evilhippo: hippo (105 [random])
( Mar. 29th, 2011 11:55 pm)
And a few things that have nothing to do with Portland:

So, did you hear what the Gaiman episode of Doctor Who is called? )

Also, I wish I wasn't overcommitted for writing right now, because there are some awesome prompts over at [livejournal.com profile] sharp_teeth's current round of prompting. Maybe one of you is bored and wants to write a Toy Story/"Blink" crossover. Or, better yet, Sesame Street/House of Leaves. (Me, I'm seriously considering the This American Life prompt, because apparently I am fixated on fictionalized NPR... and podfic, though that doesn't seem to technically be a category I will make it so.)
Test number one of my ability to stop beating a horse that died two weeks ago: Failed.

Contains lengthy pondering about the difference in size, scope, plot, and impact of the RTD seasons vs. Moffat's. (This episode subject to heavy future editing and tweaking.) )

All right, time to find something useful to do with my time... until I can watch this week's Top Gear (which, thankfully, has yet to incite any kind of analysis from me).
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Happy Fourth, everyone! I seem to have come across a spare bit of time and nothing in particular to do with it, so it must be time for me to overanalyze some television.

In which I harsh my own squee. (Doctor Who spoilers, what a surprise.) )

In conclusion: Dear Moffat, Minus Eleventy Billion! Plus Ten Billion, Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine Thousand, Nine Hundred and Eighty One. That gives you a plus or minus three for the season, which I think, given the circumstances, is very fair. You're lucky I like you, because you're proving to be a very dangerous driver.
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evilhippo: hippo (72 [word])
( May. 1st, 2010 04:21 pm)
All right, Moffat. I think at last count we stood at... positive fifteen more than 40 times the leeway I gave RTD. Since I gave RTD no leeway, or so little as would basically amount to zero anyway, that means your score was... positive fifteen. I'm still undecided on point allocations for The Beast Below (plus or minus 3), and Victory to the Daleks was proper old-school campy Who, but I'm not sure if I'm doing this just for episodes Moffat writes, so I can't give it any points or take them away. Point now being:

Mr. Moffat, I still don't like River Song. I'll admit this is mostly because everyone is all "Hey look, awesome feminist character!" and to that I'm all "*headdesk*" (mostly due to hating that school of thought when applied to fiction) but an almost-equal portion of this is that I can sense when you're having too much fun unravelling the character development and making it up as you go along, Moffat, and you are doing it here. I will say I'm much happier with River Song as questionable and maybe even villainous to some extent. So plus... two. And minus three because it's still River Song and I was tired of her after Silence in the Library.

Timey-wimey plot arc! And as much as I want to be "You're going to frak this up so badly and I'm going to hate you!", Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone have kind of re-cemented my faith in Moffat's ability to completely screw things up and still come out on top. However, any points I award on this basis will be automatically subtracted a thousandfold if you do screw this up. So plus ten. And then minus five because you're also probably going to make Doctor Who canon even more convoluted with this. I'm seeing like, Marvel!Canon in our future here, and Doctor Who canon is bad enough as it is!

And okay, the whole reason for actually posting this was to completely ruin the tally. The final scene this week? Ah-hahahahahaha! Hehehe. For that scene, I give Moffat eleventy billion points. It made me love Eleven. It gave me faith that the Doctor is who I think he is. (Earth girls, the Doctor loves you, but...) However, I've awarded eleventy billion points because, while this redeems many things for me that I wasn't entirely aware I was still worrying about, I must award a fake number of points because there are always ways to ruin everything. (This casts the future in such a fantastic light, though. The Doctor has the best terrible solutions to being fancied! "Here, have a clone! Now you can babysit me forever and make sure I'm not as much of a psychopath as I could be!" "Let's take your fiancé on vacation, that won't be awkward! With vampires!" Also, oh Rory's geeky shirt!)

Current total: 19 plus or minus three plus an imaginary eleventy billion
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evilhippo: hippo (3 [grr])
( Apr. 4th, 2010 05:59 pm)
Freaking crap, Planet of the Dead, really? I had to actually look up the episode to even remember which one it was. Was it that terrible a year for TV science fiction? Really? That three of the five short-form Hugo nominations are for Russell T. Davies. Okay, sure, we want to see him off properly, he did bring back Doctor Who and all, but guys none of those episodes were good. Of the three, I'd honestly have to go with The Next Doctor. (Please let Dollhouse win.)

On the plus side, I've got a list of books for my next trip to the library. Woo!
I'll admit, part of me is probably just giggly because it's new Doctor Who and also because I'm giving (and will give) Moffat forty times as much leeway with things as RTD (at least, for the first three episodes). Sure, I could argue niggly bits, but it was a solid start, and by far the best start to a season/introduction of a new companion that I've seen out of the show. I'm not sure how I feel about Amy, but at least she's exhibited some personality rather than being a stereotype with a personality kind of stuck on top with some chewed gum or something (I... erm... just let that one slide, okay?) Also, I knew that skirt was too short. Very clever there, Moffat. I hope she holds up to the stresses of time travel... I mean, I'm kind of tired of "companion has a crush on the Doctor" premises. It was kind of subverted for a bit (hehe invisible childhood friend), but I know that's where we're going, and... yeah. It's probably on that front that Moffat will lose his leeway with me.

Also! I am pleased to say that I didn't have an immediate "You're doing it wrong!" reaction to Matt Smith's Doctor. (I kind of did this with Tennant, but that was because I loved Eccleston's self-assured, distant sort of Doctor, and that clashed with Tennant's brash and often confused Doctor.) However, now I'm worried that Eleven is going to be too much like Ten. It's going to be very hard to play a manic sort of Doctor that wouldn't overlap. But we'll see. At the least, we've definitely got a very different atmosphere this time around. You can feel that the universe isn't in RTD's hands anymore.

... Also I'm kind of very amused that apparently tasting the age of objects wasn't canon before, but is now. Time Lord BS ftw!

I don't like the new theme, though. Actually, I'm not sure I like the new opening at all. But since that is pretty much my only major complaint, I'll take it.

(Ha! I think I did this without spoilers!)

... Waaaait a second, did he really say "Oh you sexy thing"? I can't have heard that right... I mean, "dear," I will accept. Even "love." But "Sexy"? Minus fifteen already, Moffat! (... Plus thirty, because deep down it's funny and, yes, I ship it.)
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Today was a quiet, quiet day at work. And so, to counteract the creeping quiet, I decided "What better way to pass the time than to listen to one of the many Doctor Who radio plays I have lurking around on my iPod!" I've been slowly (recently, much more quickly) working my way through the 8th Doctor's audios. Over the weekend I finally finished up through Zagreus, which is the first audio I found and it's still pretty much my favourite. Completely bats in the proper Doctor Who season finale way.

Aaand so that left me with Scherzo today. Ostensibly it's about a sound monster. But really it's an hour and a half of character exposition. And it has got to be the most bizarre acid-trip of a science fiction story I have ever, ever heard. The Doctor is a sociopath for most of the story, both he and Charley are basically in a giant sensory-deprivation chamber and losing all contact with their senses... Not to mention the co-evolution.

Anyway, moral of the story here is, guys, don't ever listen to Doctor Who audios at work. At best it'll give you a case of the giggles (which I've had nonstop since Sunday anyway, since I'm finally over being sick. Or I've gone mad). And in cases like this, you'll have a case of the giggles, spend most of the day staring at the computer with an unfocused "Wtf did I just hear?" expression, and everything (including the mysterious conference room that appeared adjacent to the women's bathroom on the 7th floor with the transistor radio) will feel ever-so-slightly like an alternate universe because who in the normal universe would write this story holy crap.

It's also pretty freaking awesome, because it's a story that could never, ever exist in proper continuity. It's flat-out uncomfortable and unnerving without breaking the characters (at least not completely, and not any more than they had been before considering they'd just finished up with nearly destroying the universe. And one of them had to murder the other).

But back to the mysterious conference room with a transistor radio that appeared adjacent to the 7th floor women's bathroom today. It looks like it popped in from the 1970s for a visit. So, I guess if I am in an alternate universe now (or in a coma and stuck in the 1970s... with a computer...)... Hello, alternate-universe friends! I hope you like me here...
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This cut text contains no opinions because the nature of my opinions would probably a spoiler. )

I think I've used up most of 2010's quota of caps lock now...
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evilhippo: hippo (111 [danger])
( Nov. 17th, 2009 10:56 pm)
1) Holy crap it's 10:30 already and I've only written 400 words today.

2) The Waters of Mars? Actually good. I mean, not great, and I could still argue with it for hours on end, but as far as RTD swan-songs go, at least it looks like it'll actually be in the context of the rest of the show. And the stupid conceit I'd normally argue with is actually valid if he's doing what I think he's doing with this arc. I think I have a fair inkling of where this is going to end, but since I actually like where I think RTD is going with this, I'm pretty sure I'm wrong. But I'm actually looking forward to finding out.

3) I wholeheartedly endorse cornish game hen for dinner. My apartment smells awesome like Thanksgiving, I had an excuse to make chestnut stuffing, I have lunch for tomorrow, and tomorrow after work I'm going to boil the remains into stock and make soup. One tiny hen and I am set for the rest of the week. It's kind of awesome. The only drawback is that number 1 is a direct result of this venture (I even made gravy).
My parents are in town, and I took them record shopping yesterday. While they were searching for the random odds and ends that are missing from their collection I cried over all the beautiful things I could own on vinyl if I only had a record player, then decided to stop being a masochist and looked in the bargain bins. I came across a few milk crates full of old 12" singles, and among them, I came across this...

The best possible start to my record collection )
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Argh, guys, the new Doctor (contains new Doctor, don't click if you don't want to know) is barely more than a year older than me. What is Moffat thinking?! Other than, apparently, the Doctor ages backwards as he regenerates. Goshdarnit, I require my Doctor to be at least 30. Now I'm going to have to be sad that I'm too old to be the Doctor, too. Too old to be a child prodigy, too old to go to Hogwarts, and now too old to be an amnesiac incarnation of a Time Lord. Curse you, fiction! Curse you!



... Okay, I guess Davidson was only 28 when he was the Doctor, so maybe it's all right after all.

But I still won't be able to properly enjoy him as the Doctor without feeling like a teeny bopper.
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evilhippo: hippo (16 [cool])
( May. 20th, 2008 05:50 pm)
I should be cleaning out my fridge, but my friend's list greeted me today with wondrous, fantatsical news.

Steven Moffat. Season Five. Oh yes. Oh very, very yes. In 2010, it will once again be safe for me to watch an entire season of Doctor Who without fear. Or, okay... it probably won't be. But I can be a lot more optimistic. Yaaaaaay, a quality writer at the helm! I won't have to go through with my nefarious RTD disguise.
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Dear Battlestar Galactica:

What. the. heck? I... really? I didn't think it was possible for you to get more emotionally screwed up. But no. No, now you have got me invested in this, and you've turned into a giant space soap opera of wtfery. (And it is wonderful. Really. Everyone has gone insane, and some of the scenes... where are you going with this? I'm not even going to try anymore. You had better not betray me.) And still, since the end of last season, all my character loyalties are shifting a bit. We're getting new sides of people, and I'm staying loyal to very few. (I no longer want to punch Lee Adama in the face. How weird is that? Tigh? 100% cooler since last season (yet still the same Tigh). Baltar? Five million percent more bizarre comic relief. And also... probably the biggest point of confusion for me. And if he turns out to be a Cylon... I don't think I'll be happy. I... actually, I could go into theories here for a long time, but I think I'll wait until we're more than two episodes into the season. Kara? I still want to kick her, but now it's more in... okay, it's still for "stop being insane" only now it's more out of concern than frustration. And Papadama remains a big giant jelly donut.)

Dear Russel T. Davies/Doctor Who Season 4:

As I've said before, I have no doubt you went into this new series thing with approximately five ideas and three characters. That said... Donna is actually tolerable, and I am verily impressed (for now. Don't think I won't turn my back again if you let things start sucking like you did with Martha. Character depth. It helps guys.) However, your plots still suck and the line about Vulcan? If anything was going to make me cry in that episode (and oh, you tried. You tried so hard it actually hurt), it was that line. Srsly.


evilhippo
evilhippo: hippo (91 [reading])
( Apr. 6th, 2008 12:32 am)
Life = 1000% more satisfying when you can spend an entire day nerding it up with friends. Spent the morning goofing around online and trying to solve a puzzle in Professor Layton that's been nagging me for days (mostly because I can only play for about ten minutes at a time on the bus, which is long enough for me to have an idea about what I need to do, and then have to get off the bus. Which means I forget what I was doing. Or I sit there and think about whether or not it's a trick question, because I know it doesn't expect you to use algebra to solve things. Er... anyway.)

So, it turns out I kind of rock Smash Bros. with Snake. (Even though I don't know how to taunt, so I can't sit there under a box nearly as much as I should.) We had mead, and 9000-year old beer, and I didn't drink much of either, but the sketchy Indian food we ordered, which was delivered in a taxi... that was fun. And then we watched Battlestar Galactica. And it was a season premier, so it wasn't perfect, but... )

Then I headed back to the apartment and managed to somehow catch the same bus as [livejournal.com profile] deathscytheheck, which I noticed when her phone rang... and then I hopped into the seat next to her a moment before I realized that doing so would scare the everliving crap out of her. (I hopped over with a pretty solid thud. It was probably the sort of entrance that some sort of brazen... um... bus-botherer would make.) Which reminds me... gah! I had some guy grab my waist on the green line platform today while catcalling me. Scared the crap out of me. People need to be... not grabby. I can deal with harassment from a distance. But... grabby is... not good. Especially when they're in groups, because I know I can't fight them off.

And because my TV shows are evil this year, we also watched the new episode of Doctor Who... Which... despite not being that good, may have been one of the stronger season openings )

I completely intended to be asleep right now. This is... kind of longer than I planned. And I'd originally planned to write down the dream I had last night, too, which was... kind of epic, and involved running a bar with one of my workmates. A bar that had a lager pump that had to be primed. And the freshman dorm at the UofC containing 15 floors of identical rooms that were all likely to have money in the couch cushions. But I really want to get to sleep.
evilhippo: hippo (113 [Surprise Raptor])
( Jan. 19th, 2008 11:22 pm)
I feel like I should call attention to the birthday gift I just got from [livejournal.com profile] deathscytheheck. Not only does it contain Ten and Rose, it contains raptors. Ten being an utter raptor tourist (and Rose about to slap him for it).

See!

Heehehehe. I kind of want to write a short story around it, because Ten and The Raptors would be fun. And I need to write. I mean, I'm coming up on being a month late with the Christmas story I promised to write. At least that's outlined, so all I have to do is write it, but... anyway, my rambling is taking away from the important part here, which is raptors. Raptors! Arts! Yay!

I was also really torn about which icon to use for this entry. I may just keep editing it and changing it.
evilhippo: hippo (71 [o rly?])
( Jul. 11th, 2007 02:06 pm)
I just found out that Giles (you know, from Buffy) was the evil principal in School Reunion. How is that even possible?! Never in a million years would I have drawn that connection. (Apparently he's also the voice of Baltazar in Infinite Quest, but I think I might've known/recognized that.) Trying to make this make sense is hurting my brain. Also, I'm bored out of my mind, and can't make myself go back to reading things because the book I'm working through right now is actually making me feel like a decent writer. Appositions, people... Use Them Wisely.

I mean, especially in this book... which actually brings me to one of my theories/rants about fanfic... which is that you have to know your audience. Most people who aren't familiar with a series aren't going to pick up a novel based on it unless it's one of those novels that's basically a retelling... in which case, yeah, it is up to you to do all the characterization and exposition properly. However, an entire chapter in a book that kind of boils down to fan-oriented (fan)fiction that's full of something like...

"Kara Thrace, who's pretty much never called Kara Thrace because she's a Viper pilot and people call the pilots by their call signs, which are nicknames for pilots, so she's called Starbuck, unless Lee, who is really Lee Adama AKA Apollo, not to be confused with the Arrow of Apollo, which is a mythical item that Starbuck (Kara Thrace) had to bring back to the Galactica, which is a giant ship in space under the command of Bill Adama, Apollo (Lee)'s father, is talking to her, which is what's happening now. "Hi Kara," Lee the Viper pilot says. "Hi Lee," Kara says disdainfully because Kara and Lee have a complicated relationship because..." etc. (Okay, it's not nearly that bad, but that was fun to write.)

I'm pretty sure I completely forgot where I was going with this... Moral of the story is to trust your audience to know/figure things out, and that sloppy bad exposition is bad. Yeah.
A few days ago [livejournal.com profile] chocolatemoose gave me a wonderful suggestion that was sure to fix all of my employment problems. Provided that the BBC still uses paper paychecks, and not some kind of direct deposit system, I was to find myself a Russell T. Davies disguise and take his place. After all, the first bit of season 3 was kind of rubbish (with the possible exception of Gridlock, maybe) and the end was just... I can't even put it into words. And now, given this news (linked to a post that links to a casting spoiler) I believe this is clearly the only moral course of action. So, if anyone wants to donate enough for me to get to Wales or whatever, I think I'll set up a paypal account. And as of now, I am looking for someone who can make me a convincing RTD disguise. Any takers? I'll let you work on the series. (I'll even promise to keep Torchwood just as cracky, though I might try to make it not... you know... involve Chris Chibnall's writing.)
evilhippo: hippo (91 [reading])
( Jun. 5th, 2007 03:17 pm)
So, today I picked up my cap and gown. And... and... I can't help it. Now I want to find a grey 1914-looking suit to wear under it, and a pair of converses, just to make the joke obvious. Oh what is wrong with me? No one will get it but me, and yet... there's a part of my brain that says I have no choice. And it's so timely. It's almost like fate.
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evilhippo: hippo (6 [yay])
( May. 27th, 2007 12:28 am)
Dear Doctor Who,

Thank you. That one was actually good. And to think I was dreading it. It's amazing how far good writing will get you. (Also, dude, I would so want that notebook.)


evilhippo
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