The above is a nod to my friend, Shannon/Taser/Doubletap, who kept on referring me by this name whenever she was up in Vancouver.
So, the website is finally back online. Getting all the logistics into place for moving the server took time out of Shane’s and my life, not to mention all the technical obstacles that popped up during our arduous server move. As you can imagine, this endeavor was the largest (and longest) move that we’ve ever made. It isn’t for the feint of heart, and Shane (who did most of the IT heavy lifting), is a trooper. If it weren’t for him, I would have swan-dived off the roof.
All the while we were down, people came forward and offered their assistance. (One of them, in particular, I would like to make a special mention of as they are responsible for our new home when MediaTemple didn’t pan out, but I’m leaving that for its own blog in a more official venue.) Some of them freaked out, which is something that concerns me a bit, but I took the time to assure them that it was a server move that took longer than expected.
I continue to be humbled by the appreciation that people have for the website, and the server move not only cuts costs, but also results in a more powerful server that can handle all the requests that people make on it.
Did you know that the Wiki has over 2,000 unique visitors an hour? That’s with the show no longer being on the air, by the way, which explains why my jaw sort of hits the ground a bit.
During our peak, we had well over 300,000-400,000 unique visitors a month, if not more. The site is tremendously popular and I am honored to have been the guy who began something that’s attracted talent from across the world. At the risk of gushing, it’s really something when a website gets you the opportunity to help create history, particularly with the Battlestar auctions that happened in 2009.
And, as you might be aware, the Wiki has always been the slowest every time an episode airs. Sometimes, the servers crashed. And that sucked, for everyone. Now that we have a powerful server at an economical price, I think we’ve achieved balance there where it won’t crash and burn everytime the Wiki addicts want to look up something.
It will be interesting for me to see what Caprica holds, particularly for the website. I hope the show is of great quality and is around for a while.
Exciting.
2. Mass Effect
On the gaming front, I’m working my way through the first Mass Effect, and I am really digging the game so far. For some reason, I find myself more attracted to Mass Effect than I am to something like Dragon Age: Origins. I seem to have a better handle on leveling my characters, modifying my equipment, affecting the story the way I think it should be played out, and I’m just having fun with it. Given some of what I’ve seen in the game so far, I suspect that there are some Mass Effect programmers and writers who are fans of BSG and Farscape.
With that, I’m really looking forward to Mass Effect 2 based on my experience in this game.
While I know that these RPGs are from the same company and everything has the same basic concept—bionic powers being indistinguishable to magic spells and the same basic general character classes, for instance—I’ve found that I respond better to the science fiction setting. Perhaps because I’ve always found science fiction far more interesting (and with more possibilities) than a realm run by wizards, ogres, dragons and the like. This isn’t a knock against fantasy, since fantasy and science fiction have always been intertwined, but science fiction has its advantages. Particularly if it is well executed. I would go as so far to say that science fiction brings fantasy into the realm of the galactic universe, as opposed to the mystical one. Or one is an extension of the other.
Needless to say, I’m of a few different minds on this…
3. Moving Blah-Log
Keeping up with my blogging has been a bit of a chore for me. However, persistence is key, and I’m chugging along. Some of the blah-logs are probably boring, but it’s a cross-section of what limited interests I do have in this pitiful little life of mine.
One of the things I’ll be doing is moving my blah-log to the MT server that my company (FrakMedia!) has, since I’m consolidating things. Right now, I have three different hosts for various sites, and I want to reduce that number. Same with domain names. I have some domains through 1&1, one through resell.biz (that’s JoeBeaudoin.net) and GoDaddy. Goal is to get all the domains over to GoDaddy within the next few weeks. JoeBeaudoin.net is being migrated now and should be transferred by the 12th, and once that is done, I can implement all the necessary DNS changes and move this blah-log over.
My friend Troy Rudolph, who works up in Vancouver as a background extra in various television series (including all of Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica), did this commercial. It’s actually very good. I kid you not.
Troy plays the smart one. He’s on the left. As if you need clarification on that point.
Anyway, after a long five days of cataloging props, we’re taking some time off this weekend. (We’re still hitting up the office for three or four hours to get things organized a bit.) We’ve received some much needed shelving from the set dec people and are going through what stuff we’ll have for the first live auction. Some very cool props we’ve found, including various knives (Dualla’s, Cain’s, even Tom Zarek’s from the “Home” two parter), the infamous Searider Falcon book, young Adama’s Viper helmet from “Razor” (the reference photo is seen below), Baltar’s trial papers, the Blackbird manual… all in all, some very cool stuff.
I did take pictures of CIC, but they won’t make it to the internet until the last half of Season 4 is completely aired.
And having said Season 4, I will reveal that I’ve watched six episodes of the last half of Season 4. I won’t bother gushing how great it is, since… like the Matrix… you have to see it for yourself. Also, I believe you guys can make up your own frakking minds when you see it. And that’s all I’m saying about it, because I’ve signed an NDA.
Anyway, outside of BSG, Alec and I are going to see “Clone Wars” in the theater, which is about ten minutes walking time from the apartment where I’m at.
Yes, I’ve been in Vancouver since the 6th. I can tell you now that it’s very beautiful up here. As with any major city, it’s congested like hell and driving is a bitch. Plus there’s construction happening on basically every other road, it seems. On the upside, I can pretty much get anywhere simply by walking. In my travels, I have seen coffee shops (yes, there’s Starbucks; I can get to two of them if I head east), 7-11s, eateries, sub-shops, pubs. There’s even a pretty cool comic book store within 5 miles of where I’m staying.
Of course, the very nice apartment that Alec Peters and I am staying in is a good 20 minutes (by car) to Vancouver Film Studios, which is where Battlestar Galactica was filmed. (They will be filming the movie up here, and are in pre-production for this.) I’ve met pretty much the main heads of both the art and props departments up here, in addition to the producers: Richard Hudolin, Doug MacLean, Harvey Frand, and others.
I’ve also walked a majority of the sets. Been to CIC, the pilots room, the Cylon baseship set—the hangar bay set was locked down, so we couldn’t get there. Saw the hero Viper Mark II cockpit, Colonial One all in pieces (yes, it comes apart, and they’re breaking it down now to store it, since other shows will start shooting at the stage it presently occupies)… lots of stuff.
Of course, I don’t have pictures of the sets yet. And, to be frank, I probably won’t release some of them until after the series airs, simply out of fear of being spoilery. That, and I signed a NDA, so I deeded over my first born to NBC Universal should I spill something. As I will have access to the final episodes, not to mention the fact that we’ll be having input in the new movie prop and set decoration (“set dec” for short), that was necessary.
And, as part of our job, we’re going to be documenting the breaking of the sets, so those pictures will end up on the Battlestar Props website.
In any event, here’s a picture of the view from the balcony of the apartment, since it’s the only picture I have of Vancouver so far. Yeah, I’m that busy. LOL
Monday was basically finalizing everything I needed for my trip, and getting some last minute things out of the way. It was also an excuse to go out and get some new clothes and finishing things that I had been procrastinating on for a few days now. Otherwise, I’m packed and ready to get the hell out of Florida.
I leave 8:30 A.M. ET on Wednesday, and will land at 5:30 P.M. PT in Vancouver.
I also went to see Hellboy 2. It was an OK flick, and I almost fell asleep at the end of it (although I was running on three hours of sleep, so that likely had something to do with it). Otherwise, it was a well-executed time waster. Fun, predictable, and nice to look at. Plot is very linear and the bad guys looked like the freaking Wraith from Stargate Atlantis… I kid you not. I was expecting John Sheppard to come out and start mowing the war-mongering prince down with a FN P-90.
Not something I’d add to my DVD collection, but good enough to put on in the background when it hits HBO, Skinamax, or Showtime.
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