Alpha Retrospective: Bugs Season 1 Episode 1: "Out of the Hive"

Recently, due to a bunch of comments on a friends DnD post on Facebook, I was reminded of an old TV series called "Bugs" that I used to watch as a child. It was as nineties as it got. A sci-fi series about a bunch of crime fighters who used all manner of computer gadgetry to stop various ne'er-do-wells. I found it exciting to watch but never really appreciated the story or noticed the silly nature of some of the plotlines and the many, many IT and hacker clichés it portrayed. Despite it's failings, it was still a fun show to watch and if you look carefully, you can see where other later, argubly superior prime time TV dramas got their inspiration from Bugs.

With this in mind, I bought the complete DVD boxset of the entirety of Bugs and intend on watching the entire run slowly. I am also going to sporadically do write ups of the episodes as I watch them. I will tentatively title these entries "Alpha Retrospectives" and the style will change as I figure out what I want to write about each episode. With that, I bring you Bugs, season 1 episode 1.

"Buy all the film you can get your hands on..."

I got a bit of a confession to make. I was getting bored of taking pictures.

Although I'm an avid amateur photographer, I have found myself getting into a bit of a rut regarding the hobby. This was probably not helped by changes at work and it picking up in what should be a fairly quiet period, as well as a lack of major holidays and conventions for me to go to for this half of the year.

The problem I was getting is that I have been in the photography game for a while. At least 13 years if you only count the years I've been in the hobby seriously and continuously, possibly more than 15 if you count the years I've been taking pictures on and off. After this amount of time, things get stale. Familiarity breeds contempt and it is too easy to get fatigued, not just in photography but any hobby.

I had some money still left over from my trip to Southampton, despite the amount spent to travel and stay there. That in itself is a dangerous thing. Boredom and money are an even more lethal combination. After doing some brief research (Read: Typed words into a search engine and skimmed through the results), I ended up deciding that I needed to go retro.

Really retro.

Cosplay Experience Retrospective

As we come to the end of another year and enter a new one, I feel it would be appropriate to look back on my time in the geeky community and why this year is particularly important to myself, especially from an emotional standpoint.

I had been watching Anime during my early childhood, mostly through video tape cassette recordings sent from relatives in the spiritual Motherland that is Hong Kong, and after a long gap, got back into watching it when I started attending University. I am not sure what encouraged me to return to Anime, but it happened. Until then, however, I felt like I was only just scratching the surfance of the fandom. At some point, I caught wind of certain events where fellow Otaku would congregate, so-called “Anime Conventions”, where geeks would actually be able to see and speak to each other about various geeky topics in the same place. It was only after I attended my first Anime Convention about 12 years ago where I felt I had finally felt like I was a full blown Anime geek. But there was one thing I felt I was missing out on but didn’t have the confidence to try.

That being Cosplay.

Hibanacon Post Event Writeup

Last weekend, I was at Hibanacon, a "residential" Anime convention that was the brainchild of certain friends I know of who are based around in and around Basingstoke (And hence will be referred to as the "Basingstoke Circle"). This was the second one to be held at the Jurys Inn hotel in Milton Keynes. I was intending on writing a post action report on the inaugural event, but eventually forgot to do so. I'm intending to rectify this. Anyway, the short version of the story is that the first Hibana was sort of an obligation due to me knowing so many of the committee, but even if I didn't, I would've enjoyed myself. Attendance at the second one was all but a given.

Some Post-MCM Scotland 2018 Ramblings

In light of the lack of long form written content on this blog, I felt it right to post something after MCM Scotland 2018. Something that requires me to do a bit more thinking while I put words to paper, or in this case screen. Something that isn't as quickfire as a Facebook status update or a Tweet.

Content/Trigger Warning: I do bring up mental health topics here, including references to suicidal thoughts and general negativity, so keep that in mind before you read on.

So, MCM Scotland 2018 came and went. I thoroughly enjoyed myself despite the fact that it really is nothing more than a large dealers hall with maybe a few panels going on at the peripheries. But then it has always been like that since I started going in 2013. So I am used to it. Doesn't stop me attending when I can because I still find it enjoyable and there are not many geek type of events north of the border. However, I admit that about 2 year ago, I started to have a crisis of confidence, not just regarding attending MCM Scotland but going to any geek event, especially the fan run "residential" conventions I've been going to for a long time, the major ones being Amecon and until it's demise, Ayacon.

Livejournal. An embarassing timecapsule!

Many years ago, long before Facebook and Twitter, possibly even before MySpace was a thing (Remember that), the in vogue trend was to have a LiveJournal. This was a blogging service that was mostly populated by young people who mostly got all angsty about life. Myself included.

"Don't follow the rules and don't shoot for anybody other than yourself..."

I am not a good photographer.
At least, I don't think I am.
A lot of people seem to think I am.
But personally I don't feel that way.

At best, I consider myself an "average" photographer who understands the limitations of his equipment and own skills quite well and has learnt through a lot of experience gained through trial and error (And advice from friends and other photographers) how to be creative within those limitations.

Y U SO SRS?? (AKA: Why the sudden mood whiplash?)

Some may be confused about the recent more serious tone of my first post in a while and wondered why I made it. Well, aside from that certain Overwatch cosplay incident, a discussion between friends that sadly lead to disagreement between them prompted me to try to articulate some of the incidents of racism that I've had to deal with throughout my life. There isn't any particular political view I was trying to push in this instance though. Just thought it might be useful to try to give people an idea of things are like for those of us who are non-white.

Often a lot of the attention regarding ethnic minorities is focused on Asians (In the British sense of the word rather than the American sense i.e. South Asians such as Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis rather than other Asians like Chinese, Koreans and Japanese) or on Black people. There has always been, anecdotally, this feeling in the Chinese community that reporting incidents to the police or other authorities is pointless as either nothing will be done or things will get worse. Also the Chinese have always been less visible in the UK, even as more and more Mainland Chinese appear overseas to study or fill in gaps in industries which have not been able to fill vacancies with local talent. In some ways this is a good thing as it means some of the heat is taken off us compared to other ethnic minorities but when things happen to us, it does get a lot of coverage.

Anyway, I am going to ramble about another topic. Relationships...