The Doctor Who Christmas Special is only 2 days away. The Christmas countdown calendar is running out of features. If you are all excited by this there is some bad news , some good news, and some more bad news and some more good news.
The bad news is The Next Doctor will only be televised in England, the Good news is that the BBC usually puts up the video at the Doctor who web site to watch, the other bad news is that video is only viewable if your PC is in the UK. The good news is you can always use a proxy server.
A proxy server is basically a computer that stands between a machine and where it is going, for example if you are in a large business you likely have all your net traffic going through a proxy to try to block both virus and sites that your work doesn’t want you go to.
In this case you want to use one of the free proxy sites out there to find a server in the UK. When you set proxy values basically your machine will go out to the computer in question, and that computer will make the request. The BBC then see it as a UK machine and you can watch it.
There are several companies that offer proxy use to shield your IP from the net, that way the fact that you are surfing from your machine is hidden from the world. That is the advantage of an anonymous proxy server. The disadvantage is that speed will of course be decreased as every request has to pass through a particular machine at an unknown location. The pay sites will be faster than the free ones.
Just remember the machine you are passing through will now have a record of where you are going, so think and act accordingly.
A quick how to on how to setup a proxy in IE Connection tab under Lan Settings is here. You can set it in Firefox under Tools, Options, advanced, settings. The placing of the values are basically the same, but details are here.
If you want a quick preview of it now well your wish is my command, at least in this case;
And don’t forget to send the charity a fiver.
UPDATE: Forgot to mention that for some of the calendar things also need the proxy server to play.
Update #2 My review of the Next Doctor is here.
Since this item is not “for sale” but is a special episode for subscribers to the Big Finish Doctor Who series this review will be here rather than at Amazon.
Return of the Krotons continues the adventures of the 6th doctor with his companion Charley Pollard who still has a secret about his future. They find themselves in a human colony during the time of the solar flares. (See Doctor Who the Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment. With the 4th doctor) and as always start to poke around.
The human commander Cobden (played by Dr who Vet Philip Madoc who ironically appeared in the original Krotons episode 40 years ago.) seems obsessed with a headset and the energy it produces. It turns out that rather than manipulating the technology as an energy source it is he that is being manipulated by the Krotons to re-power their ship.
Colin Baker as the Doctor and India Fisher as Charley Pollard are their normal excellent selves, the now familiar team continues to impress, however the hints concerning Charley’s true relationship with the doctor continue to come out and the doctor continues to take them in.
There is also a very nice 11 min interview with Philip Madoc after the adventure.
Nick Briggs wrote and directed this story and also plays one of the Krotons voices. It is a good short (1 cd) story and worth your time. Since you can get a subscription staring with any issue it would be worth your while to begin one to get this episode. If you don’t already have The Condemned or The Girl who Never Was you might consider starting with one or the other to get up to speed on what is going on.
My gut says there is a climax coming soon I don’t know how soon but since one doctor or another has been traveling with Charley since January 2001. Of course the only problem with the continual adventures of Charley is that we don’t see any adventures with Peri, Mel, Evelyn or even Frobisher with Doctor 6 but there is nothing stopping them from throwing in an adventure or two of the others in between.
The day the New York Times can call itself the Instapundit of Newspapers is the day its stock will not be tanking its building will not need to be mortgaged and will be worth reading again.
Obviously, if Democrats really believed that Republicans were responsible for the housing crisis we would be seeing mock show trial after mock show trial in front of the various Congressional committees. We are not seeing that today.
You can tell what is reality by what people actually do vs what they say every time.
A little more on the New York Times; you know there is nothing wrong with serving a niche market as long as you can make a profit doing it. The New York Times and a good chunk of the media in general is writing for a niche liberal east coast market and is tanking in value. If you can be happy being #2 or #3 and still make a buck all well and good (Read MSNBC) but if you are losing your shirt you can be doing this?
And is it just me or do liberals seem to forget the existence of YouTube and video tape? From the same Gateway pundit link above we see members of congress with a D by their side defending Fannie Mae. Then we see the media and those same congressmen pretending it didn’t happen. Have they forgotten a computer is now an appliance? People can see this stuff.
You know when I was working I had the 1 to midnight shift. Since my wife is a light sleeper and always had trouble getting back to sleep I would crash on the couch and moan when my early rising family would wake me up. Now that I’m not working I’m sleeping in my bed much more. My wife and kids have no school and I’m still waking up before 6. The only good side of it is Morning Joe.
Speaking of Morning Joe, it is the best show on MSNBC and not just because Mika Brzezinski is one of the most handsome women on television but the chemistry between her and Joe Scarborough is fantastic. It really seems that the people on this show genuinely like each other and are not afraid to disagree without being disagreeable. Watching them talk is like watching my friends talk with me, we come from all over the political and religious spectrum and we are friends and always will be.
Don’t forget that it was Morning Joe that grilled Axelrod when nobody else would.
Plus Mike Barnicle is from my home town.
However the hardest thing about watching the show is the ads for Rachel Maddow and Countdown, even the promos are over the top in their worship of liberalism and demonetization of conservatives.
Whenever I see Harold Ford Jr. on Morning Joe I think of Satchel Paige THE greatest pitcher of all time. Page resented that Jackie Robinson made the majors before him with his long record of accomplishment. I look at president elect Obama and Ford and think the same thing.
Then again we all know what Jackie Robinson did, maybe the president elect will do the same. But remember that Jackie won his world series ring in 1955. Satchel won his 7 years ahead of him.
Do you know who got the last hit against Paige? Carl Yaztrzemski in 1965. 1965! It was the only hit he gave up in three innings work, at the age of 59. And that’s assuming his listed birth date is correct.
Of course the Red Sox were one of the worst teams in baseball that year too. They lost 100 games and finished 9th in a 10 team league. Rico Petrocelli and Jim Lonborg were rookies and Tony Conigliaro was only in his 2nd year. They were two years away from greatness. They were also still the most lily white team in the league. Earl Wilson the great slugging pitcher was about it.
These days the Sox are perennial contenders with two world series under their belt and look like the UN by comparison.
It’s quite a thing to be a Boston fan of any sport this year. The Sox just missed the series this year, the Pats are 10-5 WITHOUT Tom Brady, the Celtics are the World Champs and have won 18 straight. and the Bruins are in First place. I don’ t know how long this can last but you’ve gotta love it if you are in Boston.
It almost makes up for the two feet of snow in my front yard, there is no place to put the snow and it isn’t even winter yet. And we have another storm due this week.
Did I just hear people comparing Sarah Palin to Caroline Kennedy and saying the comparison is unfair on Morning Joe and in print? Yes I did but they have it backwards. Gov Palin has actually run a city and a state. Caroline Kennedy hasn’t. Kennedy is so much less qualified that Palin that it isn’t funny.
Of course the newly popular Kathleen Parker makes that point in her column today too, but can’t do it without kicking Palin:
Palin’s demonstrated lack of basic knowledge, her intellectual incuriosity, her inability to articulate ideas or even simple thoughts all combined to create an impression of not-quite-there.
Few doubt that Palin is here to stay. She is the GOP’s chosen closer, as demonstrated in Georgia when she roused the crowds to help re-elect Sen. Saxby Chambliss. What she possesses by immeasurable orders of magnitude – personal power, presence, pizazz – one can’t purchase. The rest – theoretically – she can learn.
Kennedy, a relatively erudite person who has authored several books, may have the political clout to get herself a Senate seat, but it isn’t clear that she has the people power needed to sustain her. The electorate eventually will sort out the differences that matter.
In the meantime, a Sen. Caroline Kennedy would not be a nuclear-enabled leader of the free world, whereas a Vice President Sarah Palin might have been.
I’ve read a lot of naval histories, this is the first one describing the Chesapeake Leopard incident from the British side of the coin and it seems to give justification for the act, although saying the cost was high in terms of international relations. It also repeats the nonsense suggestion of the Admiralty at the time that US frigates such as the USS Constitution was in fact more of a Ship of the Line than a frigate. 200+ year old biases die hard.
And if you’ve never visited the USS Constitution in Charleston Mass do so.
Some more recient biases include everyone’s favorite game “Name That Party!”
How bad is the bias? It’s gotten so bad that yesterday when my totally non-political wife was reading the paper I pointed to this AP story and asked what was wrong with it. She took one look and said they must not mention he was a democrat.
She wouldn’t know the AG of Ohio from a hole in the ground. If my wife is figuring this out then the cat is out of the bag.
A little religion, did you see this:
He may not be a Catholic but it is the best description of Sin and the fight against it i’ve ever heard.
Played BANG, the wild west card game with my gaming crowd last Thursday I’m very surprised that the expansions are available at Amazon but the game is not.
And the Talisman game we played after it was the best I’ve ever seen, 4 people made it to the crown and the fate markers really add to the game even if I was turned into a frog. It was the most exciting single game that I’ve played in 30 years.
And if you are interested in all things Talisman check here.
Well I’ve been typing this for almost two hours and I haven’t even talked about battery cars and the coal that will be needed to power them. I’ll finish with this totally unrelated stat and thought.
Just before the storm this blog was being found, my hits were up by a factor of 3-5 and it looked like it was growing. The loss of power slaughtered my stats and they haven’t recovered, it is quite annoying but if that is the worst problem that I have (particularly with people on my street STILL without power then I’m a real lucky guy.)
And only three days to the Doctor Who Christmas Special The next Doctor; Huzzah!
If you are following my advice and reading the 10 doctors you might find a continuity problem with page 5 and Time Crash.
You have to remember that there are different spots in the time line here. The events of Time Crash have already happened to the 5th doctor so he recognizes his future self, while Time crash is at least one year in the 10th doctors timeline.
What you’ve never heard of Time Crash? That is because it was a special broadcast for the annual Children in Need event in England. It was only broadcast once.
To my knowledge it is not available on DVD and I’ve never seen it broadcast on the US. If you watch it I suggest sending the charity a five spot since that it what it was for.
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