Posted in: Archer, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Technology, The Orville, Transformers

I still buy DVDs & Blu-rays

Raiders of the Lost TARDIS
Yes the search for bargains continue.

So in this modern day of streaming services, why would anyone still buy movies and TV shows on DVDs and Blu-Rays? There are many answers for this. I call my physical media my “Offline Versions” of my favorite shows. There have been times that the internet has failed to function properly (luckily not very often). There have also been times someone needs to stay off of the internet because of a project that takes up a lot of bandwidth. This is when the physical media comes in really handy.

Buying the disks has also become a catch phrase for me when reviewing a show. I remember after watching a stream of the Transformer’s movie “Bumblebee“, I stated that I would buy the movie on DVD. And the next time I saw a copy, I did just that. I also watched the Spy-Fi/Comedy series “Archer” on streaming first and I enjoyed it so much that I picked up the seasons on DVD.

The final reason that I still purchase DVDs is because then I always have a copy of the show so it’s at my fingertips. I’m not wondering “Is The Rocketter on Netflix or Hulu this month?” (spoiler: It’s not found on these services, it’s on Disney+). There have even been some shows that I haven’t been able to find on streaming at all.

Just the other day I was able to find DVDs for season eleven and twelve for the new Doctor Who series. I can’t wait to sit down and watch them. I can’t wait to watch the special features (which may or may not be on streaming).

Now don’t get me wrong. I love streaming services. I see some really off the wall shows on several services. It also gives me a chance to check out the movies that I might enjoy, but not really buy on DVD. Streaming services also give life to genre shows that might not find footing on network and cable television (such as the new Star Trek and the next season of The Orville). But I plan to continue to buy physical media in the near future.

Posted in: Role Playing Games

The Power of Gaming

Mutan Crawl Classics rule book
Mutant Crawl Classics by Goodman Games.

Today I experience the power of gaming from multiple sources. And as readers of my blog know, I get excited by the power of creativity.

The picture you see above is the latest role-playing game that has been added to my collection. It was sent to me by another gamer that I don’t even know. On the RPG.net gaming forums gamers put together a “Secret Satan” (a play on words of Secret Santa) gift exchange program to try to brighten someone’s day. And believe me, with the way 2020 has gone, we could use all of the brighter days that we can get. I was amazed at how many people responded to the forum post wanting to participate. This surge of goodwill excited me and I signed up. I was assigned a “victim” and given enough details to send them a gift with a cap of $40 to spend. Luckily my “victim” had done some research and provided some Amazon links to possible gift ideas. One of these was selected and the gift was sent. I may have messed up because I let my “victim” know who I was (I thought that gifts sent via Amazon had the sender’s name attached). But it resulted in a nice thank you note for the game that was delivered.

I had also provided a list of possible gift ideas. Mutant Crawl Classics by Goodman Games was one of the items on my list. I had recently purchased the Dungeon Crawl Classics in PDF format from a Humble Bundle sale and I had been pretty impressed with the quality of the work put into the game. So I thought that the companion game, MCC, would be an interesting read. A delivery from Amazon was made today and the excitement of not knowing what was in the box added to the thrill of seeing MCC when the box was opened. There were cheaper games on the list so my “Secret Satan” went the extra mile to make this holiday a special one. (tips hat) To my “Secret Satan”, I thank you. I hope you had just as much fun with your gift (what ever it was) as I did with mine. I also want to give a shout out to the organizers at RPG.net who put this together. This is where I felt one of the surges of energy today.

The second surge of energy came from the Mutant Crawl Classics book itself. It did remind me of when I read the Dungeon Crawl Classics rules on PDF, but there was something more about this game. I couldn’t understand it for a moment until I realized that I was physically holding a brand new RPG book in my hand. The new book smell and feel was there. When I opened it up, I could feel the energy coming from the creativity (both writing and artwork) contained inside. I really want to play an MCC game now. Thank you Goodman Games for your work on this.

Until I get a chance to actually play, I will be adding Mutant Crawl Classics to my list of games for the Character Creation Challenge coming up this January. This way I will have fun creating a character and learning some of the rules in the process.

Posted in: Website

Website construction continues

So I have the basic plan for this website planned out. I’ve started putting the skeletal structure in place and will be adding the meat to the bones soon. I’ll be concentrating on the about and gaming sections first. Eventually I will get the other sections filled out as well.

For the blog posts, I will be posting on subjects that capture my fancy at the time. I’ve already had a few geeky ideas pop in my head. In January, I will be participating in the 31 day #CharacterCreationChallenge where you create a new role playing game character for each day of the month (as part of the “New Year, New You” theme). These entries will be blog posts and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

The photo gallery will contain photos from a variety of events and dates in my life. Most will include meeting various famous people, seeing things that I geek out about and just general stuff that I want to share.

If there are any items you’d like to see, let me know by emailing Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com.

Posted in: Conventions, Star Wars

Farewell David Prowse

David Prowse was an English actor who recently passed away at the age of 85. According to his daughter, he passed away due to complications to Covid-19. As fellow geeks, you probably know David Prowse from his most famous role as the actor in the Darth Vader suit from the first three movies. He was also seen in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (the BBC TV mini-series), Space: 1999, The Benny Hill Show, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (as The Monster), The Tomorrow People, A Clockwork Orange, The Horror of Frankenstein (again as The Monster), The Saint (TV series), the 60’s Casino Royale movie and Doctor Who.

In 2007, David Prowse was one of the guests at a local fan-run Science Fiction convention that I chaired. I cannot tell you how much of a gentleman he was. Even when he was in pain (which he suffered from a lot) he was always gracious to the people around him. He appreciated his fans who came a long way to see him and made the meeting a memorable one. He posed with my daughter and myself for a photo just before getting ready to return to England. Farewell good sir, you’ve earned your rest.

Posted in: Website

A NEW WEBSITE?

If you are reading this, you either caught my new site as I’m putting it together or you have gone back to read my old blog posts. “From your planet, welcome.” My name is Carl and I am a geek of all sorts of things. Especially for my wife and kids who make me happy.

I’ve decided that I wanted to put together another website with a blog to display my geekiness and allow my creativity to be put on display. This is going to be my third attempt at a blog. When LiveJournal was a popular thing, I had an account and I posted on a semi-regular basis. I think the site is still there, but I haven’t touched it in ages (especially after it was bought out by another company). I also had a “personal” website set up in the space provided by my local ISP. I had created this site with Notepad and HTML. I remember trying to use frames to make it look kewl and functional. Shudder. (This site will follow the “work smarter not harder” and the “K.I.S.S.” formulas.) I had a blog on that hand built site with extra pages to show off my geek side. I don’t recall which site was created first, but they are all in the past now. But I may have some of the hand made site on a backup hard drive collecting dust somewhere.

So why did I decide to do this? Well to put it frankly, 2020 sucked. Not all of it mind you, there were some good parts with this year. But I will be one of the many people staying up until midnight on December 31st just to make sure that 2020 goes away. The last few months I have been trying to do certain things to make myself better and happier. I’ve started exercising more, I’ve been trying to drink more water and less soda. I’ve also decided that my mental state needed some help as well.

While I’ve been very strong in some interests, I’ve also decided to pick back up a few more. Especially in the realm of Role-Playing Games, Video Games and more. I’ve also wanted to do more writing. A blog is a way to practice some of that writing. Heck I even made a logo for the site (the TARDIS with the Captain’s pips inside them).

So what will I be talking about on this blog? Stuff about Sci-Fi (Star Trek, Dune, Red Dwarf, Star Wars, Doctor Who, The Foundation Series, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, etc.), Fantasy (Lord of the Rings, Elric of Melnibone, Conan), Comics (mostly SF, but some superhero), Horror (The classics up to the cheesy), Role-Playing Games (D&D, Star Trek, homebrew stuff, plus some RPGs that I’ve collected but never played), Video Games (From the classics like No One Lives Forever, Tron 2.0, Diablo II to some newer titles like the Fallout series), Technology (Computers, websites and stuff), Sports (mostly the local teams), Military History (Primarily the 20th century, but sometimes I’ll be interested in other eras as well), Music (80’s new wave, alternative, rock-n-roll, epic music scores), Comedy (puns, Weird-Al, Svengoolie, MST3K, Creature Features, memes, Bloom County, jokes), Inspirational Quotes (at least the stuff that stands out to me) and what ever my warped mind can come up with.

I’m a little private about some things. So there may be some topics that are usually found on blogs that may not be found here. I’ll really try to stay away from real life items, as long as real life doesn’t get in the way.

So I’ll be adding things to this site with both blog posts and pages of information. The schedule will be semi-regular as time permits. With the various tools and plugins that WordPress allows, I should have some shiny new things up and running soon. Let’s see where this goes.

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