Palfrey's life

In recent times the video function of my camera has been reminding me of certain basic facts of the world: the Internet is for kitty videos. Alternately, it's for turtle videos. Heck, the two tend to act somewhat similar at points....

(Alternately, the internet is for porn, but I haven't got a video from my camera for that one)

I've picked up a bit of a TV habit in the last few years (Admittedly, I'm talking about very little actual "when the programmes are shown I will sit down and watch" TV, but mainly Bittorrent and DVD box sets). It started fairly innocently, finally getting around to watching all of the DS9 and Voyager episodes that I hadn't seen because of the insanities of BBC2 and Channel 4. Later on, it progressed into things like Sex and the City, and Gilmore Girls; then we have back series of the Shield and the Wire; lots of Bleach and Naruto; and in more recent days I've been getting into lots of things that I'm actually watching (*shock horror*) as they happen week-by-week. Not being able to gorge on a half dozen episodes and having to wait has resulted in my finding more things. My software that's doing some of the auto-downloading for me is now up to 10 ongoing series, plus another 4 that will be showing more episodes next year some time. Occasionally I'm fussed about my lack of a social life, at other times I'm not so fussed...

The purpose of this post however is to share two series with you that you should be watching. The first is Heroes - originally dubbed "Ordinary people discovering extraordinary abilities.", now tagged as "Save the cheerleader, save the world". Superheroes, with some comics influence, but without the spandex or secret identities. It's pretty cool to see the whole thing tying together, and you can probably find HDTV rips for all the 9 episodes they've done so far still.

The second is Dexter. I've only watched the first episode so far, but it shows a vast amount of promise. Basically, the main character is a complete psycho with a thing for ritual vigilante killing. The daytime persona however is a forensic expert for the police. The interesting thing is the "normal" persona is a *complete* fabrication. Not a few lies here and there, but a complete mask. Dexter has massive emotional problems (in that he barely has any) - for example, here's a few lines from his internal monologue; "I wish she'd stop that. It's one of those mating rituals that I don't really understand"; "Normal people are so hostile". I'm used to crime drama stuff having screwed up characters (heck, I'm watching one of the CSI's, which is still fun despite their fictional usages of technology I saw 2 SenSys's ago), but this guy is a complete nutcase, and his craziness actually makes him a better forensic expert because he knows first hand how people are killing other people. It's an interesting variation on a market saturated by CSI clones.

Up until fairly recently, I haven't been much of a fan of YouTube et al., because everything I've been informed about on them is a bunch of crap (thus re-proving Sturgeon's Revelation). Today however the Wired RSS feed brought in the latest Table of Malcontents, which had some links to some cool stuff. First off would be the AMV Hell Championship Edition, where a whole bunch of short Anime Music Videos (30 seconds or less) got spliced together to make something pretty cool. I'd say it's worth watching the whole 24 minutes, but for the more time constrained here's my favourite moments. I've uploaded clipped out versions of these for your viewing pleasure:

• 05:04 - Ren and Stimpy "Log theme" using Naruto


• 06:46 - "I like to move it move it" using Azumanga Daioh (love this one to bits)

(Notably, "I like to move it" is used 4 times in the 24 minute sequence; "Hard Knock Life" (Austin powers version), "Dicks Don't Grow On Trees" and "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" all get used 2 times).

It also had the interesting "Cat head theatre" using anthropomorphic cats with oversized heads to do a scene from Hamlet. Also pretty funny...

Things watched tonight:

• Lego Lemmings - a bizarre look at the world of Lemmings, through the eyes of a bunch of minifigs and some crazy germans doing stop-motion video.


• Global Frequency - (large) bunch of average borderline-sociopaths with funky phones save the world. As you do. A pilot that for some reason didn't get picked up by the evil overlords at Warner Bros, and "accidentally" got leaked. Has now got some fan base, and may eventually get properly shown...