Wherein I go on and on about "A Song of Ice and Fire" - slash - "Game of Thrones"

I saw it first on io9. George R.R. Martin is doing a "coffee table book" about the world of "A Song of Ice and Fire".

Because clearly he does not have enough on his plate.

*inhales sharply*

*exhales slowly*

Mr. Martin. I realize that you are not my bitch. Neil Gaiman said so. I get that. Frankly, were I to have a "bitch", you would not be my first choice. You wouldn't make it into the long list, frankly. That said, WOULD YOU PLEASE FOCUS ON FUCKING WRITING THE REST OF THE GODDAMN SERIES AND STOP GETTING DISTRACTED BY THESE RIDICULOUS SIDE-PROJECTS????

You're not getting any younger and HBO is filming faster than you're writing. This series is clearly your opus or whatever. It would be lovely if you'd get the goddamn story done. Preferrably without going off on weird tangents with characters nobody gives a shit about (*cough* Theon *cough*).

There. That felt good. Okay, so HBO's "Game of Thrones". You know, I mostly don't comment on this show 'cause I don't have HBO. I've got the DVDs and watch them when I need a good distraction of crazy shit or just watching Peter Dinklege play Tyrion Lannister owning the screen.

I've felt that the staff for the series have done an absolutely-brilliant job with the casting. My only sense of wariness came from the casting of Kit Harington as Jon Snow, but I have to admit Harington has won me over. Snow is a pretty boring character, all-said, and Harington actually does a pretty awesome job handling that.

What really surprises me is how well the FX department does with Dany's dragons. Damn but they've done a great job making those little (and growing) bastards look realistic.

My only remaining bit of whining is how the Others are portrayed. They just don't have that weird, otherworldly-beauty that Martin describes in the series. I pictured them as cold, homicidal ice-elves, but they look more like pale, prune-skinned cavemen. Kinda weak.

Damn good series. Gives me hope that television can continue to produce good stuff, if they pay attention.

Okay George, back to work. Bitch. *WHIP CRACK!*

Review: Best Made Light Waxed Cruiser

I bought the Best Made Company Light Waxed Cruiser in a moment of insanity to distract myself from life stuff.

I do that a lot. It's a bad habit, but it's gotten me some really interesting things.

This is one of them.

The Cruiser is a lightweight coat that's perfect for Spring or Autumn weather but also is remarkably useful in a San Francisco summer. It breathes nicely and has a good fit.

And the pockets. Sweet FSM, the pockets! I can cram nearly everything I normally carry in the two snap pockets. There's hand-warmer pockets on the chest, which is a bit awkward, but works out okay and fits small things (like a pack of gum or whatever). And then there's the vast interior space.

The jacket as two deep interior pockets that ultimately connect to the big game pocket in back. Just in case you want to smuggle most of your belongings with you for some reason.

I've easily crammed in a big book with nary a bulge in the coat.

The coat's construction is really solid. Lots of reinforced snaps and good material. It also comes with a small tin of wax. Y'know, for the "waxed" part of the "Light Waxed Cruiser" description.

It's my first purchase from Best Made Company and I have to say I'm really impressed. The coat isn't cheap, but I have not felt even a moment of buyer's remorse. I'm glad I got it and now resent the warm weather a bit, as it's not currently comfortable weather for such a coat.

Aaaaaaaah...

Four days off and I'm back at the salt mines.

Damn but that was a nice little break. Just what I needed and when I most needed it.

Slept in every day as late as my noisy neighbors would let me.

Lounged around like a lazy slob. Did a little light housecleaning but otherwise finished off the case of homebrew I bought earlier in the month and watched my DVDs of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, "Game of Thrones" as well as "Person of Interest". Mixed in The Two Towers just for shits and giggles.

Painted some miniatures I'd had laying around for ages. I'm amazed I still have good paint.

Read more of "Under Heaven" (which inspired me to re-watch Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon).

When I left my apartment at all, it was for groceries, to buy some miniatures (for the aforementioned painting), or to hit a bar-slash-brewery.

Actually, as I look back on this, I wonder how the hell I fit all this in over four days given all the sleeping I did.

Time to get back on the wagon and start exercising again. It was nice to be a lazy blob, but can't slip back into horrible habits too much.

I could totally adapt to living a life of leisure.

To boldly go

Saw Star Trek: Into Darkness. I can't really write a review 'cause to say anything spoils it. It's not original by any means and there's the normal Abrams-Lindeloff plot holes, but overall it was a fun ride. Good popcorn movie. I'm leaning towards liking Iron Man 3 a smidge more, but it's close. Certainly I thought it was matinee money well-spent.

Review: The Ridge Front Pocket Wallet

One of the myriad Kickstarters I backed was one of those RFID-blocking wallet concepts known as "The Ridge".

Mine arrived the other day.

I'm a sucker for a nice wallet concept and I have to admit the aesthetics of The Ridge appealed to me.

The pictures don't quite do it justice, however.

The Ridge is a small thing, barely larger than my cards, giving it a very slim profile in my pocket. I'm barely aware the thing is there, truth be told. Though comparing against the beast of a wallet I usually carry is an unfair comparison.

It's a pair of metal plates (I opted for Titanium) (I'm a crackhead... I got aluminum) held together by integrated elastic strips that seem quite sturdy. You can opt for a money-clip on the side.

The little bugger has some serious capacity. I crammed all my cards into it as a test run and it handled it fine. This may be my "fancy outings" wallet, when there's a need.

The Kickstarter is, of course, over and funded. The makers have a site now: www.ridgewallet.com. I recommend perusing and seeing if there's a style that appeals. It's a nice wallet for folks who want to keep their cards and travel light.

Thoughts on the Doctor - 2

This gets spoilery. Adding line breaks for hand-held readers (if such exist) then deprecated font tags to obscure text in browsers, 'cause I don't know how else to consistently hide text behind a layer.


















































You were warned:


So there's much speculation as to who this "not-Doctor" incarnation is. From what I can gather from various websites, the main theory is that this incarnation of the Time Lord known as "The Doctor" is actually the one who fought in the Time War and wound up obliterating Gallifrey and the Daleks.

If that's the case, the entire "mystery" of this incarnation gets weirdly hollow and feels like a cheat. We already know from the angst of the PTSD 9th Doctor (played by the brilliant Christopher Eccleston) that the Doctor wiped out both Gallifrey and the Daleks (or tried to in the latter case). The 9th Doctor and 10th Doctor both own up to this, so it seems to me that the Doctor is willing to accept that he (in whatever incarnation) is responsible for that act.

I suppose this comes down to the question of sequence. Is this "not-Doctor" the first incarnation (as I think fits best) or is he between the 8th Doctor (played by Paul McGann) and the 9th Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston) - which could work, but is kind of a cop-out, or is he a future incarnation? If he's a post-11th incarnation, how would the 11th Doctor have recognized him and speak of him in past-tense?

No, for this to work, the "not-Doctor" has to be an incarnation that precedes Smith's 11th Doctor.

So where does the "not-Doctor" lie in the sequence?

Well, I expect that will be the plot of the 50th anniversary episode in November. I'm kind of hoping they go with having John Hurt's "not-Doctor" be the original. I kind of like the concept of the original Time Lord being a misguided soul who commits such a terrible crime that he becomes "the Doctor" (the one who "makes people better", as John Simm's version of the Master sneered) to try to atone for his crimes.

Actually, what I think would make things utterly-brilliant would be something like this: the original incarnation of the Time Lord later known as "the Doctor" sets out to accomplish some sort of great good. He follows that road of intentions that invariably leads to a hot place and becomes a monster. His family tries to stop him. His wife and children attempt to bring him back from the brink. They fail and all die, either at his hands or due to some inattention on his part. The only family left behind is his grand-daughter (and, if you want to believe "The Woman" from the "End of Time" was the Doctor's mother, then she survives too...). The Time Lord who will become the Doctor is overcome by this and stops whatever it is that he's doing. This causes him to regenerate. He returns to Gallifrey and is somehow able to get back into the fold as the First Doctor. He retrieves his grand-daughter and they steal a TARDIS from a maintenance area or museum (depending on how the story is told). They journey across time-and-space until arriving at Earth where she takes the name Susan and a legend is born.

Thematically, this works. It gives a great motivation for the Doctor's actions and it colors his origins with darkness, which has been a recurring theme since even the McCoy era.

I doubt this is what Moffatt has in mind, but I can dream the dream.

Now I wonder if there are plans to bring Susan back into the story. She's been gone for a long, long time. As far as any indications lie in the series, she was presumably a Time Lady when she ran off with a mere-mortal human in "The Dalek Invasion of the Earth", so she should still be alive. Even if she underwent a Chameleon Arch transformation, she could have always had a way to restore herself and regenerate when old age got to be too much. It's not unreasonable to bring her back into the story at some point.

Okay, at this point, I'm just spinning.

Because I haven't rambled enough

So I'm starting a new book: "Under Heaven" by Guy Gavriel Kay (whose parents must have been hard-core Arthurian legends fans or something).

Set in a not-quite-ancient-China, it's got me hooked thus far. A buddy of mine told me there's a second book set in this world I should get it on order before I finish this one.

---

I really should go on the wagon this week. Last week was brutal. I wonder how long I'll maintain my resolve on this little idea? I give myself ten minutes. Max.

---

Cops everywhere this morning. Wonder if they're looking for someone or if it's quota day?

Lessons over the last four days

• When your back is hurting you, don't wear a messenger bag when riding your bike. Wear a backpack. Makes all the difference.
• Mai tais are my friend.
• I take "Doctor Who" way the hell too seriously.

Thoughts on the Doctor

"The Name of the Doctor" wasn't perfect, but it did a solid job of exploring the mythos of the Doctor without completely hosing the established canon.

From my own personal perusal of the series since... well, a long, long time ago... it seems the following is pretty much canon:

• The Doctor is a Time Lord
• Time Lords of Gallifrey can only regenerate 12 times, meaning there can never be more than 13 incarnations of a Time Lord. (source: "The Deadly Assassin")
• The so-called "Rule of 12" has been broken before by Rassilon (the revered demi-god like founder of Time Lord society) and the Master. (source: "The Five Doctors" and the later return of The Master)
• It's not uncommon for some Time Lords to adopt a pseudonym in the form of some kind of title ("The Doctor", "The Master", "The Rani", "The Corsair")
• There have been 11 incarnations of a Time Lord calling himself "The Doctor" (source: various, mainly BBC statements)
• The Doctor once had a family including parents, siblings, a wife, children, and at least one grand-child. (source: mostly conjecture from statements made by Russel T. Davies regarding "The Woman" in "End of Time" pt. 1 and 2. The only confirmed family was his grand-daughter Susan from the 1st Doctor's era)
• All of the Doctor's family was dead (or believed by him to be dead) by the time of the Ninth Doctor. (source: multiple references made by the 9th and 10th Doctors)
• The Doctor talks a lot about laws of time but breaks them a fair amount. This includes crossing his own timeline more than once. (source: "The Three Doctors", "The Five Doctors", the "Trial of a Time Lord" arc, "The Two Doctors", etc.)
• At some point, a being will come about that is a distillation of the Doctor's "dark side". This being, known as "The Valeyard" will manifest between his 12th and final incarnations. (source: "Trial of a Time Lord" from the 7th Doctor's era)
• The Time Lords are all gone, as far as the Doctor knows. They are locked in the Time War.
• There are quasi-Time Lords out there. Namely Jenny ("The Doctor's Daughter"), Donna Noble (has some kind of Doctor-Donna meshing thing going on there), and River Song.
• The Valeyard somehow manages to travel back in time to Gallifrey from at least five incarnations in his future to cross his own timeline and try to steal the life of the 7th Doctor (probably due to his fashion crimes).
• Spoiler: There is another incarnation of the Time Lord who calls himself "the Doctor". This incarnation committed some kind of horrible crimes and is not considered "The Doctor" by his other incarnations.

That's a pretty rich background. It gives the otherwise-immortal Doctor a limit on his long, long life and it introduces a hint of tragedy to his story. The Doctor repeatedly stated he left Gallifrey to escape boredom, but he and his grand-daughter fled Gallifrey by stealing a TARDIS. That's not really an act of escaping boredom. That's more an act of a couple of fugitives. Add to that the claims of the Doctor that his family is "dead", it raises an interesting question.

So what if the Doctor was fleeing Gallifrey to escape some kind of persecution, perhaps for a crime of some sort? What if the Doctor's family was executed or killed as part of this crime? So you have the Doctor fleeing with the last remaining member of his family and getting the hell out while he can.

Oh, it's not canon, but it gives a more feasible explanation for an elderly being committing a crime punishable by death in his society and dragging his grand-child into it.

"The Name of the Doctor" takes that little speculation of mine a bit further, though. Spoiler:

So this "other incarnation" of the Doctor's is a complete mystery. The 11th Doctor knew who he was. The Great Intelligence implied that the Doctor's last incarnation was a brutal, evil, monster who led an army in violence and died in a final battle. The implication was that the "other incarnation" was that version of the Doctor, but the 11th knew him by face. Not really workable if the "other" was a future incarnation.

So what if this "other" incarnation is the original? What if the Time Lord known as the Doctor started out as... well, misguided. He got carried away and did terrible things. As a result, his family suffered and died. He regenerated and took a new name: "The Doctor". And thus the First Doctor was born. He goes and finds his only surviving family on Gallifrey, takes her, then steals the TARDIS. A legend is born.

That doesn't rule out the Doctor's story ending in a dark place, though. The 13th incarnation of this Time Lord (who would be the 12th Doctor) could still transform into the so-called monster who dies at Trenzalore.

I dunno. I have to say, I'm kind of digging the possibilities.

Book Review: "The Riyria Revelations"

Last night I finished "Heir of Novron", the third book of "The Riyria Revelations" by Michael J. Sullivan.

Set in a generic fantasy world of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, and Goblins, the story centers around Royce and Hadrian, a pair of mercenary thieves who accomplish high-end missions for a price. Royce is a stereotypical thief with excellent night vision and absolutely no morals whatsoever while Hadrian is the greatest swordsman in the world and has a strange sense of idealism and honor.

The two find themselves in the employ of a novice sorceress and princess to save her brother. From there, the two find themselves embroiled in fantastical adventures resulting in your usual saving of the world.

Sullivan's world is reminiscent of a D&D campaign version of Tolkien myths, but it plays out interestingly. Humans appear to be the dominant species in the world. Elves and Dwarves are subject races and second-class-citizens, at best while Goblins are slain on sight. The dominant religion is, by turns, kind and psychotically-evil. Themes of intolerance, nobility, and relationships are threaded throughout the story in the three novels. The novels themselves are really just collections of smaller books with self-contained, yet linked, stories. It's good stuff, especially with the fit hits the shan in the third book. It's choppy and cliche in many parts, but I found it to be a fun read. It's certainly better than a lot of other crap out there. I recommend it if you're in the mood for some fluffy fantasy.

Review: "The Name of the Doctor"

And so we come to the finale for "series seven" of "Doctor Who". Yes, today was "The Name of the Doctor".

So I've had more than a few harsh things to say about series seven, especially the second half that has included Clara "Oswin" Oswald. I made no secret that I expected this finale to suck ass.

Perhaps it was that I'd mentally set my bar very, very low (subterranean low) but I have to say I didn't completely loathe this episode. Oh, the story was choppy and poorly-paced. The villains were sadly under-utilized and the grand ideas didn't quite get smoothly delivered. That said... well... spoilers follow:














































Still there? You've been warned.

The episode opens on Gallifrey. An old man and a girl are stealing a TARDIS from a maintenance area when Clara warns the old man he is making a mistake. The old man is, of course, the First Doctor. Flash to Victorian England. Madam Vastra meeting up with some creepy guy in a Victorian prison. This guy, a convicted mass murderer, offers Vastra information on the Doctor and Trenzalore in exchange for his life.

Trenzalore, if you don't recall, is a location at which the Doctor will answer the question "Doctor Who?". That's the thing the Silence was all hot and bothered over.

Oh, and just to get it out of the way, the Silence doesn't appear in this episode. They aren't even mentioned. Yeah, I thought that was a ridiculous failed opportunity as well. For all that, color me unsurprised, but moving on...

Vastra, Jenny, and Strax do a "conference call" with Clara and River Song (yeah... what? Don't think too hard on this part) by going into some kind of dream state that allows cross-time face-time psychic conversations.

How did Vastra know how to get a letter to Clara to get her in this loop? It's Moffatt hand-waving. Don't ask logical questions. It'll just make you feel frustrated. Moving on...

They're all chatting about Trenzalore. River Song, as usual, smugly indicates she knows far more than anyone else (including the Doctor's name) despite the fact she's dead (or she isn't dead, I'm really unclear on this bit).

Meanwhile, "the Whisper Men", weird creepy guys in suits without eyes and terrible dental work snag Jenny, then Vastra, then Strax before intruding on the dreamspace to attack River and Clara. Clara awakes in the 21st century to find the Doctor there. She tells him about the convict and the mention of Trenzalore. The Doctor freaks out. So it turns out that Trenzalore is important to his timeline. It's where he dies and his tomb is set.

Following a taunting message from the Great Intelligence (the arc-villain this half-season), the Doctor and Clara head to Trenzalore. The TARDIS is uncooperative, but they still manage to get to the planet. There, the two are beset by Whisper Men while River Song's presence, seeming unnoticed by the Doctor, talks to Clara to advise her ways to avoid their pursuit.

Turns out there's a giant graveyard on Trenzalore, including a HUGE tomb in the form of a Police Box. Yes, the Doctor's tomb is the TARDIS and it's grown a bit.

The Doctor and Clara reunite with a revived Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. The Great Intelligence and his Whisper Men surround the group. The GI threatens to kill the Doctor's companions unless the Doctor opens the tomb. The only way to do so? The Doctor must speak his real name.

Okay, let's be clear here: we don't hear his real name spoken. The whole thing is a giant red herring. The ghost of River Song somehow opens the door, even though nobody can see or hear her and we never hear the Doctor's name spoken. Turns out the GI wants to find the maker of the Doctor's death: a time rift that connects to all of his past. The GI wants to go back in time and kill the Doctor simultaneously in every incarnation while disrupting his life. This act will obliterate the Great Intelligence, but it's a comic-book villain and it's okay with this. So it pops back and the Doctor starts convulsing in pain. While Jenny vanishes from time and Vastra fights with Strax (vaporizing him), Clara reasons with River that someone can go back in time and try to stop the GI. Clara, obviously, chooses to do this. This act will fracture her across time-and-space. She won't be her but she'll be echoes of her. Thanks to the TARDIS-tomb, she's already recalling the mind-numbing bad-writing from "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS" and realizes the mystery around her. As she jumps into the Doctor's timeline, this obviously solves that little mystery. Everyone is magically healed by timey-whimey bullshit and the Doctor, anxious to save Clara, says his final good-byes to River Song's ghost (he always knew she was there, but ignored her 'cause he's a giant asshole). He then jumps into his timeline and retrieves Clara, but not before meeting someone.

You see, Clara has crossed paths with every incarnation of the Doctor. All the ones we know about. Pretty much every incarnation gets a little cameo except the 8th and the 10th. At the very end, there's another there in the Doctor's timeline. Clara doesn't recognize him, but the Doctor does. This one is yet another incarnation of the being who holds the name of "the Doctor".

Here's where this actually gets kind of clever. Canon is that there's been eleven Doctors. Eleven incarnations of the Time Lord known as "the Doctor". That does not necessarily mean that this Time Lord has had eleven incarnations. Apparently there's been another incarnation that has held a different name. One that the 11th Doctor rejects as not having had the name, 'cause he's done terrible, horrible things. And this incarnation is played by John Hurt. He will presumably be the central character in the 50th anniversary episode airing on Nov 23, 'cause the episode ends on that note.

Review: Iron Man 3

Aaaaah... good times.

So I saw Iron Man 3 this afternoon. That was a fun movie.

Set in the aftermath of The Avengers, Tony Stark is being Tony Stark when the villainous terrorist known as The Mandarin strikes. Hilarity ensues in the form of untraceable explosives and super-human soldiers who put Stark on the ropes for a bit, but it's hard to keep an Iron Man down.

Yeah, I'm being dodgy with the plot details. I don't really want to spoil anything. Iron Man 3 was a solid popcorn film. Interesting comic-booky plot with good action sequences and some surprisingly-engaging asides. I was especially shocked by watching scenes with a tween-age kid that not only didn't annoy me, but I actually liked the kid and thoroughly enjoyed the dynamic between him and Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark. Those small details raised this film out of the mediocre category for me.

Solid film. I highly recommend it and look forward to comparing it against Star Trek: Into Darkness when I have a chance.

From Bob's Mouth to the BBC's Ears

Sing it, Bob the Angry Flower!

I love Doctor Who fans

This is freakin' awesome.

Brief notes to parts of the world

• Dear North Carolina: You appear unclear on the concept of capitalism and competition.
• Dear North Carolina: Um... climate change doesn't give a shit if you believe in it. Hiding your head in the sand just means you aren't going to see the water come in.
• Dear ABC and Joss Whedon: SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!
• Dear Disney: I could have told you this would happen.

Just... wow

The Eighties Will Never Die

I went bowling on Monday night.

Well, strictly-speaking, I was with people who were bowling. My shoulder is utterly hosed and I can't swing my arm properly to bowl. I "tended bar" (took charge of the pitcher of beer and made sure everyone was full).

All the while, the bowling alley blasted music from the '80's.

• "Here I go Again" by Whitesnake
• "Heart and Soul" by T'Pau (raise your hand if you know where the band got their name)
• "Mr. Roboto" by Styx

And the list goes on. It was like a really bad flashback for me. Suddenly I was wondering why I wasn't wearing a jeans jacket and where all the mullets and glam-rock hair went.

Last night, after another after-work gathering (this week is insane), I found some CDs that I must have obtained at some point with various "greatest hits" from across the 1980's.

I ripped many of the songs and put 'em on my iPod.

Whitesnake just blasted my ears and now I'm hearing the Bangles sing a remix of "Hazy Shade of Winter".

I've invented my own personal hell.

whee

One of the elevators does not work. Two bathrooms are out-of-service. One of our water fountains has crapped-out.

Yeah. Things are lookin' good in the office for today. And it's not even 6am yet.

bleary-eyed it shambles forth...

Oooof! Lots of terrible-for-you snacks for dinner coupled with more beer than is a good idea on a Monday night. And this was somewhat work-related.

Probably wouldn't be too bad except that something among the fried foods does not agree with my stomach. Ye gods.

Doesn't help that some jackass neighbor was playing his TV/radio fairly loud at 3am.

The week of crazy has just begun...

Series Seven Finale kerfluffle

The Internet claims some DVDs for the finale ("The Name of the Doctor") shipped early and the BBC/Moffatt is pleading for folks not to spoil it.

I'm calling bullshit on this. Asking the Internet not to post spoilers is like asking fire not to burn. If there was really copies out there, there would be valid hits on the first page of a Google search for "Doctor Who" or "The Name of the Doctor spoilers".

Yes, I tried.

Personally, I'm still expecting bitter disappointment with this episode. I guess there's always the slim chance I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Sweet FSM I'm bitter.

The Pondering

I'm wondering if I was too harsh in my reactions to "Nightmare in Silver".

I did like the return of the Cybermen and the beefing-up of them as a villain. For the most part, while I found the supporting cast largely stupid they weren't any worse than most supporting cast in a "Doctor Who" ep.

I loathed the children, but I'm wondering if that was intentional on Gaiman's part?

But I still can't quite get past the Doctor's being kind of a douche. Funny how much that's mattering to me these days.

My Own Personal Recap - not terribly interesting

Well, that was a hell of a weekend.

• Bar-hopping. Ill-advised, but much-needed and much-welcome bar-hopping.
• A fun game.
• A well-done Mother's Day

Getting to the Mother's Day celebration was an epic pooch-screw. Closed roads, crazy-ass traffic, and ever dumbshit who could acquire car keys on the road. That was terrific fun.

Still, got to practice my mai tai skills again. Got the thumb's up from the paternal unit, so I'm doing something right in that regard.

Today starts THE WEEK OF CRAZY. 'Cause last week wasn't nuts enough. Le sigh.

The Eleventh Doctor is kind of a creep

One of the most disturbing elements I've found of "Series Seven" of "Doctor Who" has been the slow-but-steady progression to make Smith's Doctor a really creepy character.



Spoilers are littered about my observations. I'm not going to bother to mask the text as this isn't an episode review, so be warned.































Still there? Okay...









So the Eleventh Doctor comes into being amidst explosions and his TARDIS freaking the hell out. He meets a little girl and helps her out, then orbits her life to meet her again when she's older and more mature. He ties his life to hers, makes certain she gets together with the guy who is crazy about her. He's pretty much got the Ponds as his pet humans.


Then things take a turn for the douchy. The Doctor finds out that River Song, the smug, time-traveling Mary Sue from his future is actually the Time Lady-esque daughter of Amy and Rory. Conceived in the TARDIS, she has special Time Lord-fu.

The Doctor occasionally makes out with her, which is a special brand of creepy as she's not only centuries younger than him, but a different species and the daughter of his best friends. Okay, all that said, the moment comes when they get married. But even when that happens, the Doctor treats the entire thing as a means to humor a nutjob. He is contemptuous of River throughout the entire experience and clearly treats the entire matter as a joke.

Cue ahead a few adventures. Amy and Rory fall victim to one of the Doctor's many foes and are hurled back in time.

The Doctor, at this point, sinks into a terrible depression and isolates himself from everyone.

Nevermind the Doctor has had companions die before (though Adric was sort of a dork, the Doctor did seem fond of him). The Doctor out-lives humans. He's a millennium old. You'd think he'd accept that. Plus, Amy and Rory are hurled back in time. The Doctor is a freakin' time-traveller! Even with arbitrary and contrived bullshitty rules in place, he can travel in time! Okay, so he can't take the TARDIS to them. He could take the TARDIS to a hundred miles from them and hail a cab or something to say "hi". If there's contrived bullshit to keep him from taking them out of those timelines... well, okay. Leave them be. Whatever floats your boat, Doc.

Flash to Victorian England. The Doctor is sulking with very, very understanding friends who humor the fact that the Doctor has regressed to being an emotional 8-year-old. He meets Clara-the-Barmaid. Vastra teases the Doctor after he ditches Clara as though the Doctor is out trolling for a date.

Mind you, I don't understand what the Doctor was even doing walking around when he met Clara. If he was isolating himself from everyone, why leave the TARDIS at all? Hell, why go to Earth? Why not just land on the Moon or something?

Whatever. He's in a sulk, then Clara comes along. The Doctor gets involved and everyone sneers that it's due to Clara's pretty face. Then Clara is killed.

Then the Doctor goes off the freak-end. He becomes convinced Clara isn't properly dead (despite the fact she's died twice around him) and jaunts off in the TARDIS to find her like the creepiest of creepy stalkers. He finds her (more than once) and immediately pants around her like a teenage boy around his first crush. He comes off like... well... a teenage boy or a creepy molester with a van and convinces this clearly-not-too-bright incarnation of Clara to jaunt off with him. There's constant flirting and the Doctor's obsession over this "mystery" surrounding Clara that's a bit hard to follow. I mean, the Doctor knows he has enemies out there. Enemies with access to time travel (hello the Silence) and they like doing traps. What possesses him to think Clara is anything other than a trap? And if she is, why do the whole game around her? He's convincing himself she's normal but he's also convincing himself he's not. He sounds like a raving psycho in every episode and in the latest, he sounds like a freakin' lecher when he's fantasizing about her skirt.

Moffatt has turned the Doctor into the Creep. And this does not please me.

Review: "Nightmare in Silver"

Well, they were doing well with "The Crimson Horror". Then this came along.

Spoilers follow.
















































Okay, so... hiding the text as best I can.

The Doctor takes Clara and the two brats she nannies to some amusement park planet. There they meet some weird dude who is a con-artist of some kind. Does fraudulent chess games with a fake Cyberman run by a small guy named Porridge (hello "Willow").

Next thing you know, there's Cybermen on the planet with little cyber-mites that can take the con-artist then the kids, then the Doctor.

You see, they've upgraded now and can take over anything and anyone. The Doctor engages in a chess match with the fake personality trying to take over his mind and body.

Okay, enough... moving on. So, Porridge is the Emperor of a Thousand Galaxies. The Cybermen are blown up. La-dee-da.

All-in-all, "Nightmare in Silver" is a return to shoddy writing for this season of "Doctor Who". It's choppy and poorly-paced with a great deal of nothing in-between. There is no point to the story and it feels both forced and poorly-paced. While Gaiman does a good job making the Cybermen creepy again by making them akin to "Star Trek's" Borg, there's far too much of the banter between the Doctor and the invading Cyber-personality that really is kind of empty. Further, there's the incessant hitting us over the head with the idea that the Doctor is obsessed with Clara, not just as some kind of weird and contrived mystery but he's also thinking of her in a romantic sense (which is really, really getting tired).

Disappointing stuff, as far as I'm concerned. Better than "The Bells of St. John" and "The Rings of Akhaaten" (or however that's spelled) but pretty weak overall.

Next week is "The Doctor's Name" and I'm genuinely dreading that at this point.



EDIT: I wrote this too-rushed and irritated. So, overall the story is an okay homage to the Cybermen. It's creepy and has them as a solid and insidious threat. It really ups their game. Honestly, if it was just about the Cybermen in this, I probably wouldn't have too much of an issue with this story.

No, my problem is with everything else. The weird interjection of Porridge the Emperor-in-Exile. The two random children who prove that "Doctor Who" may be a kids' show but should never star children. Ye gods, but the girl was the least-likeable character I've seen on that show in ages. And the boy was just a walking cliche for the ten minutes he did anything.

The rag-tag soldiers had promise, but wound up being fairly-uninteresting and dull. Clara was given a moment to give some kind of definition to her otherwise-bland personality and really just shouted orders a lot. We got that in the form of Amy Pond and Donna Noble before. Been there. Both were more interesting characters with better-defined personalities. Clara still is missing something to make me actually care about her as a character. The fact that she babysits two of the most annoying children in time-and-space is not helping.

Seriously, the two kids get in a time-space machine and travel to a different planet and the girl is blase about this? I call bullshit on this. I would have given this story much higher marks if I'd actually cared about anyone in it. Instead I was kind of hoping they'd just blow up the planet with everyone on it.

Never going to finish this book

My 'hood gives me options when I feel the need to consume beer in a more public setting than my shadow-infested man-cave.

Last night, I grabbed my book and hoofed it out to one of said options. I plopped my lazy ass in a seat at the bar, ordered a pint, and was all set to drink some beer, eat a burger or whatever, then get some reading done as I forgot about all the things that make my head spin.

That was the plan, anyway. My plans so rarely follow my intentions.

I wasn't planning on being social. I just wanted to get out of the cave. Instead, I ran into some dude at the bar whom I'd met on one of my previous visits. That, in and of itself, was weird. I have an excellent memory for faces, but I'm better at remembering ladies than guys. Go figure.

Next thing I know, I'm snacking on a burger, downing a pint, and spending a hour arguing politics with a bar-acquaintance.

Now, they teach you that it's impolite to bring up religion and politics, for the most part. They're inflammatory topics and best avoided, especially in places where there's alcohol.

So, of course, I love engaging in those topics. My politics shift pretty left (big shock) and my religious views... well, I bet that's easy to work out.

I'm impressed nobody's tried to kick my ass at any drinking establishments yet.

It was a civilized... discussion. It wasn't really an argument, as such, but it was... not a chat. There was a lot of back-and-forth for all the claims that this dude and I agreed on points. I think he just enjoys being Devil's Advocate. I get that, I enjoy that as well.

An unexpected way to spend my dinner hour. Didn't get any reading done, though. Damnit.

Wrong Bad Wrong

Sailor Disney Princesses

flotsam and jetsam of the mind

Yesterday's "Worst Case Scenario" calendar had "How to Remove a Tick". Today's is "How to Recognize Lyme Disease". Nicely-positioned.

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Ride your Bike to Work day. Complete with pithy little posters and everything. Way to make me wish I'd driven my car.

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Bought a case of home-made beer yesterday. Properly-speaking, I can't afford it. I haven't caught up with some other expenses (medical appointments, car issues, etc.) but... well, beer. Tasty beer. It's a nice brown. The brewer suggested I drink at room temperature (and I did yesterday) but I think I'd prefer it a bit cooler. I'll test that this afternoon/evening.

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I continue my way through the Riyria Revelations. Specifically Heir to Novron, the last of the trilogy. So far, the story has taken some entertaining turns. Now the real shit has hit the fan. I'll be interested to see where Sullivan is going with this. For the most part, I think I've got the overall story figured out (it's not really complicated) but the delivery is really what interests me.

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Ray Harryhausen died the other day. In his honor, I've been making my way through the three Sinbad movies I own: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. The last title always makes me hera that song, y'know?

I'll admit The Golden Voyage is probably my favorite. Tom Baker ftw. Best villain you could possibly get for a movie like that.

I should get my hands on Jason and the Argonauts, just to do that much more honor to Harryhausen. Dude was a serious rock star.

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Been fighting... I don't know what. A cold? Allergies? Depression? Yes? However it's been working out, I've been sleeping a lot this week and truly have not wanted any human company at all. I think the sun had not set when I crashed out yesterday. And I'm still tired. Time to bust out the BBotE. I should have some left...

Let the grumbling begin

Monday. Bleah.

Delightful

Just a delightful weekend.

Archery for the first time in an eon or twenty. I got to use the phrase "I am not left-handed" a great deal and it was topical and appropriate!

Watched a surreal British '80's teen show that gave me nearly-violent flashbacks. Yet the show was oddly-enjoyable.

"The Crimson Horror" remains a surprisingly-entertaining episode. It could be that I'm comparing it against the others, though. Ye gods.

Surprise thundershowers here on Sunday. At least it's no longer unseasonably hot.

Work tomorrow. Sigh.

Review: "The Crimson Horror"

Wow. So I saw "The Crimson Horror" at a friend's house today and I have to admit I was impressed.

Mind you, with the lemons we've been having of late, I didn't have particularly-high expectations, but still...



Okay, we all know the deal. Spoilers will follow with my actual content masked by changing the font color to match the background. Clever me.










































Still there? Okay, you were warned.

The episode opens in Victorian Yorkshire. A man is talking intently to his wife, then enters a room with an ominous red light coming from the window. The wife lingers and is approached by a collection of Victorian women in dark attire, expressing sympathy for the death of the woman's husband. She looks puzzled then hears his screams. She then starts adding her own...

Cut to a morgue. A mustached Victorian man is paying the mortician to let him look at a body. The body is a corpse with the skin a vivid, bright red. The mortician chuckles and makes note that several have died that way. He calls it "the Crimson Horror".

The man then goes to visit the renowned detective Madam Vastra. The corpse was that of the man's brother. A believer in some dubious superstitions, the chap used a device to capture the last image in his brother's eye. While Vastra and her maid Jenny are skeptical, the man produces the photo captured in the eye. It is the visage of the Doctor.

Vastra, Jenny, and Strax work on infiltrating "Sweetville", a society run by the famous lady chemist Winifred Gillyflower (played, much to my delight and surprise, by Dame Diana Rigg).
Jenny gets the spotlight for a bit and infiltrates Winifred's organization. Winifred preaches of a doomed world that can only be protected by her perfect society: "Sweetville". Winifred's blind daughter, Ada, is paraded about to aid in Winifred's cause.

While Jenny infiltrates, the scene cuts away. Ada is feeding something hidden and caged away that she refers to as "her monster". It doesn't take Jenny long to find the hidden room and the identity of the "monster".

Yep, it's the Doctor.

The Doctor has been turned bright red like the corpses found earlier, but is semi-ambulatory rather than dead. With Jenny's aid, the Doctor reverses whatever was done to him and explains what happened:

He and Clara ("Clara?" Jenny often asks, puzzled... for to her, Clara died in "The Snowmen", but I digress) came to Victorian Yorkshire while trying to get to Victorian London. They stumbled across the mystery of the corpses and infiltrated Sweetville. They were captured by Winifred Gillyflower's agents and subjected to a mysterious treatment. The Doctor did not pass the treatment and was due to be disposed-of but was instead rescued by Ada and hidden away.

While this revelation is going on, Ada discovers her "monster" is gone. Winifred, finding Ada crying in the empty room, learns that Ada saved the Doctor and sounds the alarm, then abandons Ada. Winifred is only interested in her "partner", the mysterious and unseen "Mr. Sweet".

The Doctor and Jenny, searching for the missing Clara, encounter guards. Jenny beats the crap out of them like the leather-clad Victorian Emma Peel she is (I'm loving that Diana Rigg is in this!) then they track down Clara. It turns out Clara's frozen in some kind of suspended animation. The Doctor frees her then Vastra, Jenny, Strax, and the Doctor get Ada and investigate the goings on in Sweetville.

It turns out that the Crimson Horror is caused by some kind of toxin that Vastra is familiar with from her era. It's caused by some kind of rival species.

It turns out that "Mr. Sweet" is some sort of ancient era parasite who produces a deadly toxin. Ada was blinded by Winifred's experiments to find a counter-toxin for Winifred's chosen few. She intends to fire a rocket up into the atmosphere and use the toxin to cleanse the Earth of all but her chosen few in Sweetville.

Needless to say, she's stopped.

Overall, "The Crimson Horror" was an entertaining episode. On its own merits, I enjoyed it. Compared with the crap that was "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS", "The Rings of Akahaaten", and the abysmal "the Bells of St. John", this episode stands out as brilliant by comparison. Mark Gatiss could stand to write a few more episodes, in my opinion.

I was especially pleased to have an episode with an unrepentant villain in it. No misunderstood monsters looking for love or any crap like that. This was a true, nasty, villain. We haven't had anything like that since "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship".

All said, enjoyable stuff.

A Long Time Ago, in an Internet Far, Far Away...

I wasn't going to jump on the bandwagon.

I wasn't.

But I'm fickle. This is not news.

So without further ado: May the Fourth be with you.

Books!

On book three of The Riyria Revelations as of last night. Book two was quite the crazy story. Michael J. Sullivan's narrative style is simple and very effective. I'm really enjoying this series.

Sure, parts are a little rocky. There's some romance-ish elements that are a little heavy on the contrived and don't flow smoothly, but I don't really care about that too much.

The third book promises to be pretty intense, as some epic things promised in the first two seem about to be delivered. I haven't been this into a series since Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon.

Hollywood has hollytermites

io9 has an interesting rumor about the upcoming Superman movie.

Read at your own risk.

Suffice it to say, it's kind of a game-changer for the Superman mythos, if it's true.

Now, I hate Superman. I hate the character. I hate the concept. I find I cannot help but loathe virtually everything there is in the overall Superman mythology, but that said, I recognize that it's established and it works. And there's reasons why it works. So, if the mythology is getting "re-imagined" significantly by Hollywood, I have to question whether or not the involved parties are brain-damaged or just unimaginably evil.

I suppose they could be both. Kinda hard to tell, sometimes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

The Preciousss is crippled.

I first noticed something was wrong when an indicator light flared on my console on the one day I drove this week.

The manual (I RTFM, when the occasion calls for it) told me it's an indicator of low tire pressure. The tires looked fine to me. Worried, I took the Preciousss in yesterday.

Goddamn nail in the side of the tire.

If you're unfamiliar with tire damage, damage to the side can't be repaired. It requires a replacement.

Ouch.

So the tire is on backorder (the joys of having a popular car and living in an area with a ridiculous amount of construction going on).

The plus is that it's forcing me to ride my bike more.

The minus is that I kind of need my car this weekend to go places that are not conveniently-bike-able. I'm not about to take the Preciousssss on the freeway with the spare. That's heaps of stupid.

Plus, I really didn't need the added expense of a new tire at this point.

This week has been quite the roller-coaster of ups and downs. I'm hoping the day holds an "up" in it.

Tasty Beerness and not-tasty heat

Beers with a good friend last night for her birthday. I love finding new and interesting beer-serving establishments. Especially when their beer selection is most tasty.

Add in excellent service and friendly staff, and it's a dream meal of tasty fermented awesome.

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Unseasonably-hot weather. I hate it.

Found myself in a surreal situation yesterday with strangely-warm weather in San Francisco. I'm on a patio, having the aforementioned beers and the rest of the folks in the patio area were sufficiently chilled by the not-quite-sunlit patio to respond positively when the efficient server turned on the heaters.

When I whined that I'll never understand folks in the City, my dinner guest made excellent points that I'd missed about fashion choices that contributed to the situation. I'm getting blind and dense in my old age. Or I was overly-focused on tasty beer. Not ruling either out, really.

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BART ride home. Belligerent nutjob on my train. Clearly he was on drugs. I always wonder where the increased BART police presence is at these times.

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One nice thing about the hot weather: my morning bike rides are freakin' fantastic.

If not for the awesome

Woke up grouchy. It's hot. My allergies are playing merry havoc on my system. My car is complaining of issues I don't have time to address. I have to pay my auto registration and plan to brave the insanity of DMV lines today.

If not for awesome after-work plans, I would say "fuck it", call in sick, and take a Mental Health Day.

You know, my awesome after-work plans don't require me to be at work.... hm.....