In which a writer avenges himself upon his fans
“Midnight”: the most excruciatingly painful 43 minutes of Doctor Who I can remember watching.
I’ll be kinder to the science flubs from now on. This episode had no science issues, no overt plot stupidity, no unreasonable characterizations, no bad acting… and yet I can assure you I’ll never watch it again if I can help it.
The episode is a cheap “bottle” show, intended to save money (I’m sure) for the Library two-parter and what I suspect will be another three-part finale. One set, and few actors: a futuristic tour bus with a small group of tourists aboard. The episode may have been a bargain for the writing budget as well, because very little happens.
Interviewed by jazzfish
1) How’s life in Norfolk?
I really like it here. There’s more to do than I can possibly keep up with, lotsa good friends, and the scenery’s suprisingly good for a large metropolitan area. I do miss mountains, all the lovely folk in SWVA fandom, and not having to commute through a congested bridge-tunnel every day; and of course it would have been nice to be near my Mom when she got hurt. But otherwise, this is an excellent place to live.
2) What tech toy do you not own (and don’t plan on acquiring in the next three months) that you wish you did?
A GPS navigator for the Hyundai. I still do just enough convention driving and the like that it would come in handy.
3) What’s your favorite nonfiction book?
Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. It’s a brain-stretcher of a book, one that I’ve had to read many times to access most of the meaning, but one full of fascinating ideas and profound concepts involving music, art, literature, language, biology, and computers. I must be a graduate of the book by now, though, since I think his views on the future of Artificial Intelligence are quite pessimistic. OTOH, what do I know?
4) What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Working the Copy Center counter at Staples. The work itself was fine, but I had such difficulty with abrasive customers and co-workers that it made my previous job of vacuuming and emptying trash cans for an office building look absolutely peaceful.
5) How fast do you type?
To my own great surprise, around 60-65 words a minute. Surprising, because I kind of two-finger type. An actual typewriter would kill me, because I hit the “delete” key a lot. Still, my old boss at Thrifty Nickel once said I was the fastest, most accurate bad typist he’d ever seen.
Der Ruleses:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, ask them 5 questions.
Prognosis Progress
Since I’m not sure how much the grapevine knows:
Mom’s doing incredibly better. She can stand on her own for a short time, and walk fairly well with a kind of cut-down walker thingy.
Last night, she was able to move her fingers on her own. The therapist had a TENS unit causing the fingers to twitch for exercise, then suddenly looked at Mom and said, “I turned it off a few minutes ago. That right there is all you.”
So there we are. Her leg is supporting her, and her arm and hand are taking commands again. She just needs to practice a while for dexterity, and she’ll be back on the computer and back to her knitting.
This is WONDERFUL.
“Where’s the override?”
Found Iron Chef Japan on the Fine Living Network. Now I need only suffer through the occasional Martha Stewart commercial to get my fix. Sadly, NBC / Universal came down on them about the Backdraft music, and the whole show’s been re-scored by someone who didn’t really get it; but it’s better than nothing.
There’s a tire fire in North Carolina this week, and the smoke’s traveled all the way up here. The air in Portsmouth is nasty. I feel like someone in a cyberpunk book who should be walking the city streets with a small respirator. Sucks, because otherwise the heat’s much more tolerable today.
Thank goodness for the Baen Free Library and the Baen CDs. Because of those resources, I didn’t pay any money for John Ringo’s The Hero. Now, I enjoyed his first “Posleen” books well enough, though the ending of the war was unsatisfying; but this book pretends to be one story for 100 pages (!) and then, without warning, changes its mind, abandons nearly everything, and becomes a completely different story.
Imagine you’re watching the second Trek movie, getting into the story, and the first face-off between Kirk and Khan has just ended. Suddenly, a renegade cadet from the Enterprise steals the Genesis Device plans, uses the prefix codes to cause warp core breaches and destroy both ships, and hides in the Mutara Nebula in a 72-hour survival spacesuit to wait for an arranged Romulan pickup. Unknown to him, one of Khan’s men got out in a similar spacesuit, and is hunting him down as the only chance for survival.
While the “hunting each other down” part of the movie might be gripping, I assume most people’s reaction would be, “WTF? What happened to the plot I was just watching? Who are these people? I don’t even like these people.” That was my reaction to this book. Ah, well, it’s not like I don’t have lots more to read, including In The Serpent’s Coils, Grave Peril, and Little Brother (yes, it’s a free download).
Oh, and while I’m reviewing things, have I mentioned that I am now quite the Steven Moffat fan? The ending of “Forest of the Dead” had me saying to myself, “Bit of a downer, but everything lined up properly, lotsa neat stuff, some good lines. Good episode.” Then: Non-specific Spoiler
Visited By An Old Friend
My old Trek fanfic character, the one in this usericon, started as Chief Navigator on the USS Heimdal, and eventually worked his way up the ranks to Captain of the USS Yeager. “Grin’elle Kriet” was half-human, half-alien, and spent most of his Starfleet career as a Chief Engineer.
Grin’s dark secret? He was also an exiled quasi-Time Lord from the Doctor Who universe. (The concept worked better in the fic than it does in this paragraph.) He and I haven’t spoken as author and character for many years; I wrapped up all the important bits of his story arc back in the Nineties. Grin helped me begin working out some personal issues, for which I’ll always appreciate him.
Without warning, Grin’elle woke up last night, after I’d wrapped up watching “Forest of the Dead”. The conversation, expanded into English sentences, went something like this:
Hey… hey, I just heard something I don’t know if I believe. Are all the Time Lords dead? Is Gallifrey gone?
“What? Oh… er, yes, apparently so. They were all destroyed in a Time War with the Daleks… The Doctor was the only survivor. Except a few Daleks, and the Master. But he’s dead now too, as near as we can tell.”
Holy… are you kidding? I lived there for decades… I had roots there.
“You hated them. They were embarrassed by you.”
Not all of them.
“You left their universe, left it for good. Heck, you’ve set up shop in a third one for the time being.”
I know. They show Who here. Just like Trek, I make sure never to catch an episode.
“So, what do you care?”
… I’m not really sure. I’ll have to get back to you on that.
… and then he was gone, and I was left wondering where the hell all that had come from.
Stay Cool
Wow. I was sick yesterday, and Starr’s sick today. Awesome. It might very well have been dehydration on both our parts, though I drink more water these days than I have in years.
I need to watch the latest Doctor Who very soon, it is apparently most excellent, and the net is bursting with spoilers that I am carefully avoiding. Stephen Moffat may be the best Who writer on the new show, responsible for The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, The Girl In the Fireplace, and Blink; I’m not displeased at all that he’s in charge of 2010’s Series Five. The “Everybody lives!!” line still gets me right ‘there’.
And now, this year’s zombie meme:
You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:
1. one weapon.
2. one song blasting on the speakers.
3. one famous person to fight alongside you.
* Weapon can be real or fictional; you may assume endless ammo if applicable. Person can be real or fictional.
1) Phaser II, set to “vaporise”. With endless ammo, I can just hold down the trigger and sweep.
2) Queen, “Flight of the Hawkmen” (starts at about 1:08 in the video)
3) Tim the Enchanter (I think his skills would be well matched to the situation.)
Starr’s list:
1) Sonic Screwdriver (“I’m sure it has a ‘defeat zombies’ setting.”)
2) Meredith Brooks, “Bitch”
3) Kal-El
Actually, he probably made that up.
From the Canadian Press website:
OWEN SOUND, Ont. — A waitress from Owen Sound, Ont., says she can’t believe she was laid off after she had her head shaved for a cancer fundraising event.
Stacey Fearnall raised more than $2,700 for charity, but when she showed up for work and refused to sport a wig for her shift, her boss told her to take the summer off. Her employer, Dan Hilliard, says his restaurant has certain standards prohibiting men from wearing earrings and requiring employees to keep their hair at a reasonable length. He says Fearnall is still on the payroll and she can return to work once she sprouts some locks.
Hilliard admits the story isn’t great PR for the restaurant but as far as he’s concerned, it’s an internal staff problem. He says he’s already heard from some customers who agree with him and say they would have been “appalled” to have been served at Fearnall’s table.
Hey, you. Yes, you over there, the person who would be “appalled” to be served by a bald woman?
Your humanity license has been revoked, and we will begin devolving you shortly. Would you like “slime mold”, “dung beetle”, or “plankton”?
