Dr. Grordbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators

I love this collection of ray guns from Weta in New Zealand. Expensive but incredibly detailed. I'm a sucker for cyberpunk stuff, and this is (for me) as good as it gets. The site describes them as "a line of immensely dangerous yet simple-to-operate wave oscillation weapons." I also love the promo videos here.

You can pick one up here. The Victorious Mongoose is available for a very reasonable $1,084.44 (New Zealand Dollars) which is about £430. Bargain!

Addiction

In 1994 I got my first Mac. It was a little thing that sat in the corner of the lounge. I got it after visiting a friend who's just got this new thing called the internet. I'd been round to her house, and we had a drink or five while chatting to strangers around the world on IRC. I was hooked. I went home and less than a week later I'd bought the Mac and gone online. I spent most of my free time getting to know people on IRC. It was amazing, this new technology. I was addicted.

I can't remember when my IRC addiction died, but it probably coincided with this new thing called Napster which I discovered around 1999. It was amazing. I suddenly discovered that I could download free music and save it on my computer. I spent hours and hours scouring for collections of singles and albums. Sadly, a lot of them were Kylie Minogue remixes, but regardless of musical taste it was bloody good fun. And free. Amazing. Welcome to my latest addiction. With an ever growing collection of MP3s on my Mac, I started to wish that there was something like a Walkman that would play them on the road. A trip to Argos told me that there were a few overpriced underspecced players on the marker so I never took the plunge.

Until Apple introduced this thing called iTunes, which was quickly followed by the iPod. My world changed. Physical media became a thing of the past and I spend hours and hours converting my existing CD library into MP3s to playback in iTunes and on the new iPod thing.

Around this time a site in Russia caught my attention; Allofmp3.com. What a gem. You credited your account with a few dollars, and could buy loads of music. Suddenly I was downloading music again like a man possessed. I bought entire back catalogues of artists work for mere dollars. It was ... addictive. The authorities soon caught on and the credit card companies refused to fund the site, so it died.

A few years later, along came Facebook, the slightly popular social networking site. Someone at work introduced me to it. I wasn't sure what to do on it but it was still addictive. Welcome to the next addiction: Facebook.

As it grew in popularity, I became more addicted, with all those apps about werewolves and vampires biting each other. Hilarious. (well, it was at the time).

A freelancer at work one week introduced me to newsgroups as a way of getting TV shows from the US. Bing! A new addiction. Or at least a variation of a previous one... downloading Music, TV shows and movies. Day in, day out. My Broadband provider (BT) eventually noticed that I was downloading on average about 20-30Gb a day! They capped my speed, which was (for an addict) the most disastrous thing that had ever happened to me! My fix of endless TV collections was being stunted. I learned moderation. Kind of. And eventually my full speed was returned to me.

Then Apple (again) introduced the AppleTV and movies and TV shows became available in iTunes. I realised I wasn't even buying DVDs anymore. When Apple TV introduced HD TV shows, that was it... I was downloading an episode a day. I may not have been watching an episode a day but I was downloading them. Addicted!

Then came along the iPhone. I could surf, download music, watch TV shows all on this little phone thing. Then along came the App Store. Addicted!

Twitter. Addicted. Nuff said. Still am. It'll wear off, I know. Something else will come along. Dunno what yet, but I know it will.

Now the latest thing for me is Last.fm. Addicted. It's combining everything; social networking, and discovering new music. Addictive. Addictive. Addictive.

I haven't even touched on Warcraft, collecting Agatha Christie reproductions, and a whole bunch of other addictions I've either had or have.

Sometimes I think I should try and give it all up, but it's too much fun and pretty harmless really. Plus it keeps me off the streets!

I'm sitting here trying to think of what the next online media file-sharing blogging social networking addiction might be. Last.Fm is making me think that eventually TV will end up this way. Why should we download shows and store them on our own drives when download speeds are good enough to be able to just stream whatever we want to watch whenever we want to watch it and on whatever medium we choose.

In the future will we all be walking around with (an Apple branded) device like the iPhone that does everything we want, media wise. We're almost there with the iPhone, and with a new one due out in a week's time rumoured to have HD video playback, I think that will probably be my next addiction.

Roll on next week.

The Face of Prego

We had our photos taken at work recently, and while I was retouching everyone's spots and double chins I wondered what would happen if I mixed everyone together. Would I get the generic Face of Prego?

I aligned everyone's eyes, and ensured that everyone had the same amount of "image" showing through, enough to influence the final image but not dominate it.

I find it quite attractive, in a non-sexual, man-woman kind of way. It'd be interesting to do this on a larger scale, or maybe find the generic faces of different companies around the world. A project for the future perhaps?

Britney on The X Factor

Usually on the X Factor, guests are invited to perform live on stage and also tutor the contestants who are performing one of the guests songs that week. People like Mariah Carey (as odd as she was), Will Young, and Take That have all spent time with the contestants, giving them advice and generally coming across as genuinely nice and talented people.

But not Britney.

This woman thinks she's so big, she doesn't need to spend time with the contestants. Hell, she doesn't even watch the show behind the scenes and bother to note who's performance was good. Instead, she skirts the question from the lovely Dermot (after her performance) with a lame answer, where she - mistakenly - thought that if she said "I love being in London" would make it all OK.

Mariah sang live. It was fab. Will Young sang live. Wonderful. Everyone sings live when they come on the show. It's a talent show about singing and the least the so-called pros can do is show the contestants how it's done.

But not Britney.

Oh no, she simply struts around the stage for 2 minutes miming (appallingly) to her latest CD. It's so embarrassingly obvious too. I don't know how she got away with it.

Then the judges, led by the sycophantic Simon Cowell actually give her a standing ovation. It's nuts! At least James Corden (of Gavin and Stacey) - who I now love - spoke up about it on the Xtra Factor afterward. Good for him! (his comments are just over 3 minutes into the following video - enjoy)

Who's next?

Now that 'the' Doctor has resigned, speculation of who will replace him is rife. Here are a few of my suggestions. If you're reading this, (new showrunner) Steven Moffat sir, you may borrow my top three if you like ...

1) Matthew Macfadyen

He was in the first couple of seasons of 'Spooks' as the lovely yet kinda dry Tom Quinn. He's played Mr. Darcy, a couple of movies and can now be seen in BBCs 'Little Dorrit' - a kind of Doctor Who reunion show written by Charles Dickens. he has the look, the (hate this word - overused by Dr Who fandom) gravitas, and I reckon would look good with a long flappy coat!

2) Rupert Penry-Jones

Matthew's replacement in Spooks could be David's in Who. More of an action-man Who. And possibly the sexiest Doctor yet? It's not likely but he has recently left Spooks so you never know. Maybe it's time we had a Doctor who had a (um) bit of a big cock swagger about him?

3) David Thewlis

This guy is already quite a popular choice on Outpost Gallifrey. A bit of a 'traditional' Doctor would be OK after the madcap Tennant. Possibly best know to todays kids as the werewolf professor in the Harry Potter movies. Although similar to Tennant he'd be more quirky and sweet and a little dark.

What you cannot have.

OK, so I haven't played World of Warcraft for a few weeks now. It started to become a bit of a chore and, I dunno, I guess I got a bit bored of the thing.

Today I was asked a question about flight paths, so I said I'd log on to have a look for the answer. Of course my account is now unavailable because I haven't paid my subscription this month, and now I'm annoyed that I can't get on. I wasn't even going to play the game. But now I WANT TO, because I can't. And I'm sitting here thinking, "my wallet is downstairs. Shall I just renew my subscription and have a game?"

I guess we never change; I'm a grown man (apparently), and yet here I sit there like a spoilt rotten child wanting - needing - what I cannot have!

Someone just smack me.

Hello, I'm Michael and I'm a....

I love being a geek. I love playing World of Warcraft. I love my Mac Pro and my iPhone. And I love being a Doctor Who fan.

I find that I'll happily sit there (wherever I am) and talk about Doctor Who to whoever will listen (or at least appear to be mildly interested at least). I'll happily share the latest news or current speculation on the forums about Donna Noble being back in the specials next year. I'll buy the DVDs and then rip them as MP4s so that I can stream them onto my TV. It means they're available to watch at the drop of a hat. Should I get the urge. I'll buy the books and keep them in order on the shelf. I couldn't read them out of sequence, even though they don't follow on. I subscribe to Doctor Who magazine. It arrives at work in a brown paper bag. My very own porn. How apt. I buy the action figures (I haven't bought "Damaged Cassandra" though. That's just going too far!) and have a small shelf in the lounge where I'm allowed to display the latest half a dozen. The rest are in a box in the loft (it's an office). I think about it more than is healthy, and sometimes I worry about that. Not very often, just sometimes. So it would appear that I'm an out and out Doctor Who freak. Everyone knows it. Everyone accepts it.

However...

Sometimes I see a fan on TV or in real life and they start talking about Doctor Who, and I cringe! To me they sound rather childish and obsessive. They talk about Donna Noble being back next year, and I think "Have you nothing better to talk about?". They talk about their collection of memorabilia, and I wonder if they must be a little silly wasting their money on frivolous stuff like that, and I thank "whoever" that I'm not like them.

And then someone will come up to me at work - a non-fan - and they'll ask me a question about whether Donna Noble is back next year. Like I know? And they'll tell me what they thought of the latest episode. Like I made it?

And suddenly I realise that I am one of those fans. I realise that that's how people see me. And I'm horrified.

But then I also realise that everyone accepts me that way. They like me that way. I don't think they'd have me any other way. So why is it that I have such a problem with being that way? Why do I deny it to myself? It's not like I actually hide my obsession from anyone; always happy to share it with people.

It's like I'm that straight bloke. The metrosexual (who everyone else knows is gay really) who goes to gay clubs and tells everyone about how much he loves going, but he really is straight. And he tells the gay guys that he's so comfortable with his heterosexuality that it would be OK to sleep with another man. And he thinks people just think he's cool because he's so accepting and experimental. The real gays are laughing at him because he's just a knob head really, and his friends are kind of laughing too because they want him to be happy with himself but he just isn't "being" himself, and he's just making a fool of himself.

I'm him! What a tosser!

So ... I need to come out once and for all as an out and out Doctor Who geek ... no ... nerd, and learn to love my inner Whovian. Ugh ...."whovian" ... what kind of nerd invented THAT word!!? Sorry... sorry... I mean... I AM A WHOVIAN! AND I'M PROUD!

So now all I need to do is go to a convention with a Tom baker scarf wrapped around my neck!