I’ve been a Sherlockian since I was 9 years old. My dad brought home a thick, red book with tiny text and little did I know, I was about to fall madly in love. In the pages of that book I discovered my hero, Sherlock Holmes. I devoured the entire book, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (which actually starts with the second story A Scandal in Bohemia) and then the rest of “the canon” (as the collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are called). Ever after that, I was obsessed (as my parents can attest to).

I’m not sure what exactly attracted me to Holmes at such a young age. The language was difficult, the setting foreign (Victorian and post-Victorian England), and the character was cold and distant. Perhaps it was the fact that I felt rather odd myself. The transition into a double digit age, the desire to be smart, coupled with feeling a bit like an outsider amongst my peers made reading about Sherlock Holmes a solace. I tackled the whole series within a couple months and, for years after, books about Sherlock Holmes, copies of the stories, videos, toys, and other paraphernalia peppered the story of my life. Sherlock Holmes was always my first love. I watched every movie and TV show I could get my hands on. I even recorded episodes of my favorite cartoons that parodied the great detective. When Basil of Baker Street was rereleased I watched it with gusto. The first person I ever met who was “a friend on the internet” was Leslie Klinger when I was 16. Les went on to write the ultimate annotated Sherlock Holmes. Our trip to Minnesota one summer as a family wasn’t complete without a trip to the University of Minnesota’s Sherlock Holmes Collections. One Halloween I begged for (and helped pay for) a Sherlock Holmes costume that still hangs in my closet (I wore it about six Halloweens after that).

But, my love of Sherlock Holmes did not stop there. Shortly after reading through the canon I realized there was a whole scholarly aspect to the stories. The Baker Street Irregulars, a society for serious minded study, was formed in the 1930s and counted SciFi legend Isaac Asimov among it’s members. There were journals, newsletters, and papers from all corners of the globe. When I was 11 and 12 I wrote extensively myself and submitted to some of those publications and even began my own email newsletter via my newly minted AOL account – Sherlockian Snippets. In undergrad I squeezed Sherlock Holmes into every paper I could (I even wrote a sociology paper on the Sherlock Holmes fandom).

Recently, Stephen Moffat, who I’ve admired for years for his work on Doctor Who, has made the great detective famous again with his modern Sherlock for the BBC. Sherlock Holmes has also hit the pulp hero status with Guy Davis’ Sherlock Holmes. I myself am working on a novel that has touches of Sherlock Holmes. It’s been a couple years since I’ve read through the canon and I thought now would be a great time to brush off the series and read it again. I’ll be blogging my way through the read through (for those ubernerds, I’ll be doing it according to publication date, not chronologically) and you’re invited to read along and share your own insights (fair warning “A Study in Scarlet,” the first story is actually a novella so it’s a bit long).

Come blog people, the game is most definitely afoot!

Join Tabz, Kim, Heidi and Dan as they discuss Season 1 Episode 6, Weekend Warriors. Listen as they discuss Lassie’s face hair, urine, and the spotting pineapple rules (or lack thereof).

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Anyone with a GPS can tell you that the voice is one of the most important things about setting up your GPS. Customizing that perfect person to tell you where to go is about as important as choosing your ringtone for your cellphone. Now you can have a couple monsters tell you where that next right turn is before you get horribly lost.

Locutio has partnered with Sesame Workshop to bring Cookie Monster to Garmin GPS systems worldwide. You can see the voice in action in the video below:

Here’s just some of the phrases from Cookie Monster:

• “There’s traffic ahead, recalculating. Oh boy, me wish me hadn’t eaten calculator.”
• “Yeah, yeah, in one quarter of mile, turn left, dumb di dumb dumb dumb…”
• “You have reached destination. And now…COOOOOOKIES!, nom nom nom. ::BURP:: Excuse me, that me.”

Cookie Monster is now available for $12.99 at Garmin.com and SpotItOut.com.

Not bad for having a muppet take a drive with you. We’re pretty sure it’ll keep your kids entertained at least.

If Cookie Monster isn’t your thing (who are you?) then you can wait a bit until the release of Oscar the Grouch who’ll charmingly say things like:

• “Unless you WANT to get lost, in one mile, turn left. Not that I care what you do.”
• “Traffic ahead, recalculating. Even though I love traffic, it makes everyone so grouchy.”
• “You have reached your destination. No need to thank me, I can’t stand good manners.”

Or buy them both and switch them depending your mood!

Join Tabz, Emma, Kim, Scott, and Heidi as they discuss the BBC series, Sherlock. Tabz and Emma have seen the series before, but Kim and Heidi haven’t!

Episode Recap from Wikipedia:
Mycroft hires Holmes and Watson to retrieve compromising photos of a minor royal held on the camera phone of Irene Adler, a ruthless and brilliant dominatrix who also trades in classified information extracted from her rich and powerful clients. Holmes obtains Adler’s phone, but discovers it is booby-trapped and requires a code to disarm it. When Adler discovers that the CIA are on her trail, she disappears and is then apparently killed, only to reappear months later when the coast is clear. Adler manipulates Holmes into deciphering a coded message on her phone which she obtained from another well-connected client. She sends the message to Moriarty, who in turn uses it to foil a British counter-terror operation. Adler then goes underground again. The episode concludes as Mycroft tells Watson that she has been killed by a terrorist group in Pakistan. This is another decoy: Sherlock helped her escape when she was on the brink of death.

Fellow IntroCasts: betweenthelinesstudios.com/introcasts

Theme Song: Sherlock By StudioMig and David Cyr (from Music Alley)
Artwork: London Eye by telegram (Stock.xchng)

A new episode is here and I promise, we will be weekly from here on out. We don’t have Monica on this one (or the next one) but luckily, we have Simone to save us from limited points of view as our very first guest host! Also, if you can’t tell from the screencap for this week, I’ve started watching Battlestar Galactica.

Have you ever wanted to make your own Pumpkin Juice? How about a Treacle Tart like Harry Potter eats in the Great Hall? With The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, you can do just that!

This cookbook goes through all the times in the Harry Potter books when food is involved, and includes many of the recipes involved in each event. Some of the chapters are titles things like: Treats from the Train, Recipes from a Giant and an Elf, and Holiday Fare. Before each recipe, a description is given of where the recipe was mentioned in the books. Many of the recipes from the books are authentic English dishes. We Americans might wonder what Mince Pies or Bath Buns are, but in England they are just another dish.

I am really looking forward to trying the Shepherd’s Pie recipe. I had Shepherd’s Pie at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, and it was delicious. I hope this recipe lives up to that. There are recipes for all different levels of cooking abilities in this book. Some of the candy looks pretty complicated. There is a section at the beginning of the book telling you what to substitute for some of the English ingredients, and some directions that might be different. The measurements are in cups and teaspoons though.

There was only one thing that disappointed me a little. When I went to Honeydukes at The Wizarding World, I had a Chocolate Cauldron that was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. It was a little chocolate cake in the shape of a cauldron. It had some sort of chocolate filling, and was just yummy. In this book they have Cauldron Cakes, which is probably more accurate, and are a sort of pancake.

The author, Dinah Bucholz, is a pie baker known for her fine desserts, so I’m sure the desserts in this book are fabulous.

Any Harry Potter fan would enjoy this book. Who doesn’t want to have a Harry Potter themed party and actually eat food from the books? You can purchase this book on Amazon or other major book stores. I’ve seen them at Barnes and Noble. I also came across a Kindle ebook called The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook Presents: 10 Summertime Treats, and it’s only around $1.

Buy The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook on Amazon.

It’s been two years since Spartacus: Blood and Sand left it’s indelible mark on cable television. The smartly written, blood and gore soaked series titillated audiences in a way probably not seen since the Roman times the series is set in. This adults-only drama is part comic-book gore and part-backstabbing-thriller/drama. But it’s been two long years for fans to see what happens to Spartacus next. Sure, we had the very amazing and tantelizing prequel, Gods of the Arena, but after the Blood and Sand blood-bath finale, it’s time to find out what happens next.

Lisa and I were invited to the red carpet screening of the first episode of Spartacus: Vengeance and mixed and mingled with fans and Hollywood alumns who all craved a little of the arena blood.

Of course, most fans know why the long wait. Lead, Andy Whitfield, whose performance as Spartacus was as legendary as the man himself, sadly was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and later succumb to the disease.  Robert Tapert, one of the Executive Producers, explained before the screening that Andy made sure that the cast and crew knew how much he wanted the series to go on once he realized he could not perform. The touching part of the screening was the final part of the episode contains a tribute to Andy, which, I’ll admit, made me a bit teary eyed.

Liam McIntyre at Premire of Spartacus: Vengeance 1/18/12 Photo credit: / WENN

The event, held at the Archlight Theater on Sunset, was a lot of fun. Costumes from the series and props were on display and free popcorn/soda provided for guests. The red carpet was full of fans and photographers waiting to catch a glimpse of the stars (who film in New Zeland, so it was fun to see them in LA). Including our new Spartacus, Liam McIntyre.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t quite ready to let go of Andy as Spartacus. After all, he was the actor portraying the character that I held my breath for, that I cheered for, that I wanted to see get his vengeance. But, as we watched the first episode, my fears were quickly dispersed. Liam brings the quiet rage that we had come to love from Spartacus.

I won’t spoil the episode, you can watch it for yourself on Jan 27th on Starz, but I will say that Spartacus is back with all of it’s bloody glory. There were quite a few surprises and some very “ewwwww” turn your head moments. I have to give props to the writers making the story fit seamlessly with the first series. It’s like we never left.

If you need to catch up before the new series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand is available on Netflix Instant currently. Just remember it is as violent as ancient Rome was, with strong language and nudity.

When I got Season 8 of OTH on DVD I couldn’t wait to dig into the extra bonus features. That’s one of the most rewarding things about buying TV on DVD. The DVD set didn’t disappoint with 2 hours of all-new featurettes, 2 episode commentaries, deleted scenes and gag reel.

One of my favorite parts of any TV show I love is the gag reel. It shows the actors at their funniest. Apparently from S8 gag reel you can tell that the cast of OTH are a bunch of pranksters! The commentaries are great too, especially episode 11, which details how they did the storm scenes and give you a real sense of working on a TV show. Stuff like how they got this kind of scene:

One Tree Hill – S8 ‘Stop!’ by thewbdotcom

For fans of One Tree Hill, the Eighth Season will definitely be one to own! Includes all 22 episodes on 5 discs plus all-new featurettes, commentaries, deleted scenes and gag reel http://bit.ly/w2DhRu!

Want to catch up quickly? You buy the download of Season 8 on UltraViolet HERE

I have been hired by Warner Bros. WBWord division to promote One Tree Hill Season Eight on DVD.

Monica and Paul have actually started watching Supernatural! Listen as we discuss the pilot… a lot. Like, for an hour and a half. Don’t worry, folks, future episodes won’t be quite so long.

At one point I’m discussing cover art. Here it is to compare and discuss:

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Let us know which one you’d like us to use or any other thoughts you might have – idjitcast@gmail.com

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One of the most impressive parts of One Tree Hill (to me at least) has been the music. So it was delightful when I heard that no only was “I Don’t Wanna Be” coming back in the 8th season as the theme song for the show, but that it would be covered by a variety of artists. The actual original version by Gavin Degraw only played 3 times in Season 8. I thought it was an innovative choice and gave viewers a really fun reason to watch through the credits every time. Artists like Andy Grammer, Amiee Mann, Laura Izibor, Tegan and Sara, Tyrone Wells, Ben Rector, and Missy Higgins all took a crack at their own interpretation of the song.

I really enjoyed the variety of artists that redid the theme, but I have to admit I have a fondness for the original by Gavin. Especially after the adorableness of Jamie and Gavin singing the theme together.

If you’re a fan of the show, what version of the theme did you like? Who do you think should cover the theme in Season 9?

One Tree Hill – Season 8 on DVD & UltraViolet by thewbdotcom

Missed season 8′s opening theme song mash-ups? Order Season 8 of One Tree Hillnow! Check out One Tree Hill Season 8 on UltraViolet, too!

I have been hired by Warner Bros. WBWord division to promote One Tree Hill Season Eight on DVD.

Join Tabz, Kim, Heidi and Dan as they discuss Season 1 Episode 5, 9 Lives. Listen as they discuss Dazzle and Stretch!; kitties!; and how awesome Buzz is.

Tv.com Recap read by Faith the Vampire Slayer.

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Episode 0 is finally here, introducing Allie, Paul, and Monica before they get to watching “Supernatural.” What do they think the show’s going to be like? Click the download link to find out.

Note from editor: I was going to include a link to the promotional video I show the newbies in this, but it has been taken down and I can’t find the same one somewhere else. It was to a Dave Matthews Band song, if any of you original viewers remember it.