Category: General

Decided I wanted to try out a different theme for my page. Finally ran across someone using the exact same WordPress theme the other day and it was rather creepy.

Tell me what you think. I’m still tweaking it to my liking.

Technorati Tags: Blog

I’m not normally one for the whole “Black Friday” shopping thing, but for curiosity’s sake, I wanted to see how my local Apple store (Phoenix – Biltmore) was doing and, perhaps, they’d have some insane unpublicized deal like an iMac for $99 or a new MacBook for $199.

Alas, there were no insane deals, but they did appear to be quite busy – at least with people browsing – and they had the JBL On Stage Micro iPod speakers on sale, so I decided to pick one up.

It’s a good thing I didn’t want two, because I got the last one they had.

It’s really small, and sits nicely on my desk. It uses the Universal Dock inserts, so I was able to use the custom one that came with my iPod case. In addition to be powered speakers (both AC and batteries), it can also act as a Universal Dock, and since the iPod sits up at a slight angle, it’s good for viewing videos. I also has a small remote (about the size of the MacBook’s FrontRow remote) which, although it mimics all the normal iPod functionality, does so in a non-standard way which is a little awkward.

Best of all, though, it sounds great. Much better than I was expecting.

---

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, iPod

I asked where the celebration was for Doctor Who’s 43rd anniversary… here it is:

In honor of the anniversary, I put on The Hand of Fear and as soon as the music started my son said, “Dok-tor-doo!”.

He knows what Doctor Who is! I tested him afterwards, it’s not a mistake, nor wishful parental thinking. He can’t quite make out the “Wh” sound, but he knows what it is.

Today was the perfect day for that. It really is Thanksgiving, now.

---

Update: 10:52AM At the start of Episode 4, he said a clear “Doctor Who”!

I had almost forgotten… whenever I have a birthday so too does the good Doctor (within a week, that is) and each year the Doctor stays one year older than me… despite his 900-year Time Lord head start.

Even though this is an odd year (43), considering the juggernaut that is the current Doctor Who machine, I’m very surprised I heard nothing about it until this morning.

I wonder if, in two years time, they’ll try an anniversary special. Obviously, “The 10 Doctors” is a no starter.

I wonder what sort of idea they could come up with?

In the meantime, though, Happy Birthday, Doctor, wherever in time and space you may be.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Doctor Who

I got this comment posted today on one of my older posts.

Matt wrote:

I must say you are rather generous in your blasting of the McCoy Era. I find your comments irrelevant and uncalled for. Not liking a particular episode or Doctor is fair enough, but you went a little too far. Whether made for Tennant or McCoy, this episode still has qualities that outdo most of what we have so far seen in the revival. And you cannot dismiss the hard work the production crew out into every single minute we see on TV and take for granted. Its so easy to be openly critical of something when you have no clue how much thought and planning went into it.

I’m responding here because I think it’s best addressed where it is more likely to be seen and because I hope I can explain my point of view on the issue of criticism more clearly. Any review is a subjective process. The reviewer brings their own thoughts, predisposition and attitudes to the table every time they sit down to write. That is not a bad thing in what is, by definition, an opinion piece.

That is what brings us different viewpoints. While I certainly enjoy reading a review that is similar to my own feelings on a subject because it brings a sense of positive affirmation, I also equally enjoy (while not agreeing with) conflicting reviews. Those things that people like or dislike are what they put forward and often in them you can see a different rationale at arriving at a disparate conclusion.

I went back and re-read my posts concerning Love & Monsters and I’m going to stand behind them. I do not concur that I “…went a little too far” in my criticism of the episode. I’m not going to re-visit my criticisms here. I am going to address your points though, because I do feel that there are points of merit to make in response.

First off, the amount of work, thought and planning that goes into any endeavor is irrelevant to evaluation of the finished product. Making allowances for the effort is sentimental, at best. Hard work does not always equal success, nor does hard work always mean that the goal is worthy of the effort put into it. (For example, I’m sure a lot of thought and planning went into the attack on Pearl Harbor, but that does not mean we should not be critical of the result.)

This is not to say that the people on the production crew, the grips, the gaffers, the costume designers and the little old lady who fetches the tea didn’t do their job perfectly adequately, perhaps even perfectly. But it is to say that the finished product was fundamentally flawed on the drawing board, and that their efforts were, to some degree, in vain.

In addition to not mattering how much work was done, neither does it matter if I have a clue as to how much work that was. As it happens, I have somewhat more than a laymen’s understanding of how much work is involved in this kind of production, but certainly not enough to have a complete appreciation of every detail. I need not understand how much work went into the building of my television set to know if the picture quality stinks. The criteria for judging an episode of a TV show is not units of work, it is “units of enjoyment”, if you will.

In that respect, this episode was a failure to my mind.

Particularly when you’re talking about a series, there are certain expectations that must be met – a unwritten contract between the producers and the viewers. It’s a contract that for my part says, “I’m going to be back at my TV one week from tonight watching your show because you’re telling a story I want to see.” And I’m there, investing my time watching the show rather than doing something else. They’ve promised me value for my time and if they slipped an episode of the 700 Club in instead of Doctor Who, I’d feel cheated.

That’s how this episode played to me. They didn’t have the budget to make 13 episodes of Doctor Who, so they made 12 and 1 filler of something else and they had the temerity to package it as Doctor Who. I’d have rather seen them make just 12.

Now, taking this episode out of the context of the Doctor Who series, I still feel it was a mess. The production was certainly on par with the quality of the rest of the revival series. Technically it is well done, but I see no particular qualities that “…outdo most of what we have seen so far in the revival.” Indeed, apart from the soundtrack, I saw no qualities that outdid the rest of the revival. At best it achieved a tie and only in the technical arts.

There’s no doubt that Love & Monsters is one of those “love it or hate” it episodes. That was apparent the day after it first aired. Like discussions on politics and religion, I doubt that there will be many converts from one side to the other; however, I would certainly like to hear what you (or anybody else) liked (or disliked) about it.

On a second note, as you say, I generously blast the McCoy era. I’d go so far as to say that I heap derision on it. So much so that, in one respect, I will recant my statement that Love & Monsters is the worst ever. McCoy’s Ghost Light was the worst ever. I had forgotten how stupendously awful it really was. Having recently seen both, Ghost Light wins that ignominious title hands down. I fear as they release more McCoy DVDs that title may transfer hands again.

So what’s wrong with the McCoy era?

One of the things that they overplay in the revival series is that notion that death follows the Doctor everywhere. That’s not correct. The Doctor is chasing death. He’s trying to intercept and detour death. He arrives in time to stop deaths. Yes, some still occur, but blaming it on the Doctor’s presence is back-assward logic. Whatever he may be: eccentric, arrogant, ineffectual, flamboyant, comical or cranky, the Doctor is always a moral force for good.

During McCoy’s era that changed. By the end of his time, the Doctor had become a moral but callous creature. He played with the lives of his companions and the people around him like chess pieces. He set his own agenda, unknown and unanswerable to anyone and, while we’re to believe he’s doing it for the overall “good” the fact is that his game playing almost certainly resulted in some of the deaths. In McCoy’s case, death really did follow the Doctor.

Of course, the fact that the scripts during that era became increasingly incoherent hardly helped things at all, either.

My reviews may be opinionated, acerbic or may even appear downright mean-spirited at times, but they are not. (Mean-spirited, that is. OK, I won’t swear that I’ve never been mean-spirited.) I’m not paid to write reviews, I write about things I care about. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who for 31 years but that is not carte blanche that everything about it must be good.

You made a fair criticism and it might surprise you to know that these are not ideas that hadn’t occurred to me in the past. Where is the point when a review becomes a litany or nit-picking and flaw bashing? And when are those flaws justifiably something that should have been “fixed” and therefore something that should be pointed out? It may be a fine line.

Many is the time that after writing a review, I walk away and come back later to decide if I went “too far”. Sometimes I feel I did and I soften them, sometimes when I come back, I’m even more sure than ever. In the case of Love & Monsters even coming back to my review months later, I still feel it is spot on.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Commentary, Doctor Who, Review

Since 1981 (For Your Eyes Only) I’ve generally managed to go to the opening day of each new Bond film. (Although after the disaster that was Goldeneye I was in no particular hurry to go to Tomorrow Never Dies.)

When Brosnan started, they shifted the normal opening weekend to be on or about my birthday, so now I often have to “adjust” the day I go see the films to coincide with a birthday dinner. Our baby sitter has been sick all last week, so it doesn’t look like I’m even going to get to see Casino Royale on my birthday tomorrow.

In lieu of seeing the film, I did go out an buy the soundtrack so I could listen to it while using my extra time to re-read the original novel. (A novel I haven’t dusted off my bookshelf since 1979.)

What I can’t help noticing is that, while I cheered David Arnold’s brilliant capturing of the John Barry “feel” in the early parts of Tomorrow Never Dies, his work has gotten more and more repetitive in each subsequent film. Now, I’m the first to admit that there’s a lot of repetition in John Barry’s scores, too, but somehow they remain “fresher”. This score might well just be more of Die Another Day. It’s enjoyable, but it drifts off into the background, until you get to track 25, The Name is Bond… James Bond and the old John Barry arranged, Monty Norman composed James Bond theme kicks into high gear. It certainly ends the album on a high note.

Unless you bought your album all digital like from the iTunes music store, which has 13(!) bonus tracks not available on the CD, nor are they available for individual purchase.

If you think you can predict the behavior of children, think again.

Every weekend, when my wife leaves for work around 1:00PM, we go through the same routine. We find a DVD to put on that will distract my son, James, enough so that Irene can leave the house without him going into fits of crying.

James is crazy about two things: fish and cars. Until now, our one surefire DVD that can completely absorb his attention is Finding Nemo. I honestly think he could watch it 5 times in a row without interruption.

So imagine how happy we were that Pixar’s latest, Cars, was released on DVD? OK, that was a rhetorical question but the answer was “quite happy” and I’m rather sick of Finding Nemo.

When my wife left today, I put on Cars and watched in fascination as my son watched the movie with the same attention that he’d give a BBC Four documentary on Bronze-age pottery shards^* – that is to say, he wasn’t interested at all.

Kids!

---

^*For the record: No, I don’t watch documentaries on Bronze-age pottery shards.

Apple Japan => Get A Mac

Too funny!

Those (some say brilliant, other say annoying) “Get A Mac” ads that Apple has been running lately aren’t just a local thing. Apple Japan has their own versions, too.

I hope the guy on the left isn’t supposed to be Bill Gates.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Blog, iPod, iTunes, Mac, MacBook, OSX

Zap2it => NBC Looking for More Comedy Imports

Earlier this year, Channel 4 aired a somewhat hit-and-miss sitcom called <>i>The IT Crowd. While it certainly suffered from all the negative things associated with being “a sitcom”, there were some genuine laughs in it, and a few moments that (as an IT worker myself) rang so truthful, that you had to believe the writers once worked IT.

Anyway, now it appears to be another show that will be ruined by an American television network. (They haven’t even finished ruining Life on Mars and they’re already moving on to more fodder. How depressing.)

Technorati Tags: Blog

BBC News => “Brilliant” Bond seduces critics

According to this article, the early reviews on Daniel Craig’s 007 are in and he’s brilliant.

But before you start declaring the new “era” of bond, note this quote from one critic:

…easily the best film since GoldenEye

That’s like saying, “Best automobile since the Ford Pinto.”

Goldeneye was the worst of all the “official” Bond films. It was cursed with bad directing, bad acting, bad story and bad music. I saw it once the day it premiered, got up right in the middle to go to the toilet and didn’t bother to rush back. When the DVD came out, it sat on my bookshelf for over a year before I bothered to watch it again… and when I did watch it my opinion didn’t change. It’s the kind of film I don’t bother to push the “pause” button on before a bowel movement. I think that’s the best way I can describe my feelings about Goldeneye.