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I had a good Christmas this year.  I decided to remain in Portland this year. It’s nice to spend a holiday resting instead of traveling.  I missed seeing my family, but I didn’t mind missing out on the airports. I worked on Christmas Eve for the first time ever, but I did take a vacation from work beginning on Christmas Day and ending on New Year’s Day. On Christmas Day I saw two movies, two of many movies I plan to see during my break. I’m going to a game night on New Year’s Eve, but that’s the only social activity.  I have planned.

What did I get for my birthday and Christmas? My friends and family took very good care of me this year.

• Grimm lore book
• Batman figure
• The Shining by Stephen King
• Princess Mononoke on DVD
• 2(x)ist underwear
• Pizza pan
• Beanie
• Enterprise-D model
• C.O.P.S. Vol. 1 and 2 on DVD
• Batman snuggie

I sent my niece a toy Dora the Explorer guitar. I hear that she really liked it and was doing air guitar not long before she got her gift.

While I was at LeakyCon, I spent a lot of time thinking about fandoms. I’m a major Star Trek fan. More specifically, I a major Star Trek: The Next Generation fan. I’ve seen every episode and movie many times. If I came across a rerun, I used to be able to recognize an episode and tell you the title and season within seconds. I haven’t put that to the test in a while since you don’t see reruns on TV anymore. I know there are people who are more obsessed with it than me, but I’m pretty obsessed. Star Trek: TNG is definitely the series I’m the most obsessed with, even more than LOST.

I thought that I was fairly knowledgeable about Doctor Who. I’ve seen every episode since the relaunch at least once. I spend a decent amount of time chatting with people about it. At the Doctor Who meetup at LeakyCon, we sat around in the circle and discussed the show. I knew there would be people who knew a lot more than me. I was just hoping to be able to contribute to the conversation. As the discussion went around the circle on different topics, I was just happy that I knew what people were talking about. At one point, I was having trouble hearing what was going on when all of a sudden pretty much the entire circle of 50 or so people burst into some Doctor Who-related song. Later, I remembered hearing “Pandorica” and “Amy” and “River”. When they finished, I had no idea what had just happened. It blew my mind. They all knew the song word for word, but I had never heard of it before. Earlier they had all sung a Harry Potter song, but I figured that was from the Harry Potter musical that I have refused to watch.

Later on, with the help of Google, I discovered that the Doctor Who song is by a UK band that writes songs inspired by Doctor Who. They write songs INSPIRED BY DOCTOR WHO. I had no idea this kind of thing existed, but I shouldn’t be surprised. These guys are big on YouTube apparently. The Internet wasn’t around when Star Trek: TNG was on, much less YouTube. I wonder how it would have been different for me if I had the Internet when that show was on. I don’t do a lot of general web surfing these days, but I did when I was in college and had more free time (I didn’t get Internet access until my freshman year of college in 1997). I’m hardly ever on YouTube, but if I had it in 1990, I probably would have spent hours watching Star Trek videos. Most of the people in the Doctor Who discussion were at least 10 years younger than me.

I already knew that the Internet has changed fandoms. I’m already a part of several online communities. This Doctor Who discussion made me realize that I’m not utilizing everything that I could. I have to step up my geek game if I want to keep up with these young people. Or maybe I don’t need to. I’m doing fine the way I am now.

Today I canceled my Netflix DVD account and I’ll be streaming only from now on. It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a couple of years now at least. I hardly use the DVD service anymore. Most movies that I’m interested in I’ll see in the theater and either never want to see again or like enough to buy when it’s on video. Most Netflix rentals sit around here for weeks or months and I send some back without watching them. I told myself that once I got my DVD queue down to 0, I would go streaming only. Technically, there are 2 movies left in my queue, but I’m sure I can watch them before my membership expires in 22 days.

I figured I can use one of the various streaming services or Redbox to watch new releases that I don’t want to own. I’ve already been doing that a little. Lately, Netflix has mostly been for older movies that aren’t streaming.

I’m going to miss getting those red envelopes in the mail. According to my account history, I first joined in March 2004. My first rental was Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 1: Vol. 1. The last movie in my queue is The Abyss (the classic version).

Last summer, my #1 show ended. My #2 show at the time, which became my #1 show, was Fringe.

I remember watching the first 2 episodes when they aired, but I gave up on the show after that. Because people said the show got better and I have to watch everything J.J. Abrams produces, I started recording it again. After the season ended, I caught up on the episodes I missed and I loved it. Not all of Fringe was great, but it had a lot more good than bad. It had great characters, great acting, and imaginative story lines. Fringe should have gotten a lot more recognition than it did.

Fringe aired its last episode Friday night around the time I was leaving for Vegas. I have a history of missing Fringe finales. I watched it this morning. I was very satisfied with how it ended. I’m glad that the show made it to 100 episodes and was brought to a satisfying conclusion.

I’m going to miss having new episodes of Fringe on my TV. I think a re-watch is coming soon.

Not long ago I saw online somewhere that Portlandia was looking for extras for Season 3. I filled out the online form and included the 2 pictures they wanted: a head shot and a body shot. I didn’t think there was any chance of being picked, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. I really enjoy watching the show. Wednesday afternoon I got a call asking if I could come early the next morning to be in a sketch. Of course I said “Yes”. They told me what to wear and later that night they sent an email telling me where to be and when to be there. I got there super early, but it wasn’t long before other extras started to arrive. Everybody was really nice. I had a great time. I signed an NDA that I didn’t read, so I’m going to play it safe and not go into any details now. Maybe more after the episode airs. Their seasons usually start in January, so I assume you’ll see it around that time. Hopefully, I’ll be on screen and won’t look too bad.

Later that night I went to see Fiona Apple in concert. The opening act was pretty lame. He played nothing but slow, mellow songs and even joked about that. I almost fell asleep because I hadn’t gotten much sleep over the previous few days. Once he finished, we had to wait about 45 minutes before Fiona came on stage. I was getting restless and it was getting late. When she came on she explained that she was late because she had just had her period. Anyway, she put on a really great show. There was was only one song that she didn’t play that I wanted to hear. She’s a weird one, but she’s good.

Fiona Setlist
Fast as You Can
On the Bound
Shadowboxer
Paper Bag
Anything We Want
Get Gone
Sleep to Dream
Extraordinary Machine
Werewolf
Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)
Daredevil
I Know
Every Single Night
Criminal
Carrion
Not About Love

Encore:
It’s Only Make Believe

Last night my favorite show, Eureka, aired its final episode. I’ve always said that it’s not the best show, but it’s just plain fun. That’s what made it my favorite. It was nice to have some fun sci-fi to watch along with the gritty, depressing stuff. In the 5 years or so that I’ve owned a DVR, it’s always been prioritized in the #1 position ahead of sci-fi and non-sci-fi shows like LOST, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc.

I started watching Eureka in the summer of 2007 on DVD before the second season started. I knew about it during the first season, but hadn’t seen it except for a few seconds while I was flipping through the channels. I have this memory of Sheriff Carter in the woods. I know that doesn’t really narrow it down. The only time I mentioned it here was not long after I first started watching. I’ve enjoyed watching the show every season. Not every episode was great, but they were all at least pretty good as far as I remember. I even switched to using Degree deodorant was because of the creative tie-in they had in season 3.

I was very satisfied with the finale last night. We had the same familiar crisis-of-the-week story along with references previous seasons and resolution to the various character threads. The sheriff’s trip through memory lane was great. I’m just glad it got a chance to wrap things up considering how it was suddenly canceled.

With Eureka ending, there aren’t any truly sci-fi shows on Syfy. There’s not much sci-fi left on TV in general. I hope something as imaginative and fun as Eureka comes along soon.

I’ve had my new TV for almost a month and I love it! It’s 4 inches bigger than my last one. I didn’t think 4 inches would make that big of a difference, but it is a pretty good difference. I should’ve known. The picture quality on this TV is so much better. It took about a week of tinkering to get the optimal settings. I’m very picky about my settings. Now I’m happy. I’ll probably buy Samsung TVs for a long as they make them.

I didn’t know what to do with my old Vizio TV since there’s nowhere to recycle electronics nearby. It didn’t seem right to leave it on the side of the road. I ended up putting it on Craigslist for free. I had someone willing to take it off my hands within hours. Maybe they were able to fix it. To be honest, I don’t care. I just wanted to be rid of it.

Man, I haven’t had much to say since Comic-Con.  I have recovered, but I keep wishing I could go back.  I’ve even had dreams about being in San Diego.  I have made a few adjustments in the past month.

• I’ve started going to bed earlier and because of that I’m getting up earlier.  Who’d have thought that going to be earlier makes it easier to get up in the morning?  Weird how that works.  When I get to work early, I feel like I have conquered the day.

• I started eating bigger but also healthy dinners so I won’t have to snack as much at night.  When I do snack, I tend to eat fruit instead of chips and candy.  I did this because I had reached a point where I wasn’t losing anymore weight even though I wanted to lose another 10 pounds.  Since I made those changes I’ve lost 7 pounds.

• I cut back on the number of TV shows that I’m watching and the number of new fall TV shows that I want to watch.  It had become a chore to keep up with all the shows I was watching.  Now I have more time to devote to my other hobbies.  I’m thinking about picking up something new, I just haven’t figured out what it will be yet.

Technology is great, except for when it’s not.

One day I came to work and I couldn’t sign into my PC. I went and got one of the user support people. He logged in as an administrator and determined that something had turned off the services on my machine. He, of course, thought that it was a virus. I’m not sure though. I’m pretty careful, but I do sometimes click on links that people post on Twitter without thinking. He turned on the services that he thought needed to be on and ran a bunch of scans, which turned up nothing. I couldn’t get any work done that day, but at the end I got my PC back. It has really been the same since. I wish I could get a new PC.

The weekend before this past weekend, DirecTV came to install a 2nd receiver. This one went in the bedroom. From what I understand, the DirecTV installers are usually people that work at third-party companies that DirecTV hires to do the work. The installer got there at the beginning of the 4-hour range they gave me. He did all the wiring and connected the receiver in a decent amount of time. However, he couldn’t activate the receiver because DirecTV’s systems were down. He didn’t know how long the wait would be. He said that his supervisor (I’m assuming the one at whatever company he works for) wouldn’t allow him to leave a receiver that wasn’t activated. He would have to take the receiver and reschedule for another day, which would be 2 weeks later. Of course, I was angry because I had already waited 2 weeks for him to come in the first place. He called DirecTV to reschedule and they said he couldn’t reschedule for that reason. After sitting on my couch for a couple hours, he finally got approval to leave the receiver with me. He told me to call in later to activate it myself. He finally left after about 3.5 hours. I finally have satellite in my room. It’s great to have another option for TV viewing. Sometimes I get tired of sitting on my old couch. Also, I can sit in bed and watch Golden Girls reruns.

It’s a good thing I got the new receiver in the bed room because my big living room TV is dying. On Friday when I turned on the TV the screen was flickering rapidly. I could hear a clicking noise every time it flickered. I’ve only had this TV for 3.5 years, so I was mad that it was malfunctioning. It’s a cheap Vizio, so I shouldn’t be surprised. It was my first HDTV, and at the time I couldn’t afford to get anything more expensive. After talking to Vizio and the company Vizio uses for repairs, we determined what the problem was and that it would be better to buy a new TV than fix this one. When I bought this TV, I also bought an extended warranty. I remember that I didn’t want to, but my roommate at the time convinced me to do so. Well, all of my warranty coverage expired on January 31, 2011, which was less than 6 months ago. If it had done this before January 31, I could have gotten it repaired or replaced for free. Oh well. I’m getting a new TV. It definitely won’t be a Vizio. I’ve already picked out a Samsung that I like. I’ve had great luck with Samsung products in the past and they’re not as expensive as Sony products. I’m going to wait until after my vacation this week to order so it won’t be left outside my door and stolen while I’m gone. Sometimes the Vizio will come on and not flicker, but when it does flicker I can go watch TV in the bedroom.

These are first world problems if anything.

I’ve received several notices a few weeks ago saying that my personal information may have been or has been compromised by hackers. One was from Ohio State, one was from Best Buy, and one was from another company that I can’t remember right now.

This PlayStation Network intrusion that happened a week or so ago has me pissed off the most. Basically, the network was hacked and our customer data was obtained. Sony took the PSN down, began an investigation, and began rebuilding the system so it would be more secure. First I was just a little annoyed by not having access to the network. But I got mad when 6 days later Sony told us exactly what information was accessed: name, address, birth date, PSN ID, password, security question, email address, and possibly credit card number and expiration date. Somebody can do some damage with the information. And it was 6 days before we were told this. I understand that they took their time doing a forensic analysis and wanted to know for sure what damage had been done, but still. And why aren’t passwords encrypted??? At least we now know that credit card numbers were encrypted. They still don’t know if those were accessed. It would be nice to know which credit card I have on file with them, but there’s no way I can find out from them because the network is still down. I’ve heard that you can’t even call and find out. I feel sorry for their customer service representatives.

They’re expecting to have some services restored by May 3, which is about 2 weeks after it was taken down. I wonder if they’ll give a partial refund to us paying customers. I hope their improvements will make PSN more secure. I’m eager to get back on, remove my credit card information just to be safe, and start enjoying the service again.