Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned plans

So. Voyage of the Damned in a little more than a week. What are American fan strategies to watch it in a timely manner? I noticed BBC America said they had no plans to air it anytime soon but didn't see any real concentrated campaign to harass them. Must we really resort to Bittorrent? Does Sci-Fi have plans to air it? I need to get some new Who on and just can't wait.

I must admit the advent calendar has been fun with the trailers and flash games.

This is a fandom I think I could embrace. Where are the best hangouts?

Feed my addiction!

*sigh*

B.K's Day in Snow Hell

I....I am just agog at the complete lack of planning by the state and cities of Peabody and Salem regarding this storm. Maybe there's something I don't get about snow removal but there was very little sanding and salting done on the roads today.

Kirky picked me up from the Cambridgeside Galleria at 1:45pm ET. WE GOT HOME AT 7:00PM!!! Unbelievable. First mistake, (though based on news reports and calculations it wasn't too far off), was taking Rt. 28 to the Lynnway up to Rt 1 instead of getting on Rt 1 from the get-go. Either way it took about 2.5 hours to get up Rt 1. 128N was running OK and we figured we were home free.

Rt 114 in Peabody was running extremely slow. In fact, it took us about 45min to go 1 mile. We opted to have Kirky park at a gas station after letting me off to run down a steep driveway to pick Will up from daycare and walk back to the car. We made the shrewd choice to stop at McD to grab a bite to eat 0p because it took about an hour and a half to go the next mile home.

None of the roads looked plowed let along sanded or salted. IMNSHO they should have been salting and sanding BEFORE the storm started and kept it up.

I must pile absolutely huge amounts of kudos to Kirky who chose to drive home, deal with my mumbling anxiety from the passenger seat the whole 5 hours and as Will fell asleep the last hour home, she unloaded the car and SHOVELED while I got him up to bed. She is a saint and wonderful woman.

Meanwhile, I want answers from the State and the various cities and towns I drove through on what the hell happened and why the ball was dropped.

Will's First Christmas

OK, well it's not quite his first but it's going to be the first one where he has a good inkling of what's going on.

If you read my previous post, you'll note that we spent it at an SCA Yule event. The morning of the event, it was starting to flurry outside and there was a dusting of the white as we left the house. Because of his early rising, he also was stuck in front of the digitally animated claymation "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer II" while Mommy and Daddy tried to catch a few more Z's behind him.

On the way back to our place, I finally relented and we switched between two all-XMas tunes stations. I found myself longing for the true classics - Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire/Danny Kaye or the Revels, Chanticleer and other traditional holiday music. Wasn't going to find but a slight few on those stations.

We got home and started settling in. We did watch Shrek the Halls but I'm not sure he really "got it". Before long, it was time for bed so I took up some of his winter/holiday books to read. I think we chose an adaptation of the original Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer story (he did correlate it to the horrid video he watched on Sat morning), and Clifford's First Snow Day.

After I turned out the lights, we hit the bathroom one more time and looked up at the skylight to see another light coating of show. Then we ran back into his room, carefully opened the blinds and side-by-side pressed our warm noses to the cold glass. As we steamed up the clear view we were looking for lights upon which to see the snowfall and reveling at the dusting on the rooftops below.

This holiday season is interesting. I found myself getting very frustrated at the ads and festivities happening before Veteran's Day and plowing through Thanksgiving. I wasn't going to acknowledge it until Thanksgiving was over but as I thought about it, I really want Will to understand the true history behind the holiday.

I am not a Christian but I think it's important for him to know as much as he can understand about the original Christmas Story. He hasn't gone to church or sunday school yet but that day will come as I know it's important to his mother and I think it's important for him to begin his path of learning towards an end of choosing himself.

I also want to differentiate between the birth of Jesus and Santa Claus but I suspect he's too young. I think introducing other winter holidays such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa will only serve to confuse as well so I think I'll start simple. I'm still looking for the right books for his age. Any thoughts?

I think for now I'm just enjoying being with him, talking to him, asking questions and listening as he becomes more and more awakened to the world around him. He's into Hot Wheels and Monster Trucks but he's learned a lot from Magic School Bus and Diego that he's applying to his environment and it's fascinating to watch.

I'm such a happy dad.

SCA Weekend in WMass (Bergental)

I'm sitting here in the dim of the house listening to Bing Crosby, the dog snoring while snow lazily flurries about outside finally feeling that winter is well on its way and the holidays right behind.

Early last week I sprung the idea of going to Western Mass to visit my mother and attend the SCA Yule event for the area Barony - Bergental. After agreement, I then approached my mother who was suffering from a lack of housecleaning assistance since the summer but she still welcomed our visit. What a weekend it was - and I spent most of it in a kitchen:

Continue reading "SCA Weekend in WMass (Bergental)"