TANcast

Blog2ober
Day 6

I would like to walk back some of my “criticism” of Doctor Who from the last episode of TANcast. I haven’t sat back and just listened to the episode yet, but when I was editing the episode last night, I sounded very harsh when I was talking about the show. It sounds like I didn’t like the show. In truth, I think I like the show too much. Specifically, I like the character of Rose. As such, I was more than a little unhappy to see her go. Not to mention that the way it all went down was heart breaking.

But, I have to admit, that’s not bad in terms of dramatic story telling. It’s just not what I WANTED for the character. I think that’s my main “problem” with Doctor Who. The show never does what I want it to do. When I want a character to live, that character often dies. When I want the show to explain the mechanics of time travel, the show gives a joke instead. When I want the Daleks’ armor to be pierced by SOMETHING, it never ever is. (Seriously, isn’t there something that can break through their shells? A light saber? A resonance burst from the main deflector dish of the Enterprise D? Something?)

I said something on the show like “the Doctor isn’t really a character.” That is not true and not even what I meant to say. I was struggling to find the words to express what I’m only coming to realize as I write this. He’s not the character I want him to be or the character I thought he was going to be. He’s not the powerful pillar of virtue like Superman. He’s not the rouge tough guy like Han Solo. He’s not the thinking man’s adventurer like Captain Picard. Yet he’s kind of a mish-mash of all those things but with this zaniness thrown in. At any one moment he’ll flip from one of those archetypes to another and it’s ok ’cause…he’s the Doctor, he does whatever. That isn’t NOT a character, it’s just not the character I’m writing in my head as I’m watching.

But Rose is a character I felt like I got. She’s a young kid being shown incredible things. She has absolute faith in the Doctor. She has been my guide in discovering this world. And now she’s gone and instantly there’s new companions to take her place. It just feels wrong. It’s like when your dog dies and your parents try to buy you a new dog. That doesn’t quell the pain of the dog you lost, it only serves as a reminder that your dog is gone. Wait…did I just compare a woman to a dog? That’s gotta be misogynistic or something right? Just to get this on the record, women are not like dogs. You know that, I know that, and most importantly now you know that I know that.

So I’m going to press on with Doctor Who. I’ll try to keep an open mind. I do like that the Doctor is clearly still missing Rose several episodes into Season 3. I hope that trend continues. It’s good that the show is acknowledging her absence.

Okay…this blog was more rambling than a proper review, but I didn’t want to leave my comments from the last episode hanging without expanding the a bit.

There is now an Official TANcast Steam User Group™ so all you TANcasties and TANnasties can play together, in case that’s your thing.

This all came about because Andy is a friendless loser, and had to put out a public call for more Steam contacts so he can qualify for the upcoming Steam Machines beta test.

Seriously, how sad is that? It’s probably because he’s fat or ugly or something.

Anyways, several of you took pity on him (still accepting friends, BTW: Steam ID MysteriousAndy), but @JuffTheGenie took things a step further and suggested the creation of a Steam Group. This group. The one this post is announcing.

He’s probably psychic.

“So, why is this a thing?” you may find yourselves asking.

Because we always^† listen to our listeners!

Join up, or else you must hate puppies and rainbows and sugar and touching yourself!

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This week the boys talk about how Comcast sucks, the guy who runs silk road getting busted, and the endings of Breaking Bad, Dexter and Futurama (No spoilers).
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[CONTENT WARNING] TANcast features mature language and immature hosts but is NOT a representation of the stand up act of Tim Babb. Listener discretion is advised.

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Blog2ober
Day 5

Before I had a day job, I used to pack my wife’s lunch every day. (I probably should still do it once in a while…bad husband). A common thing I would razz my wife about was when she would be too busy to eat some or all of her lunch and it would come back home with her. One particular food item, a pear, came back day after day. I think it was probably two weeks. Finally the thing was so old it was no longer edible. So one day, my wife found this note in her lunch bag when she got to work. (And I recently discovered it, so you get to see it too)

Blog2ober
Day 4

On October 4, 2013, Comcast’s new x1 cable boxes suffered a nationwide outage. For the first time in weeks, my wife and I had sat down to watch some tv…midway through Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the outage hit. What follows is what I expressed on my Twitter feed from that point forward…

I think my favorite feature of my @comcast DVR is the one where it stops recognizing the remote and then freezes. #WorthEveryPenny

Just before my cable went bust, I saw a @comcast commercial bragging about their customer service. 20 mins later and…yeah, you know. #hate

Been staring at this screen for probably 10 minutes. @comcast, you are fail

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Blog2ober
Day 3 (sort of)

Well I accidentally fell asleep before writing my blog on October 3rd. Oops.

Didn’t I say I wanted Blog2ober to be better than 30 Days and 30 Blogs 3?

…and I have already failed by day 3!

That is some spectacular failure! Almost Comcast level failure. Speaking of which, I need to write tomorrow’s blog…

Blog2ober
Day 2

In case you haven’t heard, Warner Bros. is making a tv series about Gotham City. No it won’t have Batman in it. It’s a prequel. We get to see what Jim Gordon was doing as he worked his way up to Commissioner. It’s not going to be tied to the Nolan Batman Universe, the Zack Snyder Superman/Batman Universe, the Smallville or Arrow Universes…basically Gotham will be it’s own thing. My question is “why?”

That’s not true…my question is “WTF?!”

First off, why would I want to watch a show about Gotham City without Batman? They already have that show…it’s every crime drama set in New York. What’s next? Transylvania without Dracula? The adventures of Rose and Mickey before Doctor Who showed up? The TANhouse before Tim, Andy and Noah moved in? No one cares!!!

Secondly, Warner, you DO realize you have other comic book properties besides Batman right? It seems like 4 out of every 5 Warner Brothers comic book based projects are about Batman or the Batman universe. Did you lose Wonder Woman’s number? We better be careful, or this Justice League movie that Zach Snyder is supposedly building towards will look like this…

Just when you thought you’d had enough of me blogging everyday (and you probably have)…

That’s right, I’m keeping it going for another month for a total of 61 days of solid blogging!

Why? Well, I didn’t finish my series poking fun at children’s literature. I didn’t want to end on a political rant (yesterday’s blog) But mostly, I didn’t feel like I had enough good blogs in September.

So I’m going to try and challenge myself to do better in October than I did in September. It’s a low bar, but I think I can still fall short. Come with my on my journey of words and failure, won’t you?

No? Fair enough. Watch my new video at least?

30 Days and 30 Blogs
Day 30

I almost went the whole month without going on a political rant. But here it is, the last day of 30 Days and 30 Blogs 3, and the republicans have shut down the government. Sure the democrats could have just caved and defunded Obamacare, but “change the law or we’ll shut down the government” should not be a bargaining tactic.

Look I get it, republicans don’t like Obamacare. But it’s not just a bill now, it’s the law. It was approved by both houses and signed by the president. You lost this battle, friends. You failed to win in the Supreme Court. You failed to win in the presidential election. You failed to win the 40+ times you’ve voted in the house to repeal it. Let. It. Go.

If Obamacare was the only spending program going on right now, I could see this level of fixation. But the government spends TONS of money on so many different programs. You could have use Obamacare as a bargaining chip against the other “entitlements” you hate so much. “We’ll back you on Obamacare but only if you make cuts here, here, and here.”

Or you could say we want X instead of Obamacare. Where “X” is some other way to make sure people don’t have to go without health insurance. Because I will admit, I’m not in love with Obamacare. It’s only slightly better than our current horrible situation. So if you have a plan that’s even a little better than Obamacare, that would be fantastic! Maybe we can all keep coming up with better and better plans and fix this system in baby steps. But you’re baby stepping in the wrong direction. “I think we should just leave the crappy system the way it is,” is not a great rallying cry.

I would like to know who the moderate republicans were who tried to avoid this shutdown at the last minute. It’s a shame it didn’t work, but the next time Ted Cruz or Michell Bachman* steps up to the mic, let one of those moderate republicans speak instead.

*That’s probably not how you spell her name and I don’t care enough to look it up

30 Days and 30 Blogs
Day 29

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Star Trek Into Darkness BluRay is out. Which I was super excited for because I really liked the movie and I couldn’t wait to see all the special features.

Well guess what? You only get some of the features if you buy it at Best Buy. You only get OTHER features if you buy your BluRay at Target. Oh wait, you wanted the commentary? Sorry, Trek Chump, that’s only available on iTunes.

What are you morons doing?! The Trek fans already hate your movie. They voted it worst of all the Trek movies at this year’s Vegas Star Trek convention. (Yes…worse than part 5). You don’t give them more reasons not to buy it. Wasn’t 2009’s Star Trek the most pirated movie of that year? What do you think is going to happen now?

I am seriously considering not getting the BluRay now. (By that I mean, not asking for it for Christmas). I’ll stick with Iron Man 3, they’re touting all their features on their commercials. And I bet I only have to buy one package to get them all. I bet Man of Steel isn’t even dumb enough to split them up like that.

Star Trek, you and me are on shaky ground. Live long and go **** yourself.