watch tHe skies

Following my recent post about Star Trek, the side comment about Knight Rider has gotten me thinking. A cross between Knight Rider and Fast And The Furious would probably make a neat TV show.

That’s it, nothing more profound. Party over. There’s nothing to see here. Move along.

Having a baby has changed our home lives quite considerably, particularly in the amount of TV that we seem to be watching recently. Watching movies isn’t easy, as Ben needs feeding, playing with etc. So we have tended to watch more TV, and on saturdays, X-Factor takes up much of the evening.

I’ve not really watched that much of X-Factor in the past. These talent shows leave me cold. The one thing that does interest me is how people with zero musical ability are so shocked to be rejected.

If a contestant turns to the camera and says “I have the X-Factor”, you know for sure that he or she can’t sing or dance, and probably looks like they fell out of the ugly tree. So how come they are so shocked?

I listen to music in the car all of the time, my trusty ipod is forever blasting out some choice toons, and I love to sing along at the top of my voice. Occasionally I think “hmm, that sounded alright”, but more often than not that thought is knocked dead in the next instant when I can’t reach the notes in the song or I am terribly out of tune, even in my own ear. Add to this my complete inability to dance in any other style than “dad”, and I am fairly sure of failure should I somehow audition for X-Factor…

I can’t sing. If I go to a wedding or something similar I generally just mouth the words, particularly if it is being videoed, as I don’t want to spoil the recording with my caterwauling. Now Shad Helmstatter would probably tell me that “you are what you say you are”, and that telling myself I can sing would improve both my voice and my motivation to sing better. To that I would say “that’s how you end up on X-Factor!!”.

Now I may be proved wrong but I would say that most of the people who can’t sing would NEVER in a million years of practice, be popstars, so no amount of positive thinking is going to make me a good dancer or most of the X-factor wannabes in to the next Robbie or Britney.

I read with interest this article over at darkhorizons. It seems that in a desperate bid to maintain the revenue stream from Trekkies in the absence of a new show, they are going back and redoing all of the special effects from the original (Kirk and Spock) series. They are also remastering the show in hi-def and adding a new version of the theme tune.

Of course traditionalists are up in arms about it - how can they? Well I see it as not dissimilar to restoring old paintings. Remastering in hidef will keep the show preseved for the future, and putting it back on telly will get new generations watching the show. Do they really need to redo the SFX? Probably not, but as they appear to be doing it in a manner that respects the show, I can’t see any harm.

As long as we don’t get a “Kirk shoots first” issue, I’ll be happy (Lucas what were you thinking??)

And who knows what will follow - Magnum PI: The Director’s Cut? Knight Rider: The Fast and The Furious Edition……..? Watch this space.

So i know I’m a little late with talking about last week’s Dragons Den, but it’s been a hectic week and I’ve only just caught up with my Sky+ stuff as I was away for most of the week, and then we had the not that small affair of Ben’s christening, Jen’s 30th and our 5th Wedding anniversary. Consequently I only got round to watching it last night.

So amongst the usual line up of mad inventions, including the cucumber “saver” and yoga for children, there was one that really caught my attention. A patent lawyer and his friends had developed some software for seamlessly mixing dance mp3s. (more…)

Thumbing through the new podcasts on iTunes, I notice that John Overdurf (author of the excellent Training Trances), has started a podcast called beyond goals. Haven’t listened to it yet, but if it is anything like Training Trances (currently reading it), it should be a good one, focusing on goal development. In fact he has two, another one, simply called John Overdurf, includes some video aspects.
There’s also an interesting one called Tai Chi for wellbeing. This is a video podcast to show you how to chill out first thing in the morning before heading off to work… Not sure how you watch the podcast and do Tai Chi at the same time though…

And for you Lost obsessives out there, how about a podcast devoted to the episodes as shown on UK TV… Head over to UK Lost for ramblings on conspiracy theories and whether those spooky numbers are Hurley’s vital statistics….?

Finally, for those of you too busy to relax and take life a little slower, check out John Morgan’s Relax in 2 minutes. Sounds like a good idea to me… Aaaah now doesn’t that feel better?

Is anyone else in the UK watching How I Met Your Mother? Probably not helped by a ridiculous starting time of 11.30pm on a monday night on BBCThree, this show gets funnier every week.

And, it would appear, it is able to fly. How a mouse could be crossed with a cockroach is never explained.

There is so much still to learn about this creature, but I fear that we will never fully understand this mysterious, and yet strangely grotesque, species

 

Bryce Zabel (Dark Skies), in conjunction with J. Michael Straczynski (Bablylon 5) recently posted on his blog a treatment proposed to Paramout in 2004 for a “reimagining” of the original Star Trek series.

Back then I remember reading something about it, although at the time I don’t think that a reimagining was that publicised. However I am sure that I would have been horrified at the thought of tampering with the mythology.

However, we are now 2 seasons in to the excellent reimagining of Battlestar Galactica, which has brought us a dark and brooding version of the story that is so good I wouldn’t even dream of watching the old show again.

And having now read their treatment for the show, I am so disappointed that they didn’t get a green light. What the treatment does it look back at the original and weave in an overall arc, reasons behind the original mission and knit it together with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Focusing on the relationship between Kirk, McCoy and Spock, having an end game in sight from the off would give better focus and purpose to the show, making it essential viewing week in, week out.

Whilst I am a big fan of JJ Abrams and I’m sure that his movie will be great, given the choice I would rather see a reimagined, darker, grittier Star Trek show week in-week out, than a one off movie. Paramount really missed a trick here, given the success of Battlestar, do do something new and fresh that builds on the existing fan base and generates a new generation of trekkies.

BBCThree and BBC2 are now screening the US hit comedy How I Met Your Mother. The show tells the story of a group of friends looking for love in New York, starring Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, Cobie Smulders and Neil Patrick Harris. It is kind of a cross between Friends and American pie, with the characters certainly reminiscent of the hit movie, including Neil Patrick Harris in the Stifler role, as Barnie, the womaniser who frequents the baggage reclaim area of airports as a way of picking women up.

The humour is quite British, and I would hope that it takes off over here, as it is definitely worth a look, and has landed a second season in the US.
Also of interest is barney’s blog over at www.barneysblog.com.

So episode 3 of Lost finally gives us some answers at last. The island is owned by the Hanso foundation
and some sort of testing is going on there. Locke and Jack see a training video that refers to psychological experiments, and name checks BF Skinner, a Behaviourist who pioneered the concept of operant conditioning.

Operant conditioning suggests that punishment does not prevent repetition of the deviant behaviour. He suggested that reinforcement, a change in the subject’s environment is the best way to alter behaviour.For example: you give your dog food every time it sits when you tell it to. If the dog becomes more likely to sit when told to, sitting is considered to have been reinforced by the administration of food contingent on it. Note that it is the behavior that is reinforced, not the dog. The food serves as a reinforcer, reinforcing or strengthening that behavior, only to the extent that sitting subsequently occurs more often or more quickly because of it.

So what is the relevence of name checking Skinner? Well entering the code in to the computer could be construed as a Skinner-esque experiment in reinforcement, or even a kind of Milgram experiment? So is the countdown actually to prevent armageddon or is it part of a huge psychological experiment? The training video carefully avoided explaining the consequence of not pushing the button, or the significance of the 108 minutes.

Another great episode and the plot thickens even more!

Well during the two very good episodes of Lost shown on channel four last tuesday, I noticed an very strange ad for an organisation called the Hanso Foundation, a kind of scientific research group. After visiting their website I googled them and it turns out that they are part of the Lost Experience, a kind of interactive game allowing you to dig further in to the Lost mythos. Ringing the number in the ad gives you a password that allows you to hack in the Hanso intranet and read some very disturbing letters about disease control.

At this time I have no idea about the relevance of this to the TV show, but as the game will progress over the weeks and months, it will be worth checking back. To get up to speed you can visit the unofficial Lost Experience website and catch up with some of the clues without spending hours messing about on the interweb.

Jo Whiley (BBC Radio 1) also mentioned that the shark from episode 2 had that wierd logo on its tail fin. The logo looks like a Feng Shui Ba Gua with a yin-yang in the middle. These logos were present on all of the food in the Larder that Kate was locked in to, so it looks like the organisation running the bunker, that differs from that of the Hanso foundation. For more regular information on all of the goings on, it is worth checking out the Channel 4 official Lost blog and a Dallas-based blog on the subject.
Oh and finally don’t write a blog post whilst listening to the Hanso website music. You are feeling drowsy, very drowsy….