Fan Rants

Looks like the good Doctor has landed on the island of Brobdingnag! Umm, thats the island that Gulliver landed on where everyone else was giants…its a book called Gullivers Travels…by Jonathan Swift…oh NEVER mind!

Anyway, here is your opportunity to have a miniture spinning floating Tardis of your very own. Check it out at Amazon!

BBC has put out a teaser trailer for this years Dr Who Christmas special. Enjoy!

Found this cool mug on the BBC America Shop site and had to share!

Doctor Who Disappearing TARDIS Mug

Pour a hot beverage into your mug and watch the Doctor’s cleverly disguised time capsule materialize in galactic space! As your mug cools, the TARDIS dematerializes before your eyes, moves through the Space Time Continuum, and rematerializes on the other side of your mug, in the middle of a London suburb-all according to Time Lord theory. A treasure for Doctor Who fans! Ceramic; holds 12 ounces. Microwave safe. Hand wash gently.

• 12 oz. mug features TARDIS from Doctor Who
• Tardis disappears from one side and appears on another when you pour in hot beverage
• Microwave-safe
• Size: 3-3/4″ x 5″ x 3-1/2″ (9.5 cm x 12.5 cm x 9 cm)
• Officially licensed product

Good news for the Dr Who fans out there, BBC is releasing free downloadable video games based on adventures of the new Matt Smith Doctor. These will be released along with 4 web episodes coming out in the new season. The BBC is really pushing that this season won’t have 13 episodes of Dr Who but rather 17 since the webisodes are integrated into the timeline (redundant?).

Here is the official press release:

The Doctor, Amy and some of Doctor Who‘s most iconic monsters will be making a journey from TV to home computers, as the BBC unveils Doctor Who – The Adventure Games, four original “interactive episodes”, which will be made available for free from bbc.co.uk/doctorwho.

These four new adventures will take the form of downloadable computer games available for PC and Mac, in which players assume control of The Doctor and Amy as they embark on new adventures which complement the new TV series.

The episodes will be free downloadable games for the PC and Mac. The script of the game is being penned by Phil Ford and James Moran, who contributed to the Water of Mars, and Children of the Earth storylines for the Dr. Who and Torchwood series. Here is a trailer for the game:

So, your hungry for seeing how Matt Smith is going to pull off being the Doctor…but its still weeks away before BBC America will be sharing him with you. Well…there is a way to do this…and you don’t have to be a computer genius either.

No, this does not involve illegal downloading, and we at Fan Rants would never condone such actions. But it does involve spoofing BBC as to where you live. You see, if you live in the UK, you can watch Doctor Who via the BBC website the day after it airs. But if your outside of the UK, your just outta luck!

The way they know this is by your computer IP address. This number tells where your service is originating. So what you have to do is use a ‘Proxy’ number that is located in the UK. Here’s how to do it!

First, get a proxy number. Head over to XROXY.COM and choose their Great Britain (UK) Open Proxy List. This will get you a slew of choices, just choose the first one you come upon that has a Port of 80 next to it. Others will work, but these tend to work the best I have found. Write this down, as you will need it in a moment.

These steps are for Win7 but should be very similar for XP.

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, and then click Internet Options.
3. In the Internet Options dialog box, click the Connections tab.
4. Click the LAN Settings button.
5. To enable the use of a proxy server, check the box for “Use a proxy server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections)”.
6. Enter the IP address of the proxy in the Address text box (you just got this from XROXY).
7. Enter the port number of the proxy in the Port text box.
8. Click OK to complete the proxy configuration process.

Next step is easy. Head over to the BBC iPlayer and view to your heart’s content!

WARNING! You do not want to leave the Proxy setting on after you have viewed your videos. Just follow the steps back into where you entered the Proxy number and uncheck  the box for “Use a proxy server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections).

Why you ask? Well if you leave it on it will slow down most of your web browsing as it is having to go to the UK every time you pull up your local Pizza Hut ordering page (example, I prefer Pappa Johns). Also, the Proxy numbers do EXPIRE. So you may have to repeat these steps in the future.