Author: ashleyelsdon

Storyteller - Poet - Explorer

Doctor Who: The Sands of Life

Posted by on in Books and Audiobooks

Another great fourth doctor story with Mary Tamm, and with the excellent inclusion of David Warner. This is the second story in Big Finish’s second season for Tom Baker, and this story is really the kick off for the main story arc in the series. It’s a great story arc too, and David Warner is at the centre of it. It’s far more like a serious Doctor Who story as opposed to the Auntie Matter, which was quite frivolous and yet wonderful to listen to.

The Sands of Life is quite a traditional story in many ways. The doctor meets a life form he’s not met before which is threatening all life on earth but only due to a mistake caused by Cuthbert (played by David Warner). I won’t say anymore about the story in case you do listen to it. I’d recommend it, it’s an excellent story and it continues with “War with the Laan”, but more of that another day.

The new Jasuto is the new Jasuto

Posted by on in Creative Process, Mobile Applications
Something complicated

Of course it was wonderful to see the new version of Jasuto (v 1.5) finally arrive on the app store after such a massive gap. And it wasn’t a disappointment at all. There’s plenty of new toys in there that are all great and shiny. It’s fun to play with this after such a long time. It reminds me just how good it is to make things, to put things together and see how they work.

I remember when Jasuto first came out it was a truly amazing step forward for music making on mobile devices, but it was hard to get into and I think a lot of people found that too, not really understanding how to make things work in Jasuto. It too me a while, but it was worth the effort and when I went back to it this week it was just as I’d remembered.

So I’m looking forward to spending more time with it and making more things as a lead in to some increased creativity after a somewhat dry spell.

Jasuto Modular Synth is available on the app store:

Android Inventor 2 has arrived

Posted by on in Tech

I’ve messed about with Android App Inventor since it’s very early days, when Google brought it out and made it available to the public. Then of course it moved off to MIT who’ve done a great job with it so far, and now it’s finally done away with the download and files you need to install. It’s now all in the browser at last. I’m looking forward to trying it out at last.

The only downside is that at the moment there’s no easy way to port projects from App Inventor ‘Classic’  to the new version. Still, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Doctor Who: Demon Quest

Posted by on in Books and Audiobooks

So I’ve moved on to the next set of 4th Doctor stories from the Hornet’s Nest, the Demon Quest story. Again it’s a five part story, each part being around an hour long and it has the same core characters as hornet’s nest as it is in effect a continuation from the end of the hornet’s nest.

But five hours is a good long time to develop a whole story. Of course each episode is a self contained story in its own right, but the whole thing hangs together very nicely too. It’s a nice arc and that’s what I really like about these three stories or arcs from Paul Magrs. It’s a shame in a way that there won’t be any more of these, or at least it’s my expectation that there won’t be more of them as Tom Baker has moved on to working with Big Finish now. Not that that isn’t a great thing in itself as the work he’s done there is excellent. But like any fan I always want more!

What else would you expect?

So, Movember is over

Posted by on in Stuff

Well I’m glad in a way and also a little disappointed that I didn’t manage to raise a bit more money. Still, never mind, I’m sure it all helps, however little the amount. I’ll just have to try a little bit harder in 2014, if I do it again that is. Maybe next year I might try something a little more daring too, not just the usual handle bar mustache. Perhaps a monkey tail this time? Who knows.

Making my way through Babylon 5

Posted by on in TV

A number of people recommended Babylon 5 to me and it was always one of those very long series that I never got into when it was originally on air. Either I missed it or was doing something else and by the time I was ready to get into it the first series was over. So, many years later I’ve finally started watching it. So far I’m only onto series two. It isn’t bad so far. I’m not really into the wider story arc or at least it hasn’t taken a real hold so far, but I can see that it has promise.

I can’t say that it’s on the same scale as something like Battlestar Galactica, but that’s probably not a fair comparison really as BSG is much newer and had the benefit of a complete re-imagining.

So I’m going to stick with it and watch the whole arc, and as I do I’ll post a few more thoughts on it as I go through.

So here I am with Android 4.4

Posted by on in Tech

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So I’ve upgraded my little old Nexus and so far I’m not noticing anything amazing with it. No incredible improvements in performance either. So, what’s the big deal then? Did I miss something?

Doctor Who: The Auntie Matter

Posted by on in Books and Audiobooks

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After watching the Day of the Doctor I decided to go back to listening to some old(new) doctor who. I thought I’d listen to the second season of the fourth doctor from big finish. The first episode, the auntie matter, is just awesome. Great fun and a very good way to start off the season again.