The Gorn, Spiderman shower puffs and Doctor Who Monopoly.

I wanted to write a quick piece about a few things that have happened over the last couple of weeks. I feel like I should be writing more but I seem to barely be finding time to myself at the moment. But that's boring - on to more interesting things!

It was my birthday last week and my friends, as usual, came up trumps with the geeky stash. Over the past few years I have received David Tennant as Doctor Who posters, Star Trek (TOS) keyrings and many other exciting things. This year I got my very first Star Trek TNG comic.

As you can see it's a late TNG storyline. It's set before Nemesis as far as I could tell because Data was present. I don't read a lot of comics but the characterisation as far as I could tell was not brilliant. It was a bit typical of the later movies actually; a lot of focus on Data and Picard with the other characters reduced to parodies of themselves. Riker in particular. As I've said before, I don't like bashing things so we'll move swiftly onto the positives. The artwork in this issue was beautiful, as you would expect in the first issue of a series. There was a brilliant little 'case file' in the back of the comic that explained how the creator had gone about drawing the Gorn and building up the mythology of the race and the background. Clearly, a lot of thought had gone into it. This made me enjoy it all the more. Going into the Gorn aspect in more detail, my friends hadn't heard of the infamous Gorn fight scene in TOS. This is alluded to in the comic and I loved that. Here's the clip if you've not seen it:

This is just a taste but as you can see it has to be one of the worst fight scenes in sci-fi history. The scene has been alluded to numerous times by various other shows (including Star Trek:Enterprise, see the episodes "In a Mirror, Darkly"). Anyway, the creator of this comic creates a whole back story to the Gorn species which makes the whole thing seem not so silly. I'm very appreciative of that and I think it works.

Other geeky things that have occurred this week:

I got a new shower puff:

You like? I do feel a little bit weird using Spiderman to wash myself but oh well, it was like 50p or something!

I got a retweet! Yay! By the lovely Geek Syndicate. (I'll add there website to the list at the side when I've finished writing this.) I used my personal account so I won't go into too much detail but I was excited. Those guys are lovely.

I'm getting WAY too excited about the Hunger Games. I've promised my flatmate that I'll go with him to see it next Saturday but I might have to go for a sneak peek on Friday. SFX have been running daily interviews with cast and crew, you can find them here. I have tended to scoff Twilight fans (which is what many are comparing this to) but NO LONGER. I have officially turned into a fangirl when it comes to this film. Although it seems I've become obsessed with Jennifer Lawrence as opposed to a male lead. This was proven in a pub quiz a couple of weeks ago when she was the answer to a question and I was the only one who knew that. Out of all the people on all the teams. Not a fangirl wannabe for nothing you know.

I played a lovely game of Doctor Who Monopoly with friends the other night. We had extra points for DW references made throughout the game. Someone suggested adding an infinity mirror to the inside of the box to make it look (altogether now) bigger on the inside.

I finished Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds as well. The ending was breath-taking in its scope and themes. I was blown away and when I find the time, I promise to put up a short post/review about it. I'm trying to find the time to write a review for The Time Traveler's Wife as well but that's for other reasons.

Fun and geeky japes this week. Apologies for dodgy photography, it's really not my forte.

Til next time folks, keep squeeing!

(Don't worry that's not a catch-phrase and it definitely won't be used again. I promise.)

Twitter! Being Human! Revelation Space! Everything's more exciting with an exclamation mark!

So I've entered the Twitter-sphere (see left), this account will follow lots of cool sci-fi people (from Star Trek cast members to Simon Pegg). I have become a big Twitter addict over the last few months (on my personal account) and I think if it's used by the right people it's a great way of working out who's fun and keeps you up to date with things in a variety of genres/areas of life in general. I'll also be following a few people who I really respect from GW. They tend to be people who are great writers. As I've written about before, I dabble in the fanfic arena to some success (I'm definitely getting better) but there are others out there who consistently blow my mind with their story-telling abilities. People who dismiss fanfic writers as crazies are missing a trick. Some of the detail and imagery that people create in their stories is unbelievable. I have heard a couple of success stories of people being picked up by TV shows as writers, but these are VERY few and far between. So go out and read some fanfic, there is a lot of stuff out there that isn't so good (like mine) but there is also some gorgeous stuff. Writers tend to crave validation so leave a review if you liked something. Try http://www.fanfiction.net/ to begin with. It's definitely not perfect but there's a huge amount of material there and you will find something from your favourite show. So give it a go, you never know, you might like it.

On to TV. This week I've been watching Once Upon a Time, Being Human (the British version) and The Walking Dead. Last week's episode of Once was wonderful. Robert Carlyle FINALLY got to stretch his acting legs in an episode that took a twist on the story of Beauty and the Beast. This episode was produced (or directed) by Jane Espenson - of Buffy fame - and if you knew where to look there were clues all over the set and story. There were also lovely little jokes alluding to the Disney version of this story as well, like the chipped tea cup. Carlyle's performance was mesmorising and this episode reaffirmed my faith in the series. But, and it's a big but, this week's episode was awful! The fairies and Grumpy storyline was incredibly weak. And I don't like bashing things so we'll leave it at that. The real question this week was what has happened to Prince Charming's ex? And why is the Queen trying to incriminate him? Over the last few episodes I have been really enjoying the little glimpses of Jack's cabin (from SG1 and of particular importance to S/J shippers). First time I saw it there was a loud "squeeeeee" and then of course I had to rewind the scene over and over to 'check' that it actually was the cabin *sigh*

I have been enjoying Being Human quite a lot this season. I haven't taken the time to watch the American version yet. It does have Smallville and BSG-alumna Sam Witwer in but that doesn't necessarily make me want to like it any more. The British version is full of dark humour and some brilliant pieces of casting. Even with the monumental shift in characters for this season, I think the writing is speaking for itself and the fact that the new characters are so original means that it doesn't feel tired. Tom McNair (Michael Socha) is particularly good. The actor's sister (Lauren Socha) is in Misfits and it seems the acting ability is hereditary as the guy who plays Tom is fantastic. He has these great dead-pan moments that work very well with the writing. The story arc for this season has to do with the new baby and an older version of herself trying to kill her from the great beyond. Add to that the fact that the prophesied nemesis of the baby could already be in the house and you get a season that is leading towards a fantastic series of twists and turns before its end. I cannot wait.

I'm still catching up on The Walking Dead. I have stints of watching two or three episodes at a time as they are usually too angst-filled for me to last much longer. Even though I love the angst. Ohhhh yes. However, this does mean that after the particularly good episode yesterday that I couldn't read my Twitter feed this morning as it was too full of SPOILERS! Grrr. I hate it when people do that on Twitter/Facebook. Have some respect people! Rant over. Anyway, another thing I love about TWD - Bear McCreary's music. He is a genius.

Moving on. I've been reading the first in Alastair Reynold's Revelation series of books - "Revelation Space". It has been a great read and as I haven't got to the end yet that is all I will say for now. I'm planning on writing a review when I'm finished. This book is about 2000 pages long and I'm pretty sure the other 5/6 books in the series are about that length too so they will keep me going for a while. Good thing I have a Kindle. I wouldn't have room in my flat for all of them!

That's it for today's ramble. Follow me on Twitter for little nerdy gem.



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