Lone Locust Productions

Category: General

  • Next Season’s Writers….

    BBC – Doctor Who – News => Script Doctors

    Just because I’m in a foreign land doesn’t mean the Doctor Who stops. The writers for next season have been announced.

    The good news: Stephen Moffat is writing two episodes; Russell T. Davies is writing only four; the remaining four returning writers have all turned in passable or better episodes.

    The bad news: No Mark Gatiss (again); Russell T. Davies is writing four episodes.

    Heading the list is, of course, Russell T Davies. He’ll be tackling the 2007 Christmas Special and another four episodes.

    Steven Moffat will become the only other writer to work on all four seasons of the show when he delivers a two-part story – his first since The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances.

    Also back for a double-bill is Helen Raynor, responsible for this year’s Daleks In Manhattan / Evolution Of The Daleks.

    Gareth Roberts (The Shakespeare code) Tom MacRae (Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel) and Stephen Greenhorn (The Lazarus Experiment) all return for single episodes.

    The season also boasts two newcomers – James Moran and Keith Temple.

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  • Day 1 – What I ate

    Had three meals today, for breakfast, on the way “home” from the airport, we stopped at some “famous” place that makes shao bing you tiao (燒餅油條). I forgot to get pictures and will try to get some later, but it is basically several pieces of deep fried batter in long stick shapes, wrapped by another piece of pan-fried dough, rather in the shape of a squared-off pita. It’s filling, but it can hardly be nutritionally wholesome. This place apparently had “thin” and “thick”, the thick being a unique non-traditional specialty form from this particular restaurant. The difference between the two was almost imperceptible.

    Din Tai Fung

    Lunch they insisted on taking me to Din Tai Feng, which is almost always welcome.

    We went out later in the day to stay awake and we stopped at the nearby MOS burger (a new one has opened up less than three blocks from home) for my dinner.

    I enjoy MOS Burger because it is different but, of all the hamburger places, they make it the hardest. There’s no combo meal with a cheeseburger, and there’s no pretty picture menu for the illiterate foreigners (like me), and then they have to ask about options so I always have to order my food “the hard way”. “I’d like one MOS Cheese hamburger, spicy, no tomato. One small order of french fries (if only I knew how to ask them to salt them.) One large drink, cola. To eat here.” (In chinese, of course)

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    The incompetence of my pronunciation not withstanding, I can usually get my point across, unless they start asking questions. Now they’ve added a new one, “Do you want ice in your cola?” Anything they can do to make it hard for me.

    Because I basically don’t have a huge repertoire of restaurant reviews for Taipei, but Ifrequently read the Hungry Girl’s Guide to Taipei blog, which has a nice back-catalog of restaurant reviews, for her comments on:

    MOS Burger

    I’ll try to link to her reviews on places that I eat at.

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  • A brief interlude

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    8:11PM

    Well, we’re off. Our flight out of Phoenix was delayed because they had to replace “a gyro” in the cockpit, but despite the 15-20 minute delay, somehow they managed to get us to LA on time. Not that we cared, since we have some much time to kill.

    We arrived at exactly 6:00PM and we can’t check in for our plane until 9:30. We decided to try that fancy restaurant in the middle of the airport, the Encounter. I always used to think that was the tower whenever I saw the airport on TV. It turns out it is a restaurant, but not a very good one. Not because of the cuisine, but because it is closed for construction.

    Instead we’ve eaten at the dreadful restaurants in the International Terminal. There’s no free internet (just a T-mobile hotspot) and the place is packed. I brought a power split so I could share an electrical outlet, but there are no seats near electricity.

    8:59PM

    Power! I got an electrical outlet. Time to play solitaire.

    10:34PM

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    I’m so bored! We’ve checked in, which took a lot longer than it should have. The US Airways ticketing agent, who ticketed us all the way to Taipei, got it wrong, assigning James as an infant rather than a fare-paying child. It confused the gate agents at Singapore Air but they resolved it.

    At 11:00 or so, we’ll head down to security, which currently has a long, long line and then wait until the 12:05 boarding time. I’m sitting by the window on the east (I think) side of the terminal and I’ve just caught a ghost of a wisp of an open access point. The kds are watching Curious George on Irene’s iBook. Her batteries aren’t going to last into the flight unless we can get her to a power tap at the gate.

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  • Dalek and Cyberman

    Dalek & Cyberman

    Yesterday my daughter was playing a pretend game with my son. They were in the kitchen, and the conversation went something like this:

    “I am a Dalek. You are a Cyberman. Daleks and Cybermen don’t get along.”

    The conversation rolled on about how they should be talking like robots and such, finally, Michelle changes ok, “OK, now we’re going to be friends. Let’s go look for the Doctor.”

    They chase around the house for a while and finally we hear, “There’s the Doctor. He’s in the kitchen. Did you see him, Cyberman? He’s got curly hair and a long scarf!”

    James was playing along, but, he was a little off as he was the cyberman but was shouting “exterminate” instead of “delete.” Still, he is only 2.

    I’m genuinely surprised that she identified the fourth Doctor instead of the tenth. She also did this Dalek and Cyberman artwork. They’re holding “hands”, isn’t that cute? I wonder if I should send this artwork into Totally Doctor Who?

    Still, I couldn’t be prouder of her if she came home from preschool with test scores from the Kindergarten-level standardized tests in the 99th percentile and 100% on most of the categories… which she did last week.

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  • No Reason

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    I’ve got no post to go with this, I just thought it was a nice photo of James and Kiba in the play pool.

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  • Ducks in a row

    We’re on the short countdown now until our next trip to Taiwan. Sunday we’ll be off and the transportation arrangements on the way over promise to be unpleasant. Due to repeated problems “fixing” our actual flight schedule, we ended up with a 7+ hour layover at LAX. That would be brutal in the best of conditions, but with 2 kids, it promises to be an endurance test.

    We must arrive 2 hours early in Phoenix, nearly 2 hours, wait 7, then fly another 14. That’s 26 hours in transit. I can’t decide if I want to take sleeping pills with me or avail myself liberally of the free alcohol on the flight. It’s a 777-200 in the Singapore Air fleet, but it doesn’t have power outlets, so the MacBook won’t last the whole flight. (Singapore Air is upgrading the LA=>Taipei flight to have power outlets in July.)

    Meantime, I’m gearing up for a multimedia extravaganza of a trip. Videos and photos, along with nauseatingly detailed blog posts will be posted regularly.

    Posts: https://lonelocust.com
    Videos: http://youtube.com/profile?user=fusionpatrol
    Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gridman/

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  • What I like most about waterspouts…

    …is that we don’t have them in Phoenix.

    These were in Singapore this week. Even though it is six hours by plane to Taiwan, that’s too close for comfort since I’ll be in Taiwan next week.

    (more…)

  • Doctor Who – Lazarus Experiment – Review

    Time Lords can regenerate but what if humans could, too?
    (more…)

  • Lazurus Experiment, 42 and Human Nature

    With all the nonsense going on lately and getting ready to leave the country, I just haven’t had time to review the last 3 Doctor Who episodes. I shall be working on them this weekend, but Human Nature will be delayed until the second part, The Fmaily of Blood air next week.

    Perhaps I shall write the review on the plane. I’m going to have plenty of time!

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  • Of Dogs and Mortality

    I’ve been mostly immobilized with back trouble the last few days, but managed to get out for work this morning albeit somewhat slowly. As I left, I noticed that one of my two dogs, Ninja, didn’t come out to say good morning. While not unheard of, it is unusual, but I was running late.

    He wasn’t there when I came home, either, so I went looking for him. He was, unfortunately, dead in the bamboo forest behind our pool.

    It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Apart from having lost a family pet, I had to machete a path deep into the bamboo which grows… well, like bamboo… to reach the body, which had been there for at least 10 hours in the heat of day. He was pungent, to say the least. Then I had to extract a nearly 40 lb. dog carcass and manhandle it into bags, all the while attempting to avoid the flies and the inevitable bodily fluids which start to exude from a decomposing body.

    After all that, I got to go in and break the news to my daughter. She took it surprisingly well. She looked like she was going to cry for a few moments and then the sadness switched off like a light bulb.

    Still, not a good day.

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