Farewell

Well, after ten months of some fairly regular blogging, and some soul searching over the holiday breaks, I have decided to stop blogging for now. After ten months, I have yet to gain a regular readership (beyond family, thanks everyone!) and I find myself having to force myself to write daily, it was becoming more of a chore than a time to have fun.

I have had a ton of fun, but I never felt that I had something new or unique to offer. There are numerous other pop culture blogs out there written by better writers and with much more dedication. I find myself more and more wanting to go back to being a pop culture consumer, and leave the content creation to those better than me. I am ready to stop taking notes and/or thinking through a post with every bit of pop culture I consume.

I will continue to consider new kinds of blog formats, and may come back in the next year or so with something more defined and niche focused. We'll have to see if I can come up with somthing that I can enjoy doing and will not take up so much of my time (with this blog, each post took about an hour on average, I think I might be slow).

Anyway, thanks for all of my readers and please enjoy the links to the right over there. Those are the bloggers that I enjoy the most and will keep reading. They are well worth checking out.

If you have any comments for me, feel free to email me at Tom [dot] the [dot] Titan [at] gmail [dot] com.

So long, and stay safe!

Holiday Hiatus

Hey everyone! I'm going on an official Holiday Hiatus. Both Mrs Titan and I need some well-deserved R & R and want to be free from responsibilities on our work-enforced Staycation this year. The good news is that this will be my first ever Staycation, meaning I will have a lot of opportunities to explore more future content. Anyway, have a great Christmas and New Year! I will be back with new, more exciting content on January 5th!

PS. Don't lick the pole!

See you 1/5/09! Stay safe!

A Quick Plug

Hey everybody! Just a quick note today. One of my favorite websites, and one of the most useful for a TV lover like me is the Futon Critic. This website has everything you may ever want to know about what is on, what might be on, and what is no longer on TV.

The site goes into great detail on new shows, cancelled shows, and any press releases from TV networks. Every day on the calendar has a list of all new shows airing on a given night, critical information for someone recording shows on a VCR or TiVoing them with only two tuners. It is nice to see what will be on and when.

Another great feature is the DevWatch section. It opens up the TV pilot season to the public. We can read about all of the comedy, drama, and reality show pilots that are in the works. This is great fun! It is cool to see what might air in the upcoming season and to find out what is going on at each network. I really hope that someday they begin a DevWatch for cable networks as well.

You can also check out the daily next day ratings, which is fun for making sure your favorite show will survive, and probably critical for anyone with a tie to network TV. There is even a great key provided to know what the heck this means: "How I Met Your Mother" (households: 6.8/10, #5, half-hour: N/A; adults 18-49: 4.6, #2, half-hour: N/A). I'm going to assume that's good, based on this quote from the site ""The Big Bang Theory," "How I Met Your Mother" continue to see their numbers surge." And, I would actually understand it if I actually read the key!

I usually use the Futon Critic for making sure my friendly TiVo is really doing what I want him to do. I love this site! Check it out and enjoy!

Step Brothers

Hey Gang! Guess what? I have a blog, which is something I apparently forgot yesterday. Sorry for the lack of a post. Things have been a little crazy at work and Mrs Titan and I have been getting ready for the holidays, so it kind of slipped my mind. Heh, must be getting old. Speaking of which...

...we watched Step Brothers this weekend, the newest Will Ferrell movie, costarring John C Reilly. There was nothing surprising about this movie, it was pretty much exactly as advertised. It is about two forty year old guys who live with their parents and act like obnoxious and entitled teenagers. Their parents meet, fall in love, and they become step brothers.

From there, they fight (both physically and emotionally), they find a common enemy, and they work together to beat that enemy. It's pretty straightforward, and might have been heartwarming if it actually starred teens or pre-teens. But, it doesn't, it stars forty year olds, which makes it hilarious, not heartwarming. It was a great opportunity for Ferrell and Reilly to act like idiots and make fools of themselves.

I don't know what about watching men almost twice my age act like someone half my age fun, but it is. It is, admittedly, quite stupid, but there's nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone who doesn't like Will Ferrell or stupid humor, but if you want an evening of fun, check this out! Mrs Titan and I laughed quite a bit and it was a good bit of escapism in these troubled times. I would have to say this is the best Will Ferrell movie since Stranger Than Fiction.

I will try to be back with a new post tomorrow, but with work and Mrs Titan's finals, we'll see if I have any time to use the home computer.

Watching Movies

Hey everybody, on this Friday, I have just one simple question: How do you watch the majority of your movies? I have a suspicion, but I want to confirm it! Thanks everyone! Check out the survey on the right side of your screen!

I know how I will be watching my movies this weekend, do you? Have a great weekend, see you Monday!

A War of Gifts

This Chirstmas season I decided to read one of the very few Christmas-oriented books on my To-Be-Read Shelf. I picked up A War of Gifts, by Orson Scott Card, which I got last Christmas. It is a tiny book; a novella, or short story, that comes in at only 126 pages. It is set in Card's Enderverse, and features some of the supporting cast from the Ender and Bean series.

It is a sweet little story about the kids in Battle School as they deal with not being able to celebrate Christmas (and/or Sinterklaas Eve). It focuses on Dink Meeker and Flip Rietveld as they secretly celebrate Sinterklaas Eve, and lead a Santa Claus revolution at the school. And, Card shows this story through the eyes of Zeck Morgan, a right-wing, religious zealot.

The story is short and sweet and even includes a chapter which was published as a standalone story called Ender's Stocking, in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. The only problem I would have recommended this book to everyone is that if you have never dipped your toe in the Enderverse and into any Battle School book, you may not have any clue what is going on. Also, what's wrong with you? Get out there and read Ender's Game
.

Discovery Channel: Time Warp

One of the new shows that premiered on the Discovery Channel this season was Time Warp. Time Warp, starring Matt Kearny and Jeff Lieberman, has a very simple and fun premise: let's watch a ton's of stuff happen in slow motion. That's it. They use high speed cameras to capture some everyday, and some very unique actions.

Not every segment is a must see, but the majority of them are. Watching a Taser be shot, a pole vaulter jump, a car crash, and a man breaking stones with his arms are pretty incredible at 5000 frames a second. Here are some great examples:


And:


It's pretty neat stuff. And they even include some science behind what we are seeing! Check it out!