TV I never actually watched Farscape (more fool me I know, but only so many hours in the day) but I'm still pleased that the series is returning as a wrap-up mini-series. Why? When I was researching for this article I read about the lengths the fans were going to attempting to get the show back on air, including developing and paying for TV ads. It's good to know they didn't completely waste their time.
History I've written many things in this thread at Metafilter regarding the JFK documentary shown on the BBC last night. Yes, Oswald was a lone gunman, acting alone. Who would have thought it ...
Film What are the chances of this actually being true? : "'Cameron was unhappy with his read-throughs,' our source said. 'Ashton did several and each one was worse and worse. Cameron even postponed production because he thought the readings would get better but they didn't. At one point, Cameron suggested that Ashton take acting lessons. Soon after that, they both decided it would be best if Ashton was not in the movie.'" Actually I didn't think he was so bad in Just Married, but that could have been Brittany Murphy making him look good ... [via Fark (you had to ask?)]
The Internet My digital IQ is 69. Although I gained ten points for having a wireless keyboard and a weblog with is linked by over five people. Odd accounting.
Books Unmemorable Book Openings #2 -- 'Doctor Who and The Daleks' by David Whitaker
"I stopped the car at last and let the fog close in around me. I knew I was somewhere on Barnes Common and I had a suspicious idea it was the most deserted part as well. A warm fire and the supper my landlady would have waiting for me seemed as far away as New Zealand. I wondered how long it would take me to walk home to Paddinton and the possible answer didn't do anything to cheer me up. A fitting end to an impossible day, I thought savagely.
"For a start, before breakfast, I'd torn my best sports jacket on a loose screw on the door of my room. It didn't help that I'd been putting off tightening it for weeks so I had nobody to blame but myself. Then later, after I'd driven all the way to Reigate for a job I was after as Assistant Research scientist at Donneby's the big rocket component firm, I found that a nephew of one of the directors had got the post and I'd made the journey for nothing. Now the fog and the prospects of a long, weart walk. I looked at my watch, delayed the decision as long a is possible. Nearly nine o'clock.
"Just as the second hand completed its minute, I heard the sound of running footsteps. Probably someone as lost as I was, I told myself, welcome for a delay from the final decision to begin walking. Suddenly, into the pallid glow of my headlights, a girl appeared. She stopped and I saw her hands moving slightly, and I could see her mouth opening to speak. I tore open the door and ran to her, catching her before she fell to the road..."
[Only really unmemorable for people who think that the series began with two teachers standing in for social services as they follow a strange young girl home to a junkyard to find out what her home life is like. Actually pretty memorable piece of writing if you know what it is. This offers a good explanation. Junkyard or Barnes Common, which do you think has the creepier opening? Well advised to pick up a copy at your local library for old times sake.]
"I stopped the car at last and let the fog close in around me. I knew I was somewhere on Barnes Common and I had a suspicious idea it was the most deserted part as well. A warm fire and the supper my landlady would have waiting for me seemed as far away as New Zealand. I wondered how long it would take me to walk home to Paddinton and the possible answer didn't do anything to cheer me up. A fitting end to an impossible day, I thought savagely.
"For a start, before breakfast, I'd torn my best sports jacket on a loose screw on the door of my room. It didn't help that I'd been putting off tightening it for weeks so I had nobody to blame but myself. Then later, after I'd driven all the way to Reigate for a job I was after as Assistant Research scientist at Donneby's the big rocket component firm, I found that a nephew of one of the directors had got the post and I'd made the journey for nothing. Now the fog and the prospects of a long, weart walk. I looked at my watch, delayed the decision as long a is possible. Nearly nine o'clock.
"Just as the second hand completed its minute, I heard the sound of running footsteps. Probably someone as lost as I was, I told myself, welcome for a delay from the final decision to begin walking. Suddenly, into the pallid glow of my headlights, a girl appeared. She stopped and I saw her hands moving slightly, and I could see her mouth opening to speak. I tore open the door and ran to her, catching her before she fell to the road..."
[Only really unmemorable for people who think that the series began with two teachers standing in for social services as they follow a strange young girl home to a junkyard to find out what her home life is like. Actually pretty memorable piece of writing if you know what it is. This offers a good explanation. Junkyard or Barnes Common, which do you think has the creepier opening? Well advised to pick up a copy at your local library for old times sake.]
TV TV Cream's Doctor Who celebration is utterly brilliant. Too many great moments to list here but should be commended for somehow shoehorning references into their usual features...
Blog! "On November 23, 1963, just a short time after president Kennedy was killed, Doctor Who was born." -- spatula That sums things up.
Blog! Since I'm having a video night tonight (so far Best In Show and At The Height Of Summer) can I suggest that you visit instead Kottke's remaindered links? Or Vicky? Or Robyn? Or John? Or Darren?
TV Pretty coherent rant regarding the Doctor Who segment of Children in Need last night. Yes it was unfunny and stupid. At the very least it should have been prerecorded. But what really disappointed me was that Wogan and Roslin stepped up and thank Jan Raverns and the Dead Ringers people and left Sylv and Colin, the two people there who had actually played Doctor Who, who'd actually squeezed into their old costumes, standing around like lemons. My God, it took ten years, and they've finally managed to create something which was actually works than Dimension in Time.
[The thread from the RT forum has been deleted ... bit too far off topic I expect, which is why the link above doesn't work properly. Basically the gist was that despite all the merchandise and UK Gold weekend, other than Blue Peter, this was the only thing on a terrestrial channel about the show and it sucked...]
[The thread from the RT forum has been deleted ... bit too far off topic I expect, which is why the link above doesn't work properly. Basically the gist was that despite all the merchandise and UK Gold weekend, other than Blue Peter, this was the only thing on a terrestrial channel about the show and it sucked...]
Blogging A new article at Blogger Knowledge Base gives hints and tips as to how not to get fired from your job for writing a weblog. It's all fine, but it offers a chance to re-iterate my own rules.
The Rules
(1) Don’t write about your friends unless they’re doing something amazing
(2) Don’t talk about work unless you’ve left
(3) Don’t talk about things you know nothing about
(4) Don’t make the rules too conspicuous
(5) Some rules can be broken ...
Feel free to follow them yourself. As you can see they offer plenty of scope to embarass yourself a lot.
The Rules
(1) Don’t write about your friends unless they’re doing something amazing
(2) Don’t talk about work unless you’ve left
(3) Don’t talk about things you know nothing about
(4) Don’t make the rules too conspicuous
(5) Some rules can be broken ...
Feel free to follow them yourself. As you can see they offer plenty of scope to embarass yourself a lot.
Life I tried to avoid a Hare Krishna follower today. She approached me in the drizzle as I hammered up the road, Christmas shopping in my lunch hour.
"I'm in my lunch hour." I said.
"Talk to me!" She shouted.
"Lunch hour."
"Say Gayatri..."
By now I'm ten feet away.
"Please talk to me!" She pleads.
"I'm a non-denominational spiritualist!" I shout out of desperation. I mean it usually works ...
"What does that mean?"
I don't know! I want to shout back but I just smile from under my umbrella and carry on up the street.
I do whatever I have to do in the shop I was heading to, then I'm on my way back down the street towards her. I know she's there and I'm wondering if I should cross over the road like a coward. She spots me. We're toe-to-toe.
"It means," I say, the inevitability intoxicating, "That everyone is right somewhere along the line, and everyone is wrong somewhere along the line, and their's really no point fighting wars over it." Or stand in the drizzle holding a clipboard, I want to add but think better of it. I hope this is enough. I try to walk away.
"That's lovely." She says. She reaches for her bag... can I ...
"I've got to go." I'm feet away now.
"Say Gayatri..." She pleads.
"It's against my religion." I grin. What religion?
"You don't know what it means..." She shouts.
"What does it mean?" I shout back.
"Be happy!"
"I AM HAPPY!"
"THAT'S GREAT!"
I smile again. I turn and walk away.
Apart from the fact that for once I actually stopped to talk because part of me wanted to ask her into the Starbucks nearby for their new EggNog Latte (I'm weak), I wonder who was suckered in this conversation. I've always had issues with people trying to imprint their own beliefs on others, and that includes the man who stands in Church Street with the megaphone telling me I'm going to hell. Any religions obviously wants to publicise themselves so that they can gain followers but perhaps the best policy is action rather than agenda. Wierdly, she may have been doing both.
I think I was trying to return the favour. Given a moment she would have fitted in a whole Google search's worth of Hare Krishna. I was doing something else with our time together. It was fairly clear that she'd spent the time I was in the shop trying to work out what a non-denominational spiritualist was, as though this thing I'd made up for such occasions when I want to encapsulate my odd don'tactuallyknowwhatthehellsgoingon-type feelings was something important she'd missed, right there in the others section of the census with Jedi. If I'd worked at it, could I have found my first follower, started my own cult, gone somewhere along the road to an organised religion? Probably not. But maybe she's there right now looking it up on the internet...
But the other arguement is that I played into her hands. I'm wondering what leads someone to stand about in the horrific weather we had this lunch time doing what she was doing, when she really looked like she could have really needed that EggNog Latte. She seemed so -- obsessed -- as though the only important thing she had was to get me to say the 'happy' word. And for whatever reason I smiled throughout and did walk away thinking that actually life is pretty good (Which it mostly is actually. No really. I'm not making it up), so was that what she was playing at? Probably not. But here I am writing about the encounter and mentioning the very word she couldn't get me to say. I even googled 'Hare Krishna' looking for it because I couldn't remember.
But I told you. I'm weak. And I'm wondering if it's possible to date someone if you agree not to mention the whole religion thing...
"I'm in my lunch hour." I said.
"Talk to me!" She shouted.
"Lunch hour."
"Say Gayatri..."
By now I'm ten feet away.
"Please talk to me!" She pleads.
"I'm a non-denominational spiritualist!" I shout out of desperation. I mean it usually works ...
"What does that mean?"
I don't know! I want to shout back but I just smile from under my umbrella and carry on up the street.
I do whatever I have to do in the shop I was heading to, then I'm on my way back down the street towards her. I know she's there and I'm wondering if I should cross over the road like a coward. She spots me. We're toe-to-toe.
"It means," I say, the inevitability intoxicating, "That everyone is right somewhere along the line, and everyone is wrong somewhere along the line, and their's really no point fighting wars over it." Or stand in the drizzle holding a clipboard, I want to add but think better of it. I hope this is enough. I try to walk away.
"That's lovely." She says. She reaches for her bag... can I ...
"I've got to go." I'm feet away now.
"Say Gayatri..." She pleads.
"It's against my religion." I grin. What religion?
"You don't know what it means..." She shouts.
"What does it mean?" I shout back.
"Be happy!"
"I AM HAPPY!"
"THAT'S GREAT!"
I smile again. I turn and walk away.
Apart from the fact that for once I actually stopped to talk because part of me wanted to ask her into the Starbucks nearby for their new EggNog Latte (I'm weak), I wonder who was suckered in this conversation. I've always had issues with people trying to imprint their own beliefs on others, and that includes the man who stands in Church Street with the megaphone telling me I'm going to hell. Any religions obviously wants to publicise themselves so that they can gain followers but perhaps the best policy is action rather than agenda. Wierdly, she may have been doing both.
I think I was trying to return the favour. Given a moment she would have fitted in a whole Google search's worth of Hare Krishna. I was doing something else with our time together. It was fairly clear that she'd spent the time I was in the shop trying to work out what a non-denominational spiritualist was, as though this thing I'd made up for such occasions when I want to encapsulate my odd don'tactuallyknowwhatthehellsgoingon-type feelings was something important she'd missed, right there in the others section of the census with Jedi. If I'd worked at it, could I have found my first follower, started my own cult, gone somewhere along the road to an organised religion? Probably not. But maybe she's there right now looking it up on the internet...
But the other arguement is that I played into her hands. I'm wondering what leads someone to stand about in the horrific weather we had this lunch time doing what she was doing, when she really looked like she could have really needed that EggNog Latte. She seemed so -- obsessed -- as though the only important thing she had was to get me to say the 'happy' word. And for whatever reason I smiled throughout and did walk away thinking that actually life is pretty good (Which it mostly is actually. No really. I'm not making it up), so was that what she was playing at? Probably not. But here I am writing about the encounter and mentioning the very word she couldn't get me to say. I even googled 'Hare Krishna' looking for it because I couldn't remember.
But I told you. I'm weak. And I'm wondering if it's possible to date someone if you agree not to mention the whole religion thing...
Film Sidekick Magazine delivers a list of films everyone must have seen by now. Well, except me because I still haven't seen The Shining. I have it on tape somewhere, but every time I decided to sit down and watch it, something happens and ... so you can imagine how many references in films and TV shows I actually don't get. I haven't seen Carrie either so I'm in a real mess. I have seen Ghost though.
News The visiting of Bush is going to be messy. But it's good to see the BBC fulfilling their public service role by telling everyone who wants to protest where to go with this handy map. I love that the police and protesters have agreed this route. Not even the law want him here. No wonder he's brought his own security force.
Galleries When I was picking and choosing for my bedroom I actively went for an Art Gallery white cube effect. So I was disappointed to read that Charles Saatchi thinks that the White Cube is dead. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev disagrees characterising them as a precious thing worth saving.
Commerce Shopping Japanese Style - 2003.1112. Someone's been playing SimCity in the real world again:
"From above, the project looks like a stepped, green park surrounded by urban chaos. It crosses multiple blocks and is lush with trees, flowers, lawns, cliffs, streams, waterfalls, ponds, clusters of rocks, and outdoor terraces. Winding stone walkways, designed to mimic the natural curves and stratification sculpted by wind and water, gradually ascend eight levels to the street.Which seems infinitely preferable to what I witnessed in The Capital of Culture 2008 yesterday afternoon. This year is an online Christmas for so many reasons...
Beneath the park, a man-made canyon carves a pathway through a commercial center. This corridor connects the east and west edges of the site with existing urban circulation patterns. Rising up from the canyon floor are layers of specialty retail shops and entertainment and dining venues."
Music Anchorage BB King is slowing down this year. He's only doing 200 concerts. I'm wondering if anyone can help me with something. I remember a song in someone asks rhetorically "Are you BB King?" but for the life of me I can't work out which one. And I've tried googling. I though it was Once In A Lifetime by Talking Heads, but nothing in there. Any ideas?
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