Where In The World Is The Signal Watch?

For the next week, I am in Bozeman, Montana on a work trip.  Big conference.  And if noir has taught me anything, we will all wear matching fezzes and get drunk and provide cover for someone trying to hide out in a hotel

I'm also taking some vacation days while I'm here because I've never been to this part of the world, and I'd like to see a mountain, a moose, a bear and water that is neither gross Texas creek water or gross Texas lake water.

Thus far I've eaten lunch here, had some coffee and walked around to see Downtown Bozeman, which is high-end knick-knackery and touristy eateries.  Which serves my purposes well.

So, no movies for me this week, I'd guess.  I might read a Superman comic or two.  But expect a slowdown in posting, etc...

Yes, Jamie is still in Austin, but The Dug is set to be there by this evening and is hanging with her all week.

I think March 30th was the 15th Anniversary of the Start of my Blogging

So, I guess I missed my own 15th Anniversary of blogging.  We were over at League of Melbotis back then.  Here's a link to the first batch of posts.

Back then, kids, we had no facebook, no twitter, barely had iTunes and it took me forever to figure out how to upload photos and have a comment section.  I was a lad of about 27 and living as a Texas ex-pat in Arizona at the time.  I was busily learning about Superman and comics, and I was oh, so, sweetly naive.  Reading those early posts is sometimes a teeth-gnashing experience but also a journal of what was going on in my head in the blogging salad days.

Signal Watch PodCast on Google Play

We're now on Google Play

Signal Watch PodCast Now Available on Stitcher

this feeling of being accepted to broadcast on Stitcher is what I'm dubbing "phantom legitimacy"


 

Pondering How to Cover 2017

The theme with which I entered 2017 with The Signal Watch was: who cares?

The answer was a resounding: nobody.  Get the @#$% over yourself.

This isn't something I'm upset about.  It's been really nice, honestly.

My Space Bar is Broken

If I haven't posted much lately - the space bar on my laptop is going, and every few hits, it just doesn't take.  So stuff lookslikethis.  Which doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but writing anything longer than a fb comment is kind of painful.

So, bear with me while I figure out what to do.

Friday Non-Post: Enjoy the Silence

here, for no reason, is Lynda Carter on skates

Sorry about the lack of posting - if, indeed, you noticed my rate of posting has slowed.  We're all fine here.

I'll have a link to a review I did for Texas Public Radio up in the next 48 hours or so.  That was a fun one, so I look forward to sharing.

We've also hit that late-winter/ spring-time period where all our shows are on and so I'm not watching many movies.  Everything from The Flash to The Americans is currently running (no pun intended), plus I've got an episode or two of Twin Peaks left.

No, I haven't seen Logan.  I thought that movie was coming out in May or something and wasn't paying that much attention.  The X-films haven't really been my bag for a while.  It's supposedly pretty good, so I'll fix that next week if I can.

Yes, I have tickets to see Kong: Skull Island.  I will have seen it by late Saturday night.

I'm currently listening to the audiobook of Altered Carbon, and I'll have plenty to say on that when I wrap it up.  And I've been listening to podcasts of You Must Remember This and am making my way through the HUAC/ Blacklist episodes.  There's something that suddenly feels a whole lot more present.

Anyway, hope you're all well.

Checking in - and Happy Thanksgiving (if I'm not back online before then)

It's been a busy week for us here at League HQ.  I had two separate trips out of town between Monday and Sunday, to Waco and then Ft. Worth.  In my 1.5 days in the office, I was catching up and adjusting to both a new office and a standing desk (we're gonna have to work on the standing desk arrangement.  Complications have arisen from the fact I'm about 6'5" and this desk thinks that's too tall for a reasonable desk jockey.

I even went into work today for about three hours even though I'd asked for Monday - Wednesday off - but I didn't want to not show my face around the office for that long.

Today Dug and K arrived at our house for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I expect to be in low content mode while I pay attention to our house guests.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.  I am not sure I'll be online or posting, but I also didn't want you to think I'd fallen off the face of the Earth.

Blogging Slow Down - The Olympics Are On

It's that time again.  Every two years I disappear for a bit as the Olympics come on and we slow our TV and movie watching to make time for sports we normally wouldn't watch if you paid us.  But not Beach Volleyball.  I always watch Beach Volleyball if its on.  We can make jokes about the uniforms being less than modest, but Kerri Walsh Jennings and new partner April Ross are amazing.  Tune in.

Jamie is also a fan of gymnastics, and if you don't like your athletes standing over 5'10", I have good news for you.

Simone Biles is a ninja

And these gymnasts did A-OK in the team competition, doing the U.S. proud

Also been enjoying Michael Phelps' return to swimming in top form, the amazing performance of Katie Ledecky, catching some sports I don't usually watch like handball, field hockey, etc...

And as Jamie long ago determined - after Beach Volleyball, I really, genuinely enjoy track and field coverage.  Which is weird, because UT has a great track and field program, but I never, ever go watch and we put people on the team every four years.  Go figure.

So, yeah.  Olympics!

I'm Going to Harvard!

For a two day conference that starts Monday morning.

Just, you know, something that is happening.

I have gone to Port Aransas

Port Aransas is an island off the Texas Coast near Corpus Christi.  I'm here with family for a few days on a belated birthday trip for me mum and early birthday trip for me dad.

I haven't been to a Texas beach for a relaxing stay in about five years, and that's too long.

I Went To Ireland and Forgot to Tell You People I Was Leaving

Well, I am in Ireland.  No idea what that means for posting this week.

I'll be in Dublin til I fly out Friday.  So.  Yes.  Work stuff.

No, I will not go to this one bar you hit in 1996 while you were here, but thanks for the hot tip.

Photos as events warrant.  This was one I pulled off the internet, but I went over this bridge today, so there you go.

I'm going to collapse now.

Now We Are Six - The Sixth Anniversary Post

JimD has alerted me that this date marked the final post at the first blog I ran, League of Melbotis.  That statement is semi-correct.  It is the final post one would see, I suppose, if they visited the site, but I shut down the blog back in in December of 2009 with 3420 posts.  That site had a start date of about April 6th, 2003.

The post on April 20th, 2010 at League of Melbotis was part of my return to blogging, redirecting folks over to this site.

On April 20th, 2010, a "to review" post went up on this site and covered what we had been on about at League of Melbotis.  On April 23rd, I dipped my toe back into the blogging waters.  You can see the posts that week as we returned to greatness.  

By the time I launched this blog in 2010, blogging was on its way out, replaced with Instagrams, tweets and Snapchats.  People refer to their feeds on Tumblr as "blogs", but, let's get real... that isn't a web log.  That's re-posting stuff.  It's a terrible forum for long-form posting.

League of Melbotis was a bit more of what people kept back then insofar as a "personality" blog.   I considered it my sandbox and clubhouse, a place where other folks would drop by.  It was far more unpredictable in nature than the media-review heavy form of this site, and the readership felt like a little social circle.  We had little focus.  We might talk Elvira in one post and the Iraq war in another, what I had for breakfast in the next.  That sort of thing was passe in 2010, and I've not really ever thought about going back to that format.  Keep it simple-ish.  Talk about the news when it's unavoidable.  

Gen-X Recollection project - Here's what we've got, but we need more!

If you ever imagined yourself with a Luck Dragon, we need your story, nerd

Hey everybuddy!

So far, so good on the "Before Comics Were Cool - The Gen-X Recollection Project" feature we've been working on here at The Signal Watch.  And by "we", I mean you guys.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate everyone's participation, and the folks who've stepped up to say they'd like to participate.

So far, we've had:

• Stuart W
• Peter from Denmark
• Matt A.
• Daniel F.
• Jason (my brother!)

Now we want YOUR STORY.

If you still want to participate - GREAT!  This is an ongoing feature and we welcome any submissions, any time.  Just read the guidelines and send something in!

If you see me on the news, it's going to be because I followed my lesser angels

So, a while back I scheduled myself to be at a conference at the University of Houston.  It's a small, local conference and important to my professional community.

And, ha ha, that is the same campus at the same time where the Republican Party has scheduled it's next debate.  That's right.  As I'm eating the most-food like substance librarian money can buy and talking about the excitement of Thesis and Dissertation workflow over a glass of iced tea, somewhere on that same campus, Trump, Rubio and Cruz will be hollering at each other.

It's gonna be a disaster.

I was working at Arizona State University when President Bush and Senator Kerry had a debate on campus, and it was one of the worst days at that job.  And that was a job where I pulled all-nighters and 100 hour weeks.  Basically, it was super loud and crazy on campus, and I failed to leave early (because I was working.  Like a chump.) and it took me two hours to get home as a post 9-11 Secret Service thought it wise to shut down all the useful roads.

So, we'll see what's up.  Could be fine, but I'm staying at a hotel on campus that I assume will be filled with press and party faithful, so, if I get no sleep Wednesday or Thursday night, I blame the free-wheeling ways of an overly-excited bunch of political conservatives loaded up on Pixie Sticks and too many sodas.

Basically, I'm saying - I may go dark for a few days.  Unless, of course, I see a news camera.  In which case - LOOK FOR ME.  Then, send bail.  Because I have a LOT to say about this election cycle.  Also: workflow for theses and dissertations.

Nothing to blog upon, so...

What we've been up to

We've been neck-deep in TV when we've been home, so not a lot of movie-watching.  Didn't even finish the film I started tonight.

So, a bit of what we've been up to which might be relevant here:

All Quiet on the Western Front: What We've Been Up To

Do as Peggy says

If it's been a little quiet around here, I apologize.

Sunday I wrapped a week-and-a-half off from work (sometimes working at a University has its privileges.  They just sent us home on the 22nd and said "don't come back til Monday the 4th"), and between writing those end of the year posts and no longer being under obligation to write about every movie I've watched, I've felt some sense of liberation and I'm enjoying it.

We also haven't watched all that many movies.  I'll still, at minimum, post the poster for whatever movie I just watched, but full write-ups won't come as often this year.  Yes, I probably should have written something about Hateful 8, but... nope.

A long while back I got Jamie the Season 1 Agent Carter BluRay set, but she's held off on watching it until now so we would get a refresher just before Season 2 arrives January 19th.

It's rare I feel so vindicated as I have about my instincts around Haley Atwell's kick-ass love interest for Cap in 2011's Captain America.  I won't lie:  Ms. Atwell is a striking lady, but I couldn't help but feel they'd found a lot of pieces in both script and actress I was interested in seeing expanded.  But the Marvel Cinematic U is pretty firmly planted in the 21st Century, so I didn't expect anything except for a lot of me saying "I wish they would have done more with Agent Carter".

Well, sometimes the universe surprises us, and not only did they make a short-seasoned TV show I thought was better than it was ever going to be, but Jamie - who liked Peggy as well in the Cap movie - was a HUGE fan.  I won major brownie points for getting her the Peggy carter Funko Pop, for example.

Books Read in 2015

Sometime about 10 years ago, I realized I'd only read, like, 2 books all year.  While that's still 200% more books than the average American, and I justified it all by telling myself I'd read a lot of comics (I had.  A LOT of comics.), I felt a bit bad about not reading books without pictures.  So, these days I
strive to read a bit more.

Here's the list of what I read in 2015.  It's only 23 books, but I figure that's about two a month, and that's not awful when you add in the numbers I presented yesterday when it came to movies.  Plus working and whatnot.

2015 - A Year in Movies (Let's Talk Numbers!)

When I came back to the site at the end of 2014, I picked up in 2015 with enough hubris and energy to decide to write about each movie I watched this year.  Unless something weird happens in the next few hours, I am able to accurately state that I posted on every movie I watched which I watched in its entirety in calendar year 2015.

I did not mention every movie I did not watch all the way through, usually because I tuned in for a bit to a movie I'd seen before and wouldn't bother to finish or came in very late.  I also didn't do full write-ups of a few movies, but no one seemed to mind that I had nothing to say about Spies Like Us.

So, in this post - let's talk numbers.  I'll give out awards later.

For the breakdown on a spreadsheet, feel free to click here.  It's also at the bottom of the post, if you hate clicking things.

As of 2:18 PM on December 31, 2015 I watched and said something about 181 movies.  

The last time I kept count was 2012, when I watched just 136 movies.  As I recall, we were watching a lot more TV that year and I was working like crazy.

That said - that's a whole 45 more movies, at about 1.75 hours a piece, that's about 79 more hours of movies - or two working weeks.  Plus, I dunno, maybe 45 minutes per post.  That's about 34 hours of post-time.  So, a total of about 113 hours more than 2012.

(edit:  I actually checked and back in 2012, we were double-posting movies a lot.  It was 136 posts and 147 movies.  Corrected numbers - 34 more movies in 2015, an average of 59.5 hours of movies, 25.5 hours of posts, so - let's call it 85 hours more than 2012).

Yikes.

If we figure 181 movies at 2.5 hours of watching and posting, that's 452.5 hours I've give you people this year, or more than 11 weeks of work.  And it's likely more than that as a lot of the movies were more than 1.75 hours, so let's not think too hard about this before I start really worrying about what I'm doing with my life.

Anyway, here we go...