Since I technically started the BIYF Binge yesterday and the first post from that will happen within the next couple days, this will be the last “Pre-Binge” post and it will be brief.

The master playlist is nearly complete. I’ve mocked up and inserted the one missing item in this screenshot and added signposts for the 6 “live action” events and the 2 “Zardoz has no reference material for this event” events (“The Tim Anderson Experience” Video [Excerpts] and the “Top Ten BIYF Moments” presentation). The list would take 6.9 days to run non-stop, end-to-end.

Click below to embiggen if you dare.

So, if you look to the right of this post you’ll see that I’ve set a start date for the BIYF Binge. That date is next Monday.

Memorial Day 2016. An appropriate, BIYF-y date.

Following a flurry of posts two weeks ago, I’ve gone to silent running as the nuts-and-bolts reality of the Binge has begun to sink in. I’ve been busy behind the scenes trying to lay the groundwork for (at least initial) success with this project whose scope is actually quite daunting when you start doing the math. I hope I can rely on your patience, understanding and support along the way. It’s a little terrifying and not just because of what I’ll have to watch.

I hope to re-watch as many items as possible from the last 19 BIYF Festivals within a one year span and write something about each of them in a timely fashion. That works out to at least one post every 2-3 days. And I hope to write at least marginally entertaining posts. And brevity is not always something at which I excel. Nor are complete sentences.

Plus, that “at least marginally entertaining” part means I’ll need to spend some time gathering/preparing visual materials to enhance my prose and some more time doing homework to get my facts straight. Or mostly straight. For every post. Daunting. Terrifying.

And ultimately low-stakes in the grand scheme of things, I know. Still, it’s something I’d like to do for us in this landmark year leading up to BIYF XX. Hopefully it will be something you enjoy. Hopefully it will be something I live through.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what will be a suitable model I can use for these posts. In a perfect world I’d like to post a legitimate, stands-on-its-own, readable-by-the-non-BIYF-masses review for each each item. There’s a couple problems with that idea.

First, there’s no way I will be able to sustain that over the timeframe I have and still work a job and live a life. It’s just not a reasonable goal at the pace of a post every 2 or 3 days. That way lies madness, homelessness, starvation, and divorce.

Second, there’s already a ton of reviews of almost everything we’ve watched out there on The Internet just waiting to be found and consumed. While I’d like to think I could produce the ultimate review of the items in our catalog, a lot of the stuff that already exists is really pretty good. Why reinvent the wheel when you can just link to it instead?

Which brings me to my revised, grounded-in-reality goal. Since this whole endeavor is honestly just a nostalgia-based exercise, all I really hope to do is remind you that each of these things on our list exists and that we watched (or in some cases did) them. I’ll try to do this in an entertaining fashion. I’ll provide some facts, some images, some links, some commentary, and whenever possible I’ll attempt to integrate some part of our BIYF history into the narrative. I don’t know how successful I’ll be, but I think this is at least within the realm of the possible.

I hope the “BIYF history” that makes its way into these posts is a shared one, just as the events that produced it have been. I’ll give you my two-cents-worth here, but my best-case-scenario is that you’ll also share your thoughts and memories in the comments. That way, when I work on v2.0 after the Binge (the “permanent” version) it won’t just be a record of my thoughts, but ours.

Thanks in advance for any help you’re able to offer/memories you’re able to add and let me know if you need any help with blog logins or technical issues. I’ve almost accepted my fate and the BIYF Binge will begin shortly.

As per plans outlined in a previous post, I’ve been contemplating how our Friend (“My friend, your friend… everybody’s friend.”) can help me get through the impending marathon. On the plus side, we know there’s an abundance of new, geek-targeted, and really quite tasty beer out there so keeping an appropriately nerdy selection of these stocked in reserve at all times should be quite easy.

Quite easy, especially since I’m planning on limited consumption during the viewing. Hmm… maybe my “One Beer Per Session” should always be a large bottle…

Plus, I feel like I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on selecting beer over the years. At least at selecting it for me.

Wine?
Not so much. Also, outside the scope of this experiment.

Hard alcohol?
Man, I haven’t really spent any substantial time with hard alcohol since college and back then it was not a relationship founded on quality. Which means I’ve had to do a little research because my “In Case of Dire Emergency Where One Beer Will Not Be Enough” plan involves mixing a drink using my as-yet-unopened Outer Space vodka. A single drink, to supplement the single beer per session if needed. It sounds so inadequate when I say it aloud.

If the price is any indication (and I’m going to pretend it is, even if it isn’t), the Outer Space vodka should at least be a decent base to work from for a mixed drink. But what mixed drinks should I mix? Fortunately, The Internet is always willing to help:

The Drunken Moogle looks like it will provide me with a good starting point when needed. I can search by an ingredient (such as vodka) and there’s a decent selection of genre-inspired drinks to choose from.

Based on a very brief search, I don’t think I’ll lack for other resources if this one eventually fails me. So many choices.

I’m hoping I won’t have to resort mixing drinks too frequently anyway. I have to ration my supply and save it up for those really challenging slogs later in the marathon. After all, there’s only the one bottle of Outer Space vodka in the house and once it’s gone, it’s gone. It will not be refilled/replaced during the marathon. I’m thinking of it as an emergency health/mana potion.

If you have any favorite vodka drinks that you think should be in my arsenal for this undertaking, please let me know in the comments section. And hurry! I’m running out of delaying tactics and may actually have to start watching things soon!

Well, I was asking for help in delaying the start of the BIYF Binge and The Internet obliged. It was most likely a bot (and not a hot, yet scruffy-looking, Romulan/Vulcan-cosplay-esque “hacker”) that latched onto a vulnerability in an old, unused, and unupdated WordPress installation and uploaded a bunch of crap to the server. It may have been something else entirely, but either way it was invasive enough that I think nuking everything from orbit was the safest and easiest course of action. Really, it’s the only way to be sure. Plus, delay delay delay!

Also, now I can slowly bring back old things and call them NEW again.

And I can post them behind the “member” login off the front page of BIYF.com as I bring them back to screen out search engines and nosy, but lazy, uninvited visitors. If you don’t remember the casual, not-highly-secure screener login to BIYF.com just let me know.

And I can consolidate everything down into a single hosting plan to save a few strips of gold-pressed latinum ever year. It’s been scattered over two plans for many years now for no good reason beyond me not wanting to rewire everything at the site. This is no longer an issue holding me back…

But that’s the future, we’re still in the now! And right now I’m still waiting for a couple last video items (on their way from Rollerballer) and I’m still hoping against hope to find out if any reference materials still exist from the 2006 “The Tim Anderson Experience” video or the 2007 “Top Ten BIYF Moments” presentation. Any news about those last two will be welcome, even if it’s “Nope, all materials pertaining to these two BIYF Viewing Moments have been destroyed to prevent them falling into the wrong hands. Hands such as yours…”

Hopefully I’ll have everything I need and know everything I need to know before Memorial Day Weekend, my tentative start date for the BIYF Binge. Your assistance is very much appreciated.

As mentioned repeatedly in several different venues, all logins for the new blog have been created and sent out. As before, please feel free to change your passwords to your liking. Also, please remember that I’ll have to manually approve your first comment and then you should be able to post comments at will after that.

I’ve been tweaking the layout of the new blog and will likely continue do so. If you’re reading this you’ve probably noticed, but in case you haven’t (or you’re viewing this on a smaller screen) here’s an image that highlights a few of the tweaks currently in place:

It’s good to be back up and running and I’m actually looking forward to doing more stuff here. Honest and for true. I’m amazed I’ve managed to eek out as many posts “about” the BIYF Binge as I have without actually being forced to start the BIYF Binge. Here’s hoping I can keep my streak going and stall for a bit longer!

Thanks again for your patience through this and I look forward to hearing your thoughts here. Once I give you some actual content instead of marking time, of course…

Or if you happen to have any information about the 2006 “The Tim Anderson Experience” video or the 2007 “Top Ten BIYF Moments” presentation…

Addendum (5/11/16): I just noticed the bit pictured to the right doesn’t show up for me when I’m logged in (as I was for the screenshot above). Since it’s not pictured there, I’ll point it out here.

Normally, this is found in the upper part of the left column (above the BIYF Viewing History) and it provides a way to sign up and be notified by email when new stuff is posted here. This may or may not be of interest to you. I’m curious what it looks like for you guys when you’re logged in, but not so curious that I can be bothered to log in as one of you and look. I just wanted you to know it exists.

I’m still not doing a review of Millennium, but if I was it might include a graphic like this one (among other things):

Well, I’ve nearly made it to the Abyss and I’m prepared for a lot of screaming once I take the plunge. Fortunately, there’s still a bit of delaying to be had. Some of it isn’t even of my doing! But most of it is.

I’ve connected with Rollerballer and I think we’ve got a plan worked out to get me the items I need from him. There’ll be a short delay on this, but I believe I’ll have them before long. I’ve poked the bear (or guy-in-a-bear-suit?) a couple times regarding the two viewing items that I’m not sure still exist in any form. No responses yet, but I’ll keep poking until I find out more or it wakes up and mauls me. Either is acceptable. My money is on “I’m waiting for information about this topic” being the best delaying tactic available to my arsenal. Don’t let me down!

Even the American minimum wage workforce has pitched in to help delay things for me. The last item I was waiting to receive from Amazon (well, technically an Amazon partner business) was a used copy of the non-special edition version of “Free Enterprise.” Yep, not only am I going to watch “Free Enterprise” twice, I’m going to watch both versions just as we did at BIYF. This may seem silly but remember, “Free Enterprise” is a very watchable film unlike so many other things on the viewing list… The package arrived on Friday and I opened it to discover this:

In case it isn’t obvious, that is not “Free Enterprise.” I honestly don’t know what it is. It is so low budget, “indie,” direct-to-VHS, and off-the-radar that no one has even bothered to put a plot description into IMDB for it. There is a description on the back of the very “I made this artwork myself using Microsoft Paint!” packaging, however:

A brief scan of the film (not actually watching it) suggests that invoking things like “Alice in Wonderland,” Howard Hawks, psychedelic, and David Lynch in the description may be overselling things a bit. Quite a bit.

To their credit, the vendor immediately refunded my entire purchase and included this delightful endorsement of the product I had mistakenly received:

“Regarding the item(s) in question, please dispose of it as you see fit – there is no need to return it.”

Overall no-harm-no-foul, but in the end I still need a copy of the basic, no-frills edition of “Free Enterprise.” It has been re-ordered from a different used-video supplier and should arrive in a few days.

The only other news from this week is that I tried out my note-taking sheet by reviewing 1989’s “Millennium” starring Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd. While I don’t think I’ll actually bother writing up a review for this (there’ll be plenty of that sort of thing headed my way), I am fairly confident I would have enough material from my notes to do so. I’ll probably try it out one more time (“Pathfinder” 2007, starring Karl Urban, Clancy Brown, and Moon Bloodgood perhaps?) before I finally get things started.

If you have any thoughts on any of this, have any materials/know anything about the Tim Anderson Experience video or BIYF Top Ten List, would really like us to watch “Rebellious” at an upcoming BIYF Festival, or think I’m being lazy and should write a review for “Millennium” and/or “Pathfinder,” just let me know in the comments below. I’ll keep knocking out a post a week here until the BIYF Binge actually begins and everything goes to hell.