my alien humans, the Kai’Siri,

Talotaa Frang. (Be strong, be well.)

 

Doctor Who: Zeitgeist

The Fourth Doctor’s impractically long scarf became an iconic image of the character. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Doctor Who is one of my favorite SF series, even at one point endorsed by no less than Harlan Ellison in the preface of a series of Who novels published originally in the late 1970s, during the Tom Baker era.

I used to own some of those, almost a complete set if my memory serves me correctly.

Ever since a teenager, having seen pictures of Who monsters in comic books, I wanted to actually view it myself, being rather envious of those television viewers on the other side of the pond, until my wish was granted on a local television station not too many years later during my adolescence.

There’s a certain magic to the creativity of both the classic Who series, and with the reboot beginning in 2005 with the regrettably short stay of Chris Eccleston, though I’m aware of his reasons for leaving the show and respect that.

Nonetheless, both he and Tom Baker are ‘my Doctors,’ since my first viewing here “in the Colonies” was during the start of Tom’s seven-year tenure as Four.

But I’ve always loved the monsters, and the fact that the show rarely took itself seriously, even in the episodes with a darker tone.

In short, Doctor Who was and is often ridiculous, and sometimes campy — but it’s meant to be — and more than anything else, Doctor Who is a wild-and-wahoo, deliberately fantastic, science-fictional reflection of the Spirit of the Age, from the First Doctor, the late William Hartnell, to…well, to the Time Lord’s latest incarnation, Who-ever that may be at any given point.

Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of course, I’m writing this during Matt Smith‘s run as Eleven, and though Four and Nine are my top favorites, Smith comes very, very close. At the very least, he makes a great madman with a box.

The series reflects the memes, themes, quirks, fears, fads, and hopes, and yes, the dress and music styles of the day, these trends even spilling over into the alien worlds, and to an extent, time periods traveled to, at least as far as the dress of the Doctor and his Companions, unless safety or decorum requires conforming to the local fashions wherever and whenever the TARDIS travels to.

Doctor Who is more than just a SF series, more than (currently) a dark faerie tale — it’s a cultural icon, whether of British pop-culture in the classic series, or it’s more British+international flavor in the reboot. That could also be the result of trends resulting from increasing globalization, though I haven’t seen the data on that and can only speculate.

Given the wider distribution and popularity of the current series in the English speaking world and elsewhere, it would seem to be the case, or at least reflect good marketing sense for appealing to a wider audience.

Who will be the next Doctor? Yes. But the question would be better asked as which actor, or if rumors have any basis at all, actress, will be next to play the role of the Time Lord?

Whatever the case, I’ll be sitting before my computer or television set, waiting for the surprises that almost surely come with each new episode.

Geronimo!

I’m on Twitter hiatus for a bit. I’ll be back.

Lately, I’ve been taking home study courses to improve my academic skills, and just for the sheer fun of making myself a better student and reader, and found it necessary to devote more of my time to study and reading. I’ve also been spending time on Twitter, at least until the last couple of days, since I’ve found myself too given to distraction, and I need to focus on learning.

So, I’m taking a break from Twitter, at least for a week, maybe more, though I’ll keep in contact with my tweeps through direct messaging when not forbidden, through Facebook, and through regular email.

But, no tweeting, at least, no live tweeting, just autotweets from my WordPress blogs and Tumblr page, and when I decide to set things up for it, my Facebook posts. But no tweets directly by being logged into my Twitter account.

I’ve noticed that my tweets were beginning to get a bit stale…something was missing…I simply wasn’t allowing myself time to come up with anything interesting, and the minute-by-minute status updates get a bit old after almost three years. There’s a lot of ‘noise’ on Twitter, which is what one would expect for the enormous volume of information coursing through it’s millions of accounts, and that noise can be difficult to sort out from the important posts, from useful information.

Twitter is a great way to keep in contact with people I’ve met online, and those friends I’ve met there are very dear to me, but I need to get away from the volume of noise and data for a bit, sort things out, figure out what I really want to accomplish in social networking. I have some very interesting people following my account, many very well-known in some circles, better known than a nobody like yours truly. Sometimes I chat with them, people continents away, and I’ve even chatted with those people not following my tweets, prominent figures in the rationalist community who’ll remain unnamed.

I also follow lots of interesting people, over 1865 at last count, though that varies depending on whatever issues the server is undergoing. There’s been a glitch in Twitter’s software that causes the server to randomly follow or unfollow people without warning for an account, though it’s been worse in the past, and caused a lot of unnecessary acrimony.

I’m in the process of training myself to better manage distraction, and that should smooth out my interaction on the site, make it easier for me to keep in contact with people and avoid the errors caused by data overload and burnout, while also being more relaxed online and thus less prone to miss important things through over-focusing. Also pending is improvement in my ‘people skills,’ which have lately been somewhat deficient.

I’ve no interest in cutting ties with people on Twitter…I’ve met very few trolls, save the infamous Dennis Markuze and very few others. Yes, “I’ve been Mabused.”

Meh. Sounds like a disease…

Once this break is over, I’ll be making better, more effective, efficient, and enjoyable use of my social networking time, but for now, it’s time out for Troythulu.

Until I’m back, my cosmic and brilliant tweeps, carry on and keep the unfaith. You will anyway.

Happy Birthday, Sarah Jane Smith…You are sorely missed.

David Tennant reads for the forward to Elizabeth Sladen’s autobiography. She was my Doctor’s Companion, long before Billie, Freema & Catherine.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 27,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.