Expanding your social circle

It seems to me that one thing that tends to go hand in hand with being somewhat nerdy and/or geeky is that we also tend to have a bit of an awkward relationship with socialization, at least the kind that is considered 'normal' (I'm not trying to generalize or 'speak for all nerds/geeks' when I use the word 'we' by the way). For me, at least, it's either awkward small talk that I trudge through because it's the nice thing to do (also I can't stand sitting in silence with someone - I have to be extremely comfortable with a person to do that and be okay with it) or an exclamation of enthusiasm at finding someone who shares even one of my interest one little bit and I proceed to talk their ears off about that one subject - possibly even putting them off the subject for life (it's happened).

Minecraft creations: Serenity

Let me just say this right away; I've known about Minecraft for a good while now, so it's not that I wasn't aware it existed that kept me from getting into the craze. I've even come across the occasional youtuber showing off their geeky creations. But for a good while I was just under the impression that it really wasn't my kind of game. Not really because of the graphics, but because I have a thing against first person point of view in games. But seeing my two nieces playing it enthusiastically, I decided I might as well give it a proper shot, especially since it was easily available for my new ipad. So I bought it, tried it out and I actually got really into it. And now I'm ready to show off my first fandom-related creation (and hopefully there will be more to come, once I find some new inspiration).

Fanvid: See You Again

First new fan creation from me since I started this blog. It's a Doctor Who video, centred around the relationship of the Doctor and River Song, set to the song "See You Again" by Carrie Underwood. It was a request from the poster SaraBahama on the Doctor/River thread at the Gateworld forum. Enjoy, and leave a comment below if you liked it.

Top 10 Reasons I Love Doctor Who

It's the 23rd of November, a date that many Doctor Who fans have had marked on their calendars for months on end. It's the date of the highly anticipated 50th Anniversary Episode for the series, airing precisely 50 years after the original series premiere aired on television screens all over Britain. I may only have been a whovian for little over a year, but in that year I've been quite the busy beaver, not only covering all of the modern series (and repeatedly re-watching most of it), but also made it halfway through the classics as well, I've been to my first ever full-weekend Doctor Who convention, and even managed to fit in a couple of classic who encounters as well. Now that this day is upon us, I thought it would be fitting to do my top ten reasons why I love this show as much as I do, and essentially why I'm so eagerly looking forward to this bound-to-be-epic episodes.

Why I HATE region-locking!

It's all around us, this artificial blockage of entertainment. We have region-specific releases. There's region-locking on game discs and cartridges, DVD's and blu-rays. While friends of mine in other countries may purchase episodes of television shows through their iTunes, mine only allows me to purchase apps and music. I pay around twice as much for my Netflix account than my American friends, yet I only receive a fraction of the shows and movies that they do. I actually consider myself lucky if a television show I follow is only four months behind the American schedule. It's an out-dated, artificially created system, and it's downright pissing me off.

Anti-shipping: when ignoring it just doesn't do it

I've already covered a lot of important things regarding "shipping" in a previous blog, but there is one aspect I didn't cover, because I think it just needs to have its own entry altogether, and that is the concept of "anti-shipping". Before I get into what that actually is, I want to clear up a very common misconception about shipping - and that is that shippers either hate on their competition, or they are supposed to. Now, I can certainly understand why some might think so, especially with all of the shipper wars that go on in various fandoms, but that simply isn't true.

Shipping: The Doctor and River Song

A huge warning to anyone not yet caught up with Doctor Who, or anyone who haven't watched the show, but are considering it, or have even the slightest inkling they might want to watch it at some point. There are going to be spoilers, and speaking as a Whovian, if there is one storyline you do not want to be spoiled for, it's River Song. Ask anyone else who's watched the show, and it'll be the one thing they do not want to reveal to you. As the woman herself put it; "It's a long story, cannot be told, has to be lived..."

Because part of the fun with River Song's storyline is trying to piece together in your mind who she is, why she expects the Doctor to know her, only to be heartbroken to learn he is merely meeting her for the first time. Every time we meet her in the show, she's at a very different point in her own timeline, and the more we learn about her story, the more questions we have, the more theories we have. So, if you read ahead of this paragraph and get spoiled, don't say I didn't warn you.

Why You Should Watch: The 4400

Choosing a lesser known show for my second recommendation. The way I started watching it was actually pretty random. I found the first season at a second hand store for next to nothing and recalled vaguely at the back of my head that someone had mentioned in passing that this was a great show. I bought it, took it home and quickly fell in love with it. Sadly it became one of the shows that fell victim to the timing of the 2008 Writers' strike, and was cancelled before its time. A real shame, considering the show kept getting better as the seasons progressed.

How to become a Doctor Who fan

This is completely unrelated to my regular column 'why you should watch' for the mere reason that I want to focus that column on shows of the past rather than current ones. And it's not as much that I don't have the patience to wait until Doctor Who is completed before I write it an entry in that column, rather than that I think that history has already proven Doctor Who will never truly ever be over. Even if the current show reaches an end, there will be more in some way shape or form, it's a continuous franchise not likely to ever truly die out.

Why You Should Watch: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

So, my first recommendations in my new featured column is no other than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the television show version of the movie with the same title which flopped back in 1992 (man that movie sucked). The show aired from 1997 to 2003, resulting in a total of 144 episodes, divided into 7 seasons. It also got a spin-off series, Angel, which ran parallel to it from season 4 onwards. 

Granted, it's a predictable choice, and I bet a lot of people will see it as unnecessary as it already is seen as a very popular, critically acclaimed and influential show (after all there are specialized college studies that focuses on this show). But, there will always still be people out there that haven't seen it. Some might have meant to at some point, but just never got around to it. Others might have written it off because of the (purposively) silly title or the vampire theme (which has definitely been getting flack lately with Twilight becoming a phenomenon) or some other unknown reason.

Fandom: "Why You Should Watch"

If anyone were to ask me what my favorite medium is, it would have to be television shows. That's where I have most of my fandoms. There's just something about being able to follow the characters season after season that really speaks to me. But with the vast amount of shows being made each year, I don't always discover my favourite fandoms right away. Discovering a show after its completion can both be a good thing and a bad. The good is that you don't really have to wait for another episode, you can binge-watch to your heart's content. The bad is that what you see is what you get. You know exactly how many episodes will be left until it's all over.

The Concept of "Shipping"

Shipping has got to be one of the most polarized aspects of fandom, regardless of fandom. Beloved and embraced by many, it can be the source for a lot of devotion and passion. On the flip side it can also potentially be a huge source for conflict, like shipper-wars (competing shippers antagonizing each other, especially on online communities and forums), and also a thorn in the side for a lot of non-shippers tired of relationship elements taking over a fandom (like characters starting out as colleagues, friends, or even enemies eventually getting involved romantically or showing clear signs of having romantic feelings for one another).

The Geeky Influence In My Life

Everyone comes into geekhood at different times and in so many different ways. Some are raised geeks from birth, some encounter their geeky influences later in life. Some are introduced to it through other people, others have more of a solitary discovery of it. But what I think every geek have in common is that one defining factor, that one moment, experience, fandom or whatever that got the ball rolling. For me that factor was a person.