Last night I was eaten by wolves.
My guest pass has expired, so I went and purchased a retail copy of World of Warcraft, and am now an official player. I finished a quest or two last night, but didn’t quite level up: I think most of my friends who play will easily outstrip my progress, though I approve of Blizzard’s “resting bonus” for leveling that combats that a bit. That’s one of the reasons I’m playing: because so far the program is everything I’d want it to be. Everything makes sense and is working the way it ought to, even without the manual beside me, and it feels as though they’ve worked their butts off to make the game accessible and entertaining!
There are piledrivers working in the lot just behind my workplace. They aren’t doing the ‘clangy’ noise as much as ominous, building-shaking thuds. I now have a reference to the sound effect of a marching BattleMech.
The compelling thing about the new Doctor Who series so far isn’t the plots – standard stuff, for him – but that the creators are really focussing on how the Doctor’s presence affects those around him. They’ve touched on what it’s really like to step from the TARDIS into a strange time and place; how a Companion’s friends and family worry when their loved one disappears; and why the Doctor needs a traveling companion almost as badly as he needs his time machine. After 40 years of the show, it’s great to get a little bit inside the heads of the characters in the center.
Oh, and next week we get a Dalek 🙂
Standing Mode
raininva and I watched Robot Jox this weekend – I hadn’t seen it since the early nineties. I liked the mech designs better than I did when I first saw it, and Gary Graham’s an old genre friend now (once considered for Captain Sisko, according to the IMDB). But the script is still ungood. My favorite bit is still the one where the bad guy uses a prohibited ranged weapon during a match, causing the death of hundreds of spectators, and the referees just shrug and say “do-over!”
Contrast this to Gunhed, which has a cooler mech and more interesting characters, but is confusingly edited and is willing to let the audience make up their own explanations for a bunch of plot points. There was enough left unanswered in that flick that I was easily able to steal the whole plot for a Shadowrun game without giving too much away to the players. Still, I prefer it.
I’m trying to make a mental list of live-action “giant robot” movies that are worth spending 90 minutes or so on. Iron Man #28 looks good, but I don’t know if it will ever be dubbed or subbed. And though I love it for camp, I’m not sure I can bring myself to include the first Power Rangers Movie.
Speaking of such, I’ve procured the Cutey Honey live-action flick, which will go into the “to be watched” queue after the latest Orion Slave Girl episode of “Enterprise” and this week’s “Doctor Who”. The movie’s looking very cheesy, which of course is just what I’d be looking for.
The other serious Whovian at my office wants me to bring in the Whoman DVD that I still owe rubinpdf money for. I will do so. He has been warned 🙂
Booklist: I re-read Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, and am trying to finish his Beyond This Horizon, but the latter’s just not grabbing me. OTOH, the local library had a hardcover of Larry Niven’s Ringworld’s Children, which I’m enjoying much much more than The Ringworld Throne. It’s feeling more like SF than the “fallen-civilization fantasy” that Niven admittedly loves, but I think is a bit mined out. I’ve got another nonfiction library book on the OSS to read after that.
Wow. This got long.
Technicon 2005
I’ve always liked Niven’s Laws. I don’t slavishly agree with them, but they are an excellent source of topics to ponder.
This leads to the fact that I’ve just deleted a lengthy rant about SF/fantasy fans who, despite entreaties from their favorite authors that they start thinking for themselves, are still want to be told what to think and what to believe. The only thing we humans got that the rest of the animal kindgom didn’t is a more complex brain. It’s way past time that we as a race consider trying out some of its higher gears, just to see what happens, you know?
Ok, wow, Technicon report, cool.
Fwip!
I got a forwarded email about ip addesses today. The subject line was “fwip”. This is brought to you by the Easily Amused Association.
I saw the screener for the new Doctor Who this week, and really liked it. The episode was fun, and avoided Fox’s mistake of trying to cram too much continuity down a new viewer’s throat – though there were a few tips of the hat to we long-term fans. I was going to post some specific opinions behind a spoiler cut, but I can wait until after Technicon to do that. I imagine that TV torrent sites are getting more queries on “rose” right now than the last time “The Bachelor” got pre-empted. I’m looking forward to more!
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately reading the archives at http://www.randi.org/ – some of the anecdotes are pretty wild. I can’t honestly say I’m likely to attain the level of skepticism displayed by Randi or the late Carl Sagan, but I did work out at an early age that there are a lot of charlatans out there waiting to take advantage of anyone they can. I’m a tongue-in-cheek adherent of Discordianism partially because it doesn’t want my money and would be disappointed in me if I started doing everything it told me to 🙂
Part of the fun of being Tech Support here is getting to play legitimately with the Developer Preview of OS X 10.4. Shiny beta plaything!
Yes, Adelphia Salem carries BBC America
BBC1 announced yesterday that they are devolping a new series of “Doctor Who”, possibly to appear in 2005.
The series is to be written by Russell T. Davies, creator of the original British “Queer As Folk” series, an “absolute Doctor Who fanatic”. Despite the worried reactions of a few, a spokesperson for the Beeb did not expect a gay Doctor.
Possible candidates for the title role include Richard E Grant, who is appearing in a BBC internet version of Doctor Who; Paul McGann, who starred in the 1996 Fox version; and Alan Davies, who has been linked to the role in the past.
Who Quizzes
According to Doctor Who quizzes posted by snidegrrl and rattrap, I am the “Patrick Troughton” incarnation of the Doctor, and I have a secret crush on his companion “Zoe Herriot.”
Kind of amusing, since I’ve never seen an episode with Zoe (not counting the “Five Doctors” reunion), and little more of the Second Doctor. I think I saw half of “The War Games”, and the “Three Doctors” and “Five Doctors” reunions he was in.
But yeah, Zoe did have good taste in clothes 🙂
