and summer is over...

[wraithfodder]

Well, okay, it's got two days left, or three, can't recall.

I actually got to a beach three times this summer - a record!! I'd love to do it every week but there are no free beaches here :( Sigh...

TV-wise, well, let's see. Nothing has caught me fannishly, like Stargate Atlantis. Virtually everything on SyFy is meh to me, although I do watch Z Nation due to its strange humor, but it's not a keeper, or must-see live TV. Waiting for NCIS to start up to see how Gibbs fares. I know he'll survive, of course, but it will be fun to watch his team angst all over the place. I like The Strain, Longmire (alas, it went to Netflix which I don't have so I hope it comes out on DVD), Person of Interest (probably it's last season), Oh, Elementary is fun to watch and I watch Hawaii Five-O occasionally and it never fails whenever I turn it on it's the same one. It's not the same since they blew up a nuclear weapon off the coast. I mean, that was 'jump the shark' big time...

Can't think of any of the new shows that scream 'watch me' but I suppose I'll check out a few. It's gotta catch me within two episodes or I'm gone. I'll check out the final CSI just for old time's sake.

Only caught poison ivy a few times this summer (yeah!) and didn't have to mow near as much due to the drought. Alas, there are some brown patches in lawn, which I came to realize are the result of the very cute but rather destructive bunny rabbits. Darn, they're so cute...

Will be going to New York Comic Con, despite all the hassle of getting tickets. Their servers suck (I think I whinged about this earlier) so the three-day ticket I had my hands on evaporated due to a crash and all I could get was a Friday. Then yesterday they announce they're selling  them at a comic store (only ONE store, in NYC, so all the other tri-state stores were left out in the cold). Lines formed at 3pm for a 10am opening. Despite hundreds if not a thousand fans showing up, they still have tickets left, which shows that NYCC apparently gave that comic store a ton of tickets that the rest of us poor souls were unable to buy online. Grrrrr.

And otherwise, wow, my life is boring. Can't think of much else but the job, house work (oh oh, I finally bit the bullet, got Johnson's Paste Wax, and it does about as good a job as Preen (discontinued for no good reason I could find) on the hardwood and tile floors, so I spent a few hours waxing today, and also waxed the car. Hopefully that's a portent of rain to come.

I need to downsize, so gotta figure out how to sell fannish collections, even if they're sellable.And VHS tapes, ha, I don't think anybody wants those anymore!

9/21 ADDITION: Oh yeah, I watch ZOO (okay), Under the Dome (about time it got axed, alas), Mr. Robot (which I find fascinating for the psychological stuff), and Whispers, which I liked, so I assume it got killed by ABC.

Comments

[suekay-87.livejournal.com]

I'm much the same with TV these days...was really into NCIS for a little while, but drifted away from it a bit. Nothing's ever gonna replace SGA for me!!

And you need to pay to go to beaches??

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no freebie beaches for me. Every town has them sewn up. One charges $50 for a weekend visit (and that's just one!) if you don't live in that town. Totally insane. I want free beaches.

Oh, I also watched Whispers on ABC, but that's probably gone, and Zoo on CBS. Did watch Under the Dome and finally (phew) they did not renew it. Should have been just one season.

[suekay-87.livejournal.com]

Yikes...We've got a million and one beaches in Scotland, all of them free. We've got legislation which gives us the 'right to roam' so we can walk just about anywhere. I've never been charged to go to a beach anywhere and I've been all over Western Europe.

Charging to go to a beach just seems ludicrous to me...I feel so spoiled, there's literally hundreds of beaches and coves within a 20 mile radius of where I stay.

I hate to say I barely watch TV these days.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Or, get this, the beach is free, but there's nowhere to park due to private houses along the beach and although laws state they must provide passage, they do their best to deny people access to what they consider 'their' beach.

damn, I'm jealous. I want a free beach, but I get to pay for a beach with not the best water quality either!

I watch TV but honestly rarely record anything anymore. If I like a show, I'll buy the DVD set when it comes out, so that's, um, just Person of Interest. More interested in getting some older shows on DVD and not the newer stuff.

[suekay-87.livejournal.com]

:(

You can even camp on our beaches for free...I honestly can't understand why people would want to deny you access to a beach...What state are you in? Are they all like that?

Where I am it's like beach central...I live near a large inland loch which has hundreds of beaches...there's literally dozens of other lochs in the area which nearly all have beaches, and with Scotland being so tiny I'm 10 - 20 miles away from the coast in one direction and 40 or so miles from the other coast in the other. If you ever come to Scotland I'll take you to some of the best beaches we have cos I think everyone needs a day at the beach!!

My DVD collection is getting pretty big these days and it's mostly old TV shows I keep going back to. I wish there was more good TV on these days, but I think the thing I hate the most about shows now is how generic the characters are. Every show seems to have the same cast breakdown and no characters stand out unless they're really designed to...It all seems kind of soulless :(

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

The tri-state area. Camping on beaches... don't know if you can do that around here. Sure hope I can get to Scotland again (was there once, it was great!) as I'd love to see the beaches. Did the tourist stuff (castles, moats, etc.) wow, back in the 80s I think, yeah, Reagan was president then.

Unfortunately the generic cookie cutter characters are everywhere. You turn on a SyFy channel and it's like the only thing they do is change the plot a little, which is why ZNation is about the only show I watch on it and that's for the snarky mutant zombie Murphy, whose voice I love.

[monkey5s.livejournal.com]

For those VHS tapes, I would put a few up on eBay, for cheap, with regular shipping, just to see. And if nobody bites, well,.into the trash with 'em. I just know that there ARE people who still have old technology. You might make someone's day with your titles.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

True, but they're stuff I recorded off TV. Don't think I can eBay them due to copyright. Still have to go through.Some I'll never toss (mostly Canadian shows that just aren't on DVD).

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

I've got a hundred videotapes with JUSt interviews with actors from the 80-90s from Entertainment Tonight, etc. and when Pierce Brosnan was only doing Remington Steele, and reality shows did not exist...

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

You don't know anyone in New York who could go to that shop and buy a ticket for you? Or, don't know, call the shop over the phone or something? This sucks indeed. Attending conventions gets more and more complicated - and expensive.

I am afraid I will have to watch the new American Horrow Show season, just because I like Matt Bomer so much. I loved him in White Collar.

I've recently totally unexpectedly fallen in love with the original Star Trek series, bought tons of action figures and have lots of fun with them ;) Trying to catch up with almost 50 years of Trek in the past few weeks, plus everything one certain William Shatner has ever done in his life. Which is A LOT.

While I still love to watch and discuss new series like Arrow in real time when they come out, I must say that binge watching and concentrating on only one thing has its merits as well. Plus the occasional rewatch of old loved fandoms.

I also have chucked away my Stargate tapes now. Ebay is full of them nobody wants. So yeah, I don't think you'll have much luck there.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Alas, the NYCC tickets were just too tough to get. have a friday ticket but really wanted Saturday too. NYCC mucked up their online sales with lousy servers, then gave several hundred tickets to only one store in NYC, announced their sale less than 24 hours before sale. Not practical for those who don't live in NYC or the boroughs. Sigh. And didn't know anyone willing to stand in line for 6-12 hours to get Saturday tickets....and nope, the store wouldn't do phone orders. Heck, they don't even answer their tweets.

I chucked my Stargate tapes only because I have them on DVD now. I need to clear clutter, get back space and downsize. DVD is the way to go. Don't trust streaming for longevity though...

I miss the days of passionate fannishness. Wish they'd make a show that would suck me back into that mode. Last passion I had was killing a rat that decided to take up residence in my yard next to house (like two feet away!)

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

Of course, I own the DVDs since they originally came out. The tapes are from back when I started with the show – I was late and only started in season 4 and didn’t want to wait for re-runs on TV. My local video library was selling their tapes cheaply.
But I bought a hard drive recorder finally so the days of the tape recorder will be over soon, and they were only taking up space. It was weird putting them into the bin.

I do still watch “Person of Interest” but I liked it better in the old days.

I am still fannish about „Arrow“ although we go into our fourth year now and a lot has changed and not all to the better. I guess that counts for a lot of shows. “Doctor Who” has totally lost me at the moment. I hope that will get better again one day. I loved the first four (new) seasons but at the moment I can’t really recommend it. Have you ever tried it though? When I got into the fandom, all my “Stargate” friends already were there. Usually those who like one, also like the other. The humor seems to be similar, and, at least for me, also the realism. It’s not too weird set in the future with space guns, it’s often set in nowadays time, although there is time travel to the past and to the future. Same as “Torchwood”. A team in an secret underground base, fighting alien stuff while trying to keep the people’s knowledge down, with a charismatic leader called Jack, a doctor, a computer scientist… sounds familiar? Captain Jack Harkness is someone one should know. Always funny when people talk about Captain Jack and mean Johnny Depp instead ;)

“Torchwood” has also its good and bad episodes (the five parts of season 3 are the best they ever did) and been dead for a while, but not entirely, we get Big Finish Audios now, which is better than nothing and we are very excited about it. Who knows if it will come back one day, they seem to resurrect a lot of old shows at the moment?

I like watching “Sherlock”, but it is so infrequently, and I’ve never been in the fandom for it and discussing all details. I’ll buy the action figures nevertheless when they’ll come out. Have you seen the big ones by Big Chief Studios? They are awesome, they look so real:

http://dieastra.livejournal.com/117672.html

I’ve recently developed a love for other British shows like “Downton Abbey”, “Broadchurch”, “Call the midwife”. After watching a few of those some American shows look shallow as there apparently the beauty of an actress is more important than whether she can act. In British shows, you see “normal” people.

Older American shows which I loved but are long gone but maybe you haven’t seen them – one is “White Collar”. Totally awesome, highly recommended. Might be up your alley if you like the NCIS stuff? The other would be “Six Feet Under”. Oh, and “Boston Legal”? I also really liked “Desperate Housewives” which was much better than one would think. Or how about “Queer as Folk”? I guess I don’t need to pimp “MacGyver” to you ;)

Just a few from the top of my head which I enjoyed in the past. Without knowing your taste of course.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

Ah, Broadchurch was good (UK version, not US version, which was strange) and Granchester. Still enjoy Sherlock when that pops up on PBS. No, have not seen the action figures. Maybe I'll see what's out at NYCC next week :)

At rate I'm going, I'll watch Arrow when it ends. I had plans to watch it but first six eps were thwarted by squabbles between CW affiliate and Cablevision, so I got six weeks of baseball reruns (which of course I did not watch).

[dieastra.livejournal.com]

I have only made it till the second episode of the US Broadchurch so far, but am determined to check it out. I want to see the different ending (already know about it) and I want to see the different David (must have felt weird for him to play the same thing twice?) but it is looking like an AU somehow? You know the lines, but the people look different, and act different. Kind of strange, like Twilight Zone.

I see from today's post that you watch the Flash? I am wondering then how those cross-over episodes are working out for you. As they are only fun if you know both universes and the characters in them, and at least in one case the second part actually was in the Arrow series, so you would miss the conclusion to what had started in Flash?

But I agree, Arrow is something you must watch from the beginning, otherwise it won't make much sense. The pilot was awesome. Although the first episodes were like the villain of the week until things got more complex, so you probably could have still joined after the sixth. Everyone says it is from episode 7 on when it got awesome ;) At least it had a major reveal about John Barrowman's role. Others say it took them till the middle of the season. This is certainly when everything went up a notch, storywise and actingwise, when they knew what they were doing. Me, I was hooked from the beginning.

So you are into Superheroes and the like? As the first season was done in a very different way, they tried to stay grounded in reality, and only use things that can be explained (with bendable rules admittedly). Oliver Queen was supposed to be special and unique and having become so by his ordeal and hard training. But now we have superpowers and lots of other superheroes and magic and this is not what I originally signed up for ;)

It's still great fun but I actually did like the more realistic approach.

Stephen Amell puts so much into this role. He often posts videos of his hard workouts. He does most of his own stunts. He learnt to do parcour even. And on top of all that, he also manages his own Facebook page and stays in contact with his fans. He even posts regularly pictures of himself with his little daughter, and he is the cutest and proudest daddy ;) I'm not really fancying him (he's the same age like my 7 years younger brother) but you have to admire the guy.

Maybe you should try to find a way to catch up with it before it ends, as they have the coolest action figures and more are coming out every year. Wave 3 in October, and wave 4 in April already. If you don't mind spoilers (or if you forget them again till you watch it) you can see them in some scenes here in my list: http://dieastra.livejournal.com/102687.html

On the bottom of the list are also some introduction posts where I just post pictures of the figures, not in any scenes.

Edit: Sorry, forgot about the Sherlock figure. The big ones (1:6) from Big Chief are already out, but the small 5" one is only coming in Dezember. So your trip will be too early. This is what he looks like - not bad! He is smaller than the Stargate figures though, to keep in size with the Doctor Who figures.

http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sherlock.jpg3_.jpg

[jenn h (from livejournal.com)]

I saw the Twitter posts about the tickets on sale for NYCC. I thought that was ridiculous. Going on about the tickets available and that there were no lines for tickets. Seriously, if they had that many available for a comic book to sell that really makes me mad. They should have saved fewer for the store and left more for the online crowd. I'm almost considering going on Sunday just to participate in the NYCC staff panel so I can get on their case for that. Nothing else for Sunday excites me.

I actually tossed a slew of VHS tapes about a year ago. We still have a working VCR so I saved the rare and special (all my versions of Star Wars, the Indiana Jones trilogy, and a copy of the first episode of seaQuest DSV without the visual effects) and got rid of everything else. It was hard though. Some things I have copies of on DVD now but some I don't. But sometimes you just have to purge.

[wraithfodder.livejournal.com]

I purged boxes of VHS but still, er, um, have many more boxes of VHS tapes. It's the shows that aren't coming out on DVD, or that really strange 1960s scifi movie. Took me forever to find the killer bone-sucking turtle monster movie with Peter Cushing; keep forgetting the name of it ;)

As to NYCC, they refuse to say how many tickets they gave to Midtown, only that it was a 'large' amount. If you had literally hundreds if not a thousand fans standing in line, and there are still some available (not Saturday,alas) then fans who could only get tix via online definitely got the shaft. They should sell tix only online, not at Special Edition con (that in inself creates an artificial sale of SE tix for people who go there just to buy NYCC tix) or at one comic store. Shame they denied other tri-state stores the chance to sell tickets. If I was going on Sunday, I'd attend and speak my peace on their business model, which still hasn't improved.Sigh.

[adafrog.livejournal.com]

I haven't found anything that I'm fannish about, either. I do like Z Nation. The Zoo is also good.