Monday 3 May 2010

Terminus and Digital Footprint

In the period that I’ve been away from Slothtown – it turns out that MA’s take up quite a bit of time – my energies have been focused upon my studies as well as my extra-curricular work. It’s got to the point where I have to focus on projects that are important to me, which Slothtown (and by extension MySpace, as mentioned in the previous entry) no longer is. My aim this year is to secure a job and develop my “Museum Walker” project further whilst carrying on with my other commitments.

As such, rather than try and hold myself to some kind of monthly schedule, I thought I’d use Slothtown as my digital footprint document. I don’t think I have anything much to say anymore as a blogger, so this is technically the blog’s last entry, although it will get updated regularly. On here is a record of all of my output – I hope you enjoy it, whoever you may be!

Museum Walker
Originating from the compilation of my museum journals, which began in February 2008, Museum Walker is currently a blog in which my write-ups of each museum and visitor attraction I have been to are being typed up. The aim of the site is to offer an insight into what to expect when planning a museum visit, with an emphasis on the presentation of the site’s collections and features. The blog was set up towards the end of April 2010 and the reviews are in the process of being transcribed and uploaded onto the blog.

Museum Walker

Podcast - Earth-2.net: The Show

The main platform of American geek culture website Earth-2.net, which began in 2004. The podcast launched in late 2005 and I was hired in early 2006 to review comic book movies. This birthed a segment which would eventually be titled Comic Reel-lief, where I exaggerate my English accent for American listeners. Some language is blue, due to the relative freedoms of the 'Explicit' tag on iTunes. Contributions are listed as follows:

016 - Blade
021 - V for Vendetta/X-Men
028 - X-2: X-Men United
042 - X-Men: The Last Stand
072 - Superman Returns
079 - 2006 review/2007 preview episode
094 - Ghost Rider/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
099 - Spider-Man 3
100 - TMNT
129 - Fantastic Four/Fantastic Four: Silver Surfer/The Fantastic 4
167 - 300
175 - Stardust/30 Days Of Night
187 - 2007 review/2008 preview episode
198 - I Am Legend/Men In Black
216 - Iron Man/The Return of Swamp Thing
235 - Hulk/The Incredible Hulk
253 - Wanted
258 - Batman 66 (With Michael David Sims and James Deaux from World’s Finest Podcast)
266 - Batman 89 (With Mike and James)
290 - Hellboy/Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
293 - Batman Returns (With Mike and James)
298 - 2008 review/2009 preview episode
311 - Watchmen
316 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine
325 - Batman Forever (With Mike and James)
335 - Daredevil (With Desmond Reddick, from Dread Media)
350 - Batman & Robin (With Mike and James)
364 - Whiteout
373 - 2009 review/2010 preview episode
398 - Kick-Ass/The Rocketeer
400 - Batman Begins (With Mike and James)
402 - Speed Racer
427 - Iron Man 2/The Losers/Jonah Hex/Scott Pilgrim vs The World/Red
431 - 2011 preview episode
435 - The Green Hornet
439 - The Dark Knight (With Mike and James)
459 - The Mask/Son of the Mask
460 - Thor
468 - X-Men: First Class/Green Lantern/Priest
496 - Captain America (1944 serial/1979 TV movie + sequel/1990 version and 2011 version)
500 - Superman
520 - Avengers Assemble/Ghost Rider 2
540 - Men in Black 2/Men in Black 3
547 - Spider-Man/Spider-Man 2/The Amazing Spider-Man
560 - Dick Tracy (With Mike and Dave Probert, from Geek Planet Online)
589 - 2012 review/2013 preview episode
604 - The Phantom (With Mike and Dave)
618 - Dredd/Judge Dredd
632 - Thematic lists #01 (With forumite Tom Hemmings)

NB) Some reviews are after other segments within that particular episode.

This segment has also been spun-off for the podcast Dread Media Presents: Dread Reel-lief. This acts of a platform for me to discuss movie adaptations of horror comics with the host of Dread Media, Desmond Reddick. Contributions are listed as follows:

01 - Uzumaki
02 - The Mask
03 - Faust: Love of the Damned
04 - Spawn
05 - Tales From The Crypt
06 - Man-Thing
07 - AVP: Alien v Predator
08 - 30 Days of Night
09 - Virus
10 - Swamp Thing
11 - The Crow
12 - Vampirella

Podcast - World's Finest Podcast

One of Earth-2.net's earliest spin-off podcasts, World's Finest Podcast (a play on the given name to a Superman-Batman team-up) chronologically reviews every episode in the extensive Warner Bros.' animated continuity dating roughly from 1992 through to 2006. My contribution is compiled highlights packages for each episode that recaps a series before moving onto the next one; the tone is part deferential, part familiar having worked with the hosts before on Comic Reel-lief reviews. Contributions are listed as follows:

020 - Batman: The Animated Series
038 - Superman: The Animated Series/Gotham Knights
050 - Batman Beyond
067 - The Zeta Project/Static Shock
090 - Teen Titans
099 - Justice League/Justice League Unlimited
100 - World's Finest Podcast retrospective

Podcast - For Your Ears Only
Having been given license for a spin-off podcast, I co-devised For Your Ears Only with my friend and co-host Adham Fisher. The podcast is a monthly look at officially recognised films in the James Bond series, reviewed in chronological order. Like Earth-2.net: The Show, the explicit tag is very much applied on this podcast due to the passionate views the films evoke from myself and, in particular, Adham! Contributions are listed as follows:

01 - Dr No
02 - From Russia With Love
03 - Goldfinger
04 - Thunderball
05 - You Only Live Twice
06 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service
07 - Diamonds Are Forever
08 - Live And Let Die
09 - The Man With The Golden Gun
10 - The Spy Who Loved Me
11 - Moonraker
12 - For Your Eyes Only
13 - Octopussy
14 - A View To A Kill
15 - The Living Daylights
16 - Licensed To Kill
17 - Goldeneye
18 - Tomorrow Never Dies
19 - The World is Not Enough
20 - Die Another Day
21 - Casino Royale (2006)
22 - Quantum of Solace
23 - Canon Bond film overview/out-takes episode
24 - Casino Roayle (1954)
25 - Casino Royale (1967)
26 - Never Say Never Again
27 - Skyfall

I have also publicised the majority of these episodes in 3 minute video adverts on youtube, which can be found here:

For Your Ears Only adverts

Podcast - Shake and Blake
Following the end point of For Your Ears Only, I was asked to co-host a new podcast by Dave Probert from British-based geek culture site Geek Planet Online. Focusing upon the British science fiction series Blake's 7, our approach to the podcast has been one of a longtime fan (Dave) and a newcomer to show (myself). In addition to reviewing episodes of Blake's 7, it allowed cross-promotion between Geek Planet Online and Earth-2.net.

01 - The Way Back/Space Fall
02 - Cygnus Alpha/Time Squad
03 - The Web/Seek-Locate-Destroy
04 - Mission to Destiny/Duel
05 - Project Avalon/Breakdown
06 - Bounty/Deliverance
07 - Orac
08 - Redemption/Shadow
09 - Weapon/Horizon
10 - Pressure Point/Trial
11 - Killer/Hostage
12 - Countdown/Voice from the Past
13 - Gambit/The Keeper
14 - Star One + Season 2 round-up
15 - Aftermath/Powerplay
16 - Volcano/Dawn of the Gods
17 - The Harvest of Kairos/City at the Edge of the World
18 - Children of Auron/Rumours of Death
19 - Sarcophogus/Ultraworld
20 - Moloch/Death-Watch
21 - Terminal + Season 3 round-up
22 - Rescue/Power
23 - Traitor/Stardrive
24 - Animals/Headhunter
25 - Assassin/Games
26 - Sand/Gold
27 - Orbit/Warlord
28 - Blake + Season 4 round-up

Selected articles

Comic Reel-lief is also used as a banner for writing further about comic book movies as a film sub-genre. For now, they can be found here:

Earth-2.net columns
I have also started reviewing the Carry On film franchise for GeekPlanetOnline, under the banner Carry On Scribbling. These reviews can be found here:

01 – A primer on Carry On films
02 – Carry On Sergeant
03 – Carry On Nurse
04 – Carry On Teacher
05 - Carry On Constable
06 - Carry On Regardless
07 - Carry On Cruising
08 - Carry On Cabby
09 - Carry On Jack
10 - Carry On Spying

Monday 31 August 2009

Delays, Disappearance and Digital Footprints

I've been overhauling my MySpace profile today due to a couple of words being bandied about - those being "digital footprint". It's a term that related to how much of yourself is out there in cyberspace and whether or not the worse stuff comes into contact with people you're about to start a relationship with; mostly in a business/employment sense, but I suppose the same is true of a romantic relationship.

Rather than outright delete my MySpace profile, I wanted to revise it. It may be the historian in me - that guy that hoardes everything about his past out of sheer fear of suffering some kind of tragic memory loss - but I don't want to just drop the MySpace profile and jump into bed with this Twitter thing, like so many I know have done. It's true that I use Facebook far more than MySpace, but I don’t want it to fall completely by the wayside – I’ve even got some photos up on there that I haven’t put up on Facebook!

So in the interest of improving my digital footprint.....I don't know how to finish this sentence. Some things are out of my control, certainly - although I doubt any Vanessa Hudgens-esque naked photos of me are ever going to be seen on t'internet for one reason or another - but I have taken the step of editing both this and my other blog down and either starting again, or starting from a VERY early point in my blogging past. In their place will be sounder stuff than what I was babbling on about in 2008 (The UK Tour aside, it wasn't a great year).

Right, I’m tired and my metaphors are starting to fail – time to sign off!!

Wednesday 13 May 2009

For Your Ears Only

Huzzah! Blogging again, and once more it’s for a reason other than “it’s Monday, best write something.” Today is roughly the one year anniversary of For Your Ears Only, due to Episode #13 being released today. But what is FYEO, and why should you care?

The sting of giving up on the pursuit of a radio career was considerably eased by the fact that I was a contributor to the official podcast of Earth-2.net, as their Comic Book Movie correspondent. Not down to any specific vocal talent: I was a diversity hire as it’s an American-based site and I always got a good response by exaggerating my already plumy, absurd voice/accent. Michael Sims, the site’s owner & editor, got in contact with me soon after I’d started thinking up other career options in January last year, a bit before the UK Tour began. Whilst Earth-2 is in no way big enough to support anyone financially, Mike was looking for more podcasts to run and had approached me about turning my segment – Comic Reel-lief – into its own regular podcast. I was surprisingly hesitant about it as I didn’t think I had the stamina to seek out and review a film every fortnight or so, and was even less certain about doing it on my own. My radio show at Bailrigg FM was a whole different kettle of fish as that was largely music-based with me showing off my musical knowledge between songs.

Having done a lot of student radio, I had to think in those terms what would make a half-decent podcast. I needed a regular co-presenter, I needed someone who would actually embrace the idea of doing a podcast and I needed someone with whom I shared a mutual interest in something to base the podcast around. In short, I needed Adham Fisher.

Everyone has a crazy friend, and for most people I know in Leicester, Adham is that friend. In that I want to keep our working relationship sound, I’m not going list Adham’s MANY adventures here, but rest assured, Adham was the man for the job. The only thing was what to engage him with. I personally don’t give a damn about electronic music and he was hardly going to start a podcast with me if it was going to be about South Park. Whilst I was wondering how long I could feasibly stretch out a Blackadder podcast, it suddenly hit me what Adham was obsessed with when I first met him, and what I was quite a fan of myself: James Bond films. They’re not my favourite films ever, nor even my favourite British film series (the Carry Ons will always have a special place in my heart), but I like them for the brainless fun that they provide British men – big stunts, big explosions and beautiful women. We had our subject and once I conned Mike into thinking that it was sufficiently “geek culture” enough, we had our podcast.

It’s a pretty even split of the workload. I pitched the podcast, Adham came up with the name. Adham provides the recording equipment, I host the recording software. I spend hours editing the episodes together, Adham spends time getting to Fort Wilson once a month. He brings the background information, the singing and general misogyny, I play the moderator, narrator and get in the odd witticism myself. Aside from the fact we had to re-record the entire first episode after the sound quality was buggered, May 2008 saw the debut of For Your Ears Only, Earth-2.net’s monthly James Bond podcast, hosted by two genuine British people.

Since then, the podcast’s progression has been interesting. The shows have typically got longer, partially through deeper analysis and partially because we enjoy arsing about. And the strange thing is, people like listening to Adham and I talking as we would normally – the only difference being that it’s structured around a film discussion. We genuinely have listeners from mainland America, Alaska, France, Germany and Australia as well as in good ol’ Blighty, which is amazing. The show has also seen guest host appearances from my brother as well as an interview Adham did with Professor James Chapman of the University of Leicester, on the grounds that he wrote a book on the cultural impact of James Bond. Despite that, every single episode has been rated as “Explicit” and with good reason, as I wouldn’t let children, animals or certainly my parents listen to For Your Ears Only. It’s not just Adham who’s responsible for this, in fairness – the rest of the time it’s Pandy. Still, I’m not whiter than white, unless you count my performance 30 minutes into Episode #13, which was released today, because that could well be the definition of “white”.

It does have a shelf-life though. It will keep going whilst I’m at Newcastle through the magic of Skype, but the film series will inevitably run out. After Quantum of Solace gets the review treatment in February next year, and we look back at the official films the next month, the podcast will end when Adham and I get bored of reviewing unofficial films and similar films. The end of FYEO is unlikely to mean the end of me podcasting – heck, Adham and I might start a new one, Pandy and I might start one, or I could start one with someone else. I’m pretty bad at predicting the future so we’ll have to see how things go. In the meantime though, it’s a lot of fun and winning Earth-2’s Best New Podcast award earlier in the year indicates we’re doing something right.

By all means give FYEO a listen if you haven’t before. I work an office job that doesn’t require brain power so I can go through a 2 or 3 hour podcast pretty easily. If the same isn’t true for you, Episodes #3 & #4 are fairly short and not too bad despite being pretty early into the podcast’s lifespan. If you do have a bit more time on your hands, Episodes #6, #8 and #11 are particular recommendations - #6 was voted our best early episode, #8 features the debut of Pandy and #11 is where Adham and I lay waste to Moonraker. If it isn’t your thing, then fair enough, but it’s the closest thing I do to radio nowadays and as such, it makes me a very happy camper!

Sunday 8 February 2009

Ian & the Scientologist

I had no idea when I’d be updating this again, as I’d taken on all the personal feedback I tend to get from people, the most recent being cousin Eve saying “you don’t half go on a bit!”, and accepted that that’s a pretty apt description of last year’s entries. However, I said I’d come back to this ‘ere blog when it took my fancy, and whilst I was in Birmingham this weekend, my fancy was well and truly taken, in a non-euphemistic sense.

The title gives away the subject. Whilst I was walking along New Street, up to Birmingham City Museum & Art Gallery – worth a look-in if you’re ever just milling about Brum with no intention to do any shopping – a fifty-something woman in front of me swerved into my path and asked for some moments of my time. I guessed that this was a religious person of some kind, as I had passed a Christian Mission preaching session 100 yards beforehand, but I had no idea that I had run into an actual Scientologist. Our conversation went roughly like this:

WOMAN: Excuse me, can I take up a few minutes of your time?
IAN: Er, yeah, I guess so.
WOMAN: Have you ever thought about your future?
IAN: Well yes, I’m going to a Masters course in museums in Newcastle?
WOMAN: (jovially) Oh really?!? What’s the name of your course?
IAN: It’s called-, well, it’s an MA in Heritage and Museum Studies.
WOMAN: Oh, so you’ve already done a degree.
IAN: Yes, I have a BA in History from Lancaster.
WOMAN: Excellent! So is there anything you’re looking for?”
IAN: Well, yes – that MA.
WOMAN: Alright, but is there anything you think is holding you back from that?
IAN: Not really, I have the place confirmed already and I’m currently working towards being able to fully afford the course, as well as coming to places like Birmingham to visit museums for background research.
WOMAN: Oh, where are you from?
IAN: Well, I’m *from* Leicester, but I live in Derby.
WOMAN: Ok, but is there anything you think is holding you back personally?
IAN: Erm.......I’m not sure what you mean.
WOMAN: Well, things like a lack of confidence or motivation....
IAN: Oh right. Well, er, I’m not lacking in motivation because I know what I want to do and I’m actively working towards that, so that’s alright. And confidence...has never really been a problem in most respects – it’s certainly better now than it used to be.
WOMAN: Alright, is there anything you don’t like about yourself?
IAN: ....well, I’m slightly overweight, but I joined a gym this last week, which should help me cut down on my drinking and get me fitter. That’s the hope!
WOMAN: Do you drink too much?
IAN: My mum would always say I drink too much! I do drink, but not half as much as I used to at university. And it’s not out of depression or anything – I’m just a creature of habit at this point, I'm afraid!!
WOMAN: I see. So what do you want in life?
IAN: Erm......a good quality of life.
WOMAN: And how do you want achieve that?
IAN: Err...............
WOMAN: Have you thought about doing a free personality test?
IAN: Sorry? Ohhhh, you’re a scientologist!!
WOMAN: Yes, that’s right!!
IAN: I didn’t know there was a church in Birmingham!
WOMAN: Well, we can go there now – it’ll only take 5 minutes.
IAN: Oh no, I don’t really have time, although I do remember passing a similar place in Manchester last year. You call them churches, yes?
WOMAN: Well yes, but we aren’t really a religion as such
IAN: You aren’t a religion?
WOMAN: No, we’re more of a centre of learning.
IAN: But surely your buildings are called churches, which implies a degree of faith, doesn’t it?
WOMAN: Well if you look at history, and you’d know this from your studies as a historian, that the word “church”, before Christians got involved with it, meant a place of learning. So you don’t need to have faith to be a member. You know, you could have a church devoted to plumbing if you wanted to.
IAN: That would be quite a church!
WOMAN: Wouldn’t it?!?! Just finding out how they do it?!
IAN: Yeah, I’ve often wondered.
WOMAN: So we can go there now...
IAN: Sorry, I’m just not that interested really.
WOMAN: You sounded interested.
IAN: Well, it is interesting from an outside perspective, but like plumbing, I’m not all that keen really.
WOMAN: No?
IAN: Nah, I need to be getting to the City Museum.
WOMAN: Oh, well, thank you for listening.
IAN: Not a problem. Bye.

Now, whilst I think Scientology is a cult, I can’t bring myself to be rude to people who have faith, even if it’s in something which doesn’t really involve faith at all. In fact, if she could have argued the church point better, I might have been tempted to go and see this place, if only to justify my suspicions. But I had museums to go to and didn’t want to risk offending the woman.

So that was my brush with a Scientologist, and it felt good to see that my answers reflected that Scientology has nothing to offer me. If anything, I’m tempted to set up my own religion, Ianology, espousing the virtues of long term goals and applying for tax exempt status!! All I need now is some flowing robes...