Question of the Week: Doctor Who

As part of my endeavor to blog about the sci-fi/tech/gaming world I will be posting a question each week here on FTL and to my Buzz and Twitter for discussion (maybe FB too if I'm feeling generous).  I welcome discussion, comments, opinions and random insights. Enjoy!

With Matt Smith's first series as The Doctor complete, I wonder how many people have been won over by his portrayal as the Doctor. So this week I ask:

Doctor Who fans, who is your favourite Doctor, and why?

nCO2 + nH2O -> (CH2O)n + nO2

This image recently appeared on the Abstruse Goose webcomic entitled "World View." I love the little rabbit enjoying his carrot. Enjoy!

"What do you around here to stave off the self-harm?"

Let me begin by first mentioning that The Guild, Season 4 is scheduled to begin airing on July 13th, 2010. Do not, I repeat, do NOT miss it. I'm pretty psyched about it, especially with how Season 3 ended.

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The bulk of this entry, however, will not discuss the amazing-ness of The Guild, but about the beginning of the Series finale of Doctor Who that aired this past Saturday.

Anyone who knows me will be well aware of the fact that I enjoy science-fiction. I grew up watching Star Trek, I absolutely adore Battlestar Galactica and most of my favourite movies would certainly fall in the realm of sci-fi. Recently though, Doctor Who has been the only sci-fi show that I've followed with any sort of regularity.

With Michelle's help, Josh and I have recently watched all of the "NuWho" (Christopher Eccelston and David Tennant) and considering I haven't watched any Who since old Tom Baker reruns, I was pretty impressed. I love how the show has developed into long season long story arcs (the main reason why I love BSG, Buffy, Angel, etc). Between Eccelston and Tennant I have to stay I am definitely a Tennant fan; purely because of his expressions and how passionate he was as The Doctor.

In terms of companions, I absolutely loved Rose, and I think she will be forever my favourite companion. Martha was just, well, pointless, and Donna I hated from the start. Donna Noble eventually grew on me, but I could never really get over the bad taste in my mouth from her first episode, "The Runaway Bride."

With the new series, I found myself apprehensive about Matt Smith taking over the role of The Doctor. He, too, has grown on me however and I will still be a die-hard Tennant fan. As Michelle said, Matt Smith is great because he's a very "alien Doctor." He's insanely brilliant, but really has no idea how our world works. This series companion, Amelia Pond, is by far one of my favourite companions and runs a close second behind Rose. I love her attitude and I am generally invested in her storyline. It is likely the child version of Amy that truly endeared the character in my heart.

Overall, I've enjoyed this series of Doctor Who. There have been so weird episodes (wtf Rainbow Daleks?), but all-in-all I would rate the season as pretty awesome. I've certainly found that the season has gotten better as it's gone along. Part one of the finale aired this past week and I thought it was great how the story involved past characters and events through-out the season. The cliff-hanger was a great way to end the episode...but, I must admit I miss the days of the Trek cliff-hangers.

One season ends...and you have to wait three months to find out what the hell happened. There was none of this "oh, at least we'll find out next week." No, it was three months. Or in the case of Battlestar, over a year...and each cliffhanger was just as much "WTF?!" as the last. That being said, I am looking forward to this Saturday.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to enjoy some Fish-Custard.

NASA: The Seagull & The Dog

Hello Universe!

Today's NASA image comes from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer and captures a beautiful view of the Seagull Nebula. This massive gas cloud shows up green in this infrared image and while it is described as a Seagull in flight - I personally can't see it. IC 2177 (The Seagull Nebula) can be found near the constellation Canis Major (aka the Greater Dog), which can typically be found in the night sky near Orion.

The WISE mission was launched by NASA in December 2009 for a six month mission to catalog the night sky. Six months though? What happened to three year missions to seek out new life and new civilization? C'mon NASA, seems like you guys are getting a little lazy with your missions these days.

For more on the WISE mission and the Seagull Nebula, check out the NASA website here.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

NASA: Crack in the Sky

Hello Universe!

Back in 2006, NASA released an infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope of a "space snake" amid massive clouds in the constellation Sagittarius. Recently, fans of Doctor Who have got their hands on this beautiful photo, and noted that the snake in the photo bears a rather terrifying resemblance to the crack that has played a vital role throughout this season of Who. You can read one such article about the crack frenzy here.

What makes this crack in the heavens even more terrifying, besides it's somewhat distinctive shape, is NASA's theory about the dark mass. The black form that is the body of the "snake" is believed to be a massive cloud of dust and gases capable of swallowing whole solar system, and likely contains several newly forming stars (one of the stars seen just below the snake is approximately 50 times the size of our sun). It is speculated that were you to find yourself in the cloud, you would see nothing but endless darkness. No stars in the night sky...just the black of night.

Now is that creepy or what?

As creepy as it is, however, I find this picture to be a reminder of all the beauty and wonder that is out in space. Each day NASA and similar organizations around the world are bringing us one step closer, and sharing tid-bits along the way. I just hope NASA keeps its eyes on that crack and has the Doctor on speed-dial!

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA: Light for the Ages

Hello Universe!

NASA recently posted a three-dimensional image of the sun that was originally captured in 2007 during a study of how the Earth and Sun interact. Today, June 21st, marks the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Sadly the weather here in Winnipeg is overcast and only 18C, though I can't complain as we had amazing weather for the move this weekend.

The move, while hectic was rather successful. Josh and I began the work late Friday night, packing, loading and unloading his stuff until about 4am, finally falling asleep at about 5am. The next day started bright and early at seven when we began our second run to the house. We picked up Michelle along the way, and with my family's assistance, got almost all of her stuff (which was surprise, surprise, composed mostly of yarn). We were completely done unloading the truck by one o'clock in the afternoon - not bad. Then began the arduous task of unpacking. We are still now unpacking and cleaning...and I am sure there will be several more days to go.

It is going to be an adventure for all of us as we attempt to get used to living together. I, however, see it as a very good start to the summer; even if the sun isn't out on this first day of summer.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NRL/GSFC

NASA: Infrared Beauty

Hello Universe!

Today I wanted to share another amazing NASA image with you. I think this is by far my favourite of all the photographs I have come across lately. This beautiful image was captured by the always awesome Spitzer Space Telescope. (Side note: I <3 Felicia Day)

In other news, I have decided on a new name for my ever evolving weblog - FTL: F4st3r Th4n L1ght.

With the new name, I am going to try to focus primarily on Sci-Fi/Science/Gaming news and of course mixing it up with tidbits about my life and my random gripes. I hope anyone who reads this enjoys the new name! Also, if you'd like to share any images or news please feel free to e-mail me at legantral@gmail.com. See you around the cosmos!

Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Susan Stolovy (SSC/Caltech) et al.

Photo of the Day: Balloons Galore

Photo Taken: 12/06/2010

About The Photo: For Matt's birthday this year we threw him a surprise party (that he totally knew about). We decorated the house and filled the basement with balloons. After the party was over, I was torn as to how to clean up so many colourful balloons. My solution: shove them in Michelle's room. This photo is the result.

Winnipeg Pride

Today marked the end of the annual Pride festival here in Winnipeg, and as part of the pride celebration, downtown was filled with masses upon masses of people looking to have an awesome time. I am unsure if I was in the minority today, but I find that I was left very disappointed and unfufilled. To sum the afternoon up in one word I would have to say: Lame.


Every year I look forward to Pride, hanging out with friends, enjoying the awesome weather and having a great time at the parade. This year rather then beginning and ending the annual march at the Manitoba Legislative Building, we began at the Leg and ended at the Forks; effectively the parade length was cut in half. On top of that, while the Forks is a wonderful part of the city, it is rather limited on space and wasn't really designed to be filled with droves of people marching and following a set of floats. By the time we reached the Forks itself, much of the "parade" had dissolved into a group of people wandering without direction.

All in all, the afternoon was a complete dissapointment.

The weekend, however, was rather successful for Josh, Michelle and myself. Mostly for Josh and I though. As mentioned previously, Josh and I have begun to paint the house and this weekend we began work on our office. We've gone from a really deep olive colour, to a rather soothing pale blue. The office is a disaster still, but you can check out what the space looks like here.

On top of that, we recently bought bedroom sets for the house in preparation for Josh and Michelle to move in. The one for the master bedroom arrived perfectly:

...the one for Michelle's room was, well, much less successful:

Better luck next week!

I'm glad to say that the house is slowly coming together. Unfortunately we've come to the realization that the striking red colour we had picked for the bedroom won't work with the new (cherry) bedroom set, but at least we're making progress. Now they just need to move in, oh and Michelle needs to actually have her bed delivered...

Happy Pride Everyone!

NASA: Large Magellanic Supernova

Another stunning image from the NASA website has become my new desktop image at work. This image was apparently captured over 30 by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This image comes from the remnants of a supernova within the Large Magellanic Cloud. It's amazing to think that we can observe something that is not only unbelievably far away, but originally occurred over 5,000 years ago.

Wow...

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S. Park et al. Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H. Chu & R. Williams et al.

Flooding & Frustrations

This past weekend Winnipeg was hit with our first real summer storm, and it has had quite the impact on our fair little riverside city. The city is reporting that we received over 10cm of rain on Saturday alone - that's more then some month's total average precipitation. Kinda crazy, huh? The massive amounts of rainfall lately have raised the waters of the Red River, which is now at nearly the same height as it was during this years spring flooding - and as a result the lake behind my house is suffering just as much.

I've been lucky and so far the basement hasn't shown any signs of flooding. I've heard of many others who were not so lucky however. It definitely makes me glad that I have flood insurance. 110mm in one day...that's almost unbelievable.

While I have so far been safe from flooding, I have been less lucky in other aspects of my life. I've found certain parts of my life have begun to give me daily frustrations. Unfortunately these annoyances are the result of decisions made by others, and all I can do at this point is make the best of it. I nearly reached my breaking point the other day and thankfully no one was around to see it. I think perhaps I need to take up meditation or something similar so that I can focus my building frustrations into something useful.

On a positive note, I had a pleasant surprise on my way home yesterday. I was rather miserable after a grumpifying day at work, and came across a row of flowering bushes. With all the rain that we've had lately the flowers had bloomed almost overnight and the air smelled sweet. I snapped a (slightly blurry) picture after a brief moment of pausing to relax.

I'm glad that I was able to enjoy something positive out of the rainstorm that has afflicted us...