Tag Archives: Fandom

Benedict Cumberbatch and the British Invasion Into My Psyche

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On a clear Friday morning, 7th March, 2014, I started my morning ritual by grabbing my iPad Mini while still in bed, checked my Facebook news feed as usual (don’t judge me – I bet many of you do the same), and almost jumped right out of bed when I read this announcement from Oz Comic-Con:

Oz Comic-Con are very pleased to announce Benedict Cumberbatch is set to join the fun at Oz Comic-Con Adelaide and appear at two exclusive Oz Comic-Con Q&A events in Sydney.

WHAT?! SHERLOCK IS COMING TO MY HOME TOWN??? 

From that point on, there was no turning back or calming down. It took the organisers another two days to announce details for ticket sales. But I was online and ready with my credit card details as soon as the box office opened. However, judging by the fact that there were about 150 other people sitting closer to the stage I guess getting my tickets within a minute of the box office opening was still not good enough. However, we did have excellent seats and I have absolutely no complaints. Anyway, I digress…

Cumberbatch in Sydney

 

There were 33 sleeps from the time I bought tickets to the day I, and my friend Asha, were due to see this very talented actor, and they felt like the longest 33 days ever. I found myself re-watching all three series of BBC’s Sherlock and going back through my “Cumber-collection” of his many other works that range from playing Hugh Laurie’s eldest son in the 2003 comedy series Fortysomething, to his short films (make sure you check out Inseparable) and even his various radio serials for BBC Radio (Cabin Pressure, Rumpole and Neverwhere) and audiobooks (your life will never be the same again after you hear Cumberbatch as Casanova).

Benedict U2 photobombWhile you may have never heard of Benedict Cumberbatch until you saw him photobomb U2 at the Oscars or heard Ellen DeGeneres introduce him as “the man with the best name ever”, once you look at his long list of filmography, you will realise you have probably seen him in a million things before without realising who he was. Ever since the announcement a little while ago that he was set to return to the London stage in autumn of 2015 to play the title role in Hamlet, I bet there’s been a renewed interest in reading the Bard again. Heck, he’s the only reason I paid to see Star Trek: Into Darkness (nothing against Trekkies, I’ve just never been one of them).

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No H8 – How To Be A Good Fan

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If you have read my recent post The Secret Life of A Wannabe Writer, you’ll know I don’t like criticisms in general, especially the negative ones.  For those of you who have been following me here or on Twitter for a while, you will know that I am generally not shy about sharing my opinions – the phrase “no filter” is often associated with my name.  For the most part, I believe my tweets and opinions are a source of amusement to my friends.  In Twitterverse I am well-known for saying some seemingly random things, a perfect example of this is my discussion on Thursday night about the use of BlackBerrys on White Collar. By chance my OCD-induced picspamming of the use of BlackBerrys on the show caught the eye of the show’s creator Jeff Eastin (ever the night owl and insomniac) and led to a hilarious half hour of insanity that included me declaring chopsticks are a greater invention than sliced bread! 😀 For the record, before you haul me off to the insane asylum, Jeff said our tweets made him laugh 🙂

Example of my random craziness on Twitter

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The Secret Life of a Wannabe Writer

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Last night, I participated in a market research focus group for a job search engine by an advertising agency.  The facilitator began the introductions around the room by asking us this all-important question: “What is your dream job?” Of the eight people around me, it would appear I was the only one who had little interest in sports other than watching AFL and tennis.  Everyone seemed to have harboured some secret ambition to be a professional athlete of one kind or another – a ski instructor, professional cricketer, professional tennis player, triathlete.

My dream job? Television writer. Preferably for a Drama series.  I can be funny but not funny enough to churn out sitcoms like Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre (“The Big Bang Theory“, “Two and a Half Men“, “Dharma and Greg“) do.  Maybe the new category of “Dramedies” like Monk and my absolute fave, White Collar.  I can do a blend of serious, contemplative, dramatic scenes with smart-alec remarks to keep the tone light and witty at the same time…or at least I would like to think so.  But that’s just my own opinion and I have been known to tweet out “I AM AWESOME” to my friends on Twitter 😀

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Happy Twitterversary

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It was exactly two years ago, on March 18, 2009, that I joined the Twitterverse. I know exactly why I joined and what I was doing when I signed up. I was watching the Ellen DeGeneres Show. She had been talking about Twitter a few times and I finally got curious about it. Other people had mentioned it before as well. I already had a Facebook account but at the time was barely using it. But I decided to try Twitter anyway. I signed up but I had no followers (sounds a little cult-ish, doesn’t it?) and I didn’t know what to do. I assume everyone started out searching for celebrities to follow. I know I did. Then somehow I learnt a few other things like using hashtags (#), how to send public messages to people (@) and private/direct messages (D). In the beginning, I didn’t tweet much. I hardly even logged in.

My Tweet Stats

So what changed in February 2010 to cause me to start tweeting madly (well, to me, at that time it seemed like I was tweeting madly at 154 tweets for the month!)?  The answer is quite simple: I discovered White Collar.  To my now-dedicated and loyal group of friends/followers, you will understand exactly what this means.  To those who aren’t, I won’t judge you but you are missing out! 😀  Now, you may say “but the show started in October 2009! What were you doing all this time?”  Well, it didn’t air in Australia till a couple of months after the US so I did catch on a little later but once I caught the bug, I caught it BIG…viral proportions!  As they say, better late than never! Continue reading →

Why Do We Care?

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My regular readers and Twitter followers know that sometimes when I get obsessed with something, I can get too carried away, regardless of what that something might be.  There is no denying that my obsession for the last 12 months has been a TV show called White Collar, its stars and writers.  I tweet about them, blog about them, and of course, talk about them.  Incessantly. My opinions on all things WC-related are often so strong that when someone says something negative about them, I feel the need to publicly defend them.  At the same time, if there was something I did not like, such as one of the episodes that aired a couple of weeks ago, I did not shy away from going into lengthy discussions with my fellow Collars, detailing every plot hole we could identify (quite frankly, because we know the show so well that we were able to spot the plot holes from a mile away) and offering possible explanations for what went wrong.

So, this particular obsessive (and possibly very shallow) behaviour aside, it brought to mind the question of why we care so much about some things and so little about others?  As I write, the major news items around the world involve the Christchurch earthquake (as discussed in my blog “When Tragedy Strikes We Pull Together“) and the continuing turmoil in Libya.

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