Dreams: Splinters of the Mind's Eye

Note: this blog has been migrated to Medium, with the articles here available to preserve permalinks. Please see this post at https://medium.com/@ianrbuck/dreams-splinters-of-the-mind-s-eye-f5ee18ca8f83#.up10r52iy

Dreams are easiest to remember and make sense of right after you wake up, so I usually try to write them down in detail right away. Sometimes I don't have time though, and so I end up quickly jotting something down before going to breakfast. I have several of these stacked up, and I present them here as they were worded by my half-asleep mind.

Video Game Idea
Medieval poverty simulator-the game gives you practically nothing, throws you out in a world that is not easy to live in for a peasant.

Sure, it can be a social commentary on current economic crappiness.

A Normal Day at Camp
I was with a bunch of camp staff, playing games together (such as hiding two people in a barrel and making someone who didn't know what was going on look for them). I could bounce up onto the roof to oversee everything. Some guy came to do some construction work or something. He found what appeared to be some take-out boxes, but they actually contained a couple of talking crickets that were our pets. Somehow he mistook them for food. I tried to stop him, but another staff (who looked a lot like the neighbor in Captain America Winter Soldier) was into him and told him that the rest of us were crazy to make herself look good.

Cast in Doctor Who
I was cast in Doctor Who as the Master (apparently he was going to make a return in the next season). My family was really excited and supportive, and it didn't seem odd to anyone that BBC was casting an American.

I Have No Idea
Midnight chicken nugget run turns into time travel, expose another time traveler.

Worst Podcast Ever
We were recording an episode of the podcast at +Dominick Benedetto's house. +Rachel Wolters was on the show as well. We were using my phone to record it and all of the show notes were handwritten. There were lots of errant noises that were loud and unacceptable. I kept my enthusiasm up though.

Hammurabi's Borderlands
Note: I was a passive observer in this dream.
The characters from Borderlands 2 were sitting around reminiscing over all of the glorious bloodshed they have caused. It comes back to bite them in the butt when someone comes and pays them back eye for an eye. In particular I got to watch Krieg get cut open with his own hacksaw. His insides looked cartoony, like the Heavy when you operate on him in Surgeon Simulator 2013.

The Walking Dead
Again, passive observer
The characters from the first season of The Walking Dead (the game, not the show) were all running from Larry. They split up, and Larry started chasing Mark down this weird set of stairs.

The Grumpster
Passive Observer
A movie about a group of aliens who have disguised themselves as a family going to summer camp. The part that stuck out at me was not the aliens. One of the other parents was played by Jeff Goldblum. One of the children called him a "Big ol' grumpster." He got all indignant and said with the grumpiest face you ever did see "Who you callin' a grumpster? I'm not a grumpster." And he proceeded to grumble for a good long while.

The Day of the Doctor Review

Note: this blog has been migrated to Medium, with the articles here available to preserve permalinks. Please see this post at https://medium.com/@ianrbuck/the-day-of-the-doctor-review-f13db857eb4

Before I start getting into things that people could categorize as spoilers, here is my overall impression of The Day of the Doctor. It was a very very good episode, and well worthy of its status as the 50th anniversary special. David Tennant and Matt Smith are amazing together; their collective silliness is one of the things that I love so much about the show. But their characters would probably never stop talking if John Hurt wasn't there to keep them grounded. There was a wonderful moment when he questioned their apparent need to talk like children (timey-wimey) and I thought that was a brilliant bit of social commentary about internet culture.
Now who should watch it? It is well suited to anyone who has been watching Doctor Who since they started it back up in 2005 (aka New Who), but obviously fans of Classic Who will get even more out of it. I'm happy to say that this episode has reinforced my desire to get into Classic Who even more.
I dragged +Kaelyn Olson along and afterwords asked her how it was from the perspective of a non-Whovian. She told me that as long as someone has the basics of Doctor Who (regeneration, Daleks, etc) they should enjoy it. That being said, this probably isn't a great jumping-in point for newcomers. If you are going to introduce someone to the series, either start at the beginning of New Who or wait until the upcoming Christmas Special, when the Twelfth Doctor will be introduced.
One issue we had was that apparently BBC's idea of "simultaneously broadcast in all regions" doesn't include an online live stream. Couple that with the fact that my campus doesn't have BBC America meant that we had to go and find an alternate source to watch it from. Seriously, BBC, you're only hurting yourself by not making this available online. Think of all the ad revenue you miss out on when people try to get it legitimately and then discover that they have to go with the shady route.

Time to talk about more specific things from the episode! If you are hardcore about not knowing things before watching something, stop reading now. I'll try to avoid talking about things that I would consider spoilers.
I haven't appreciated a lot of the big, sweeping, universe-changing things that Steven Moffat has done with Doctor Who since he came onto the scene; it started with the changing rules on how the Weeping Angels work in The Time of Angels, continued with The Wedding of River Song retconning a fixed point in time, and the last straw for me was the finale of season 7 when Moffat shoehorned Clara (a character he created) into the rest of the Doctor's existence, going all the way back to the First Doctor. He seems to think that upping the stakes and blowing our minds by breaking established rules of the series is a good substitute for meaningful character development and relationships.
That being said, I really respected how he handled bringing multiple Doctors together and dealing with the ending of the Time War, something that we have heard a lot of vague statements about, but not much that was concrete. I can't think of anything else that would have been appropriate, given that it is the event that separates Classic Who and New Who. Moffat didn't make up new rules, but cleverly used the situation of having three Doctors from different points in their timeline to solve the obstacles presented to them.

I'd say my message here is pretty clear: if you don't watch Doctor Who, get going now! And if you are already into the series, watch The Day of the Doctor as soon as humanly possible!

Plug: Amazon Prime

Note: this blog has been migrated to Medium, with the articles here available to preserve permalinks Please see this post at https://medium.com/@ianrbuck/plug-amazon-prime-d5415a9b39f8

Many people don't realize it, but Amazon Prime is probably the best subscription deal on the internet. I discovered it through their six month trial for students, and I am hooked. Not only do you get free two-day shipping on most items, but you also basically get Netflix for cheaper. This year I used it to watch all ten seasons of Stargate SG-1 and all five seasons of Stargate Atlantis (which alone is worth way more than the $40 a year that it costs me.)
Prime also has another advantage over Netflix; Netflix has to wait until an entire season of ongoing shows has come out before they have it. I'm pretty sure that this is because they follow the DVD release schedule. Amazon Prime, on the other hand, usually has episodes available the day after they air. The only catch is that it usually costs $2-$3 for each new episode. For a show like Doctor Who I am definitely willing to pay that much to watch each episode as they come out.

Thanks Amazon, for replacing my TV channels and DVD collection all at once.