Month: September 2006

Testing.

I’ve never been the biggest Weird Al fan but he does have an amazing skill at parody and he definitely has some fun tunes.

This one just makes me laugh

Yeah, so I was fairly snide and derogatory about the new Battlestar Galactica when it first aired. The thought of a female Starbuck and the whole premise in general just sort of fell flat with me and nothing anyone could tell me would make me think otherwise. To top it all off I had missed the original mini-series (on purpose mind you) and only managed to catch an episode here and there so I got the story piecemeal and in disjointed snippets.

I now humbly retract my original statement. One of my co-workers loaned me their copy of season one on DVD recently and I have been watching it from the beginning with fresh eyes. Now that I see the whole tapestry of the storyline, I have great respect for it. It’s enjoyable and the characters realistic. And it’s just fun, gritty sci-fi. You can’t go wrong with that.

Now I just have to scramble and get season two watched before Oct 7th when Season 3 airs.

Ye scurvy blighters and motherless bilge rats! I hope ye haven’t forgotten what today be or I’ll be havin’ ta gives ye a taste of the cat afore long! ARRRRRRRRR!

Looks like the site tanked over teh last couple of days for some unknown reason. I’ve emailed the appropriate techies and they’re currently figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it. Hopefully things will be back on track soon™.

*From Episode 2×07 – The Idiot’s Lantern*

[Scene: The Doctor and a young boy named Tommy are chasing after this week’s “Big Bad” during the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in June 1953 and a police officer tries to get in the way and stop them]

Copper: Hold on now. Where do you think you’re going?

Doctor flashes his psychic paper without even stopping

Copper: Oh sorry sir… um shouldn’t you be at the Coronation?

Doctor [shouts]: They’re saving me a seat.

Tommy: Who’d he think you were?

Doctor [glances at his Psychic Paper]: The King of Belgium apparently.

—-

Okay, so it made me laugh.

But so did pretty much all of season two. There were a few episodes that felt somewhat bland, and a few that were absolutely brilliant (The girl in the fireplace for one). Compared to Season One, I think the pacing was slightly better. Season one had a very static feel to it, which was probably due to the story arc (and the producer’s decision not to stray too far from the norm while reintroducing the characters/series). Season Two’s arc had a lot more action and a much faster pace. Though, I think there were times when they overused the whole Torchwood name dropping a little too much, primarily in The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit stories. I can understand they want to have some strong ties to the Doctor Who franchise, but at the same time, it seemed like it was just Name dropping for the sake of name dropping. I can see the writers now, “Hrrm. what shall be their motivation… oh I know let’s make them this era’s Torchwood operatives.” Just seems like sloppy writing if you ask me.

Of the second season I think my favourite ones were: The Girl in the Fireplace because it was such a great story, School Renunion because of the nostalgia… okay it was solely because of K-9, and despite the end result, I liked the Army of Ghosts/Doomsday storyline. The first cybermen arc felt a tad flat to me and despite their being a few funny bits in Love & Monsters, it felt like it was a last minute pastiche episode. The rest of the episodes were fair to middling. I liked them, but they just didn’t jump out at me.

Of the two Doctors, as much as I liked Christopher as #9, David Tennant really shines as #10 and I think of the two of them, I prefer him as the Doctor. He’s rediscovered the manic joyfulness and mischievousness of earlier incarnations (specifically #2 and #7 and to a lesser degree #4) and that tempers what’s left of #9’s bitterness over losing his home planet. He still has that wide-eyed wonder regarding humanity, and coupled with the aforementioned joy, it makes #10 comes across as a much more likeable character. He’s still a tough cookie though and for all his playfulness and joie de vivre, he can be hard as nails under the surface. As he so aptly puts it in School Reunion, “I’m so old now. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning, that was it.”. I really look forward to see how they develop him and to see how the loss of Rose will effect his outlook.

Anyway, two very big thumbs up for season two. Now Bring on Torchwood and Season Three bitches!

And finally my torrent of all of Season 2 of Doctor Who finished downloading tonight! YAY for teh intarwebz!

Now to see if they’re any good. So far, the only downside is they’re in Realplayer format. It’s not my favourite player by any stretch of the imagination but as they say, beggars can’t be choosers.

Lessee here, what all did they include in Season 2…. I’ve got:

• 2×00 – Children in Need Special
• 2×00 – The Christmas Invasion
• 2×01 – New Earth
• 2×02 – Tooth And Claw
• 2×03 – School Reunion [Really looking forward to this one as it’s the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9… plus Giles from Buffy is ze badguy in it]
• 2×04 – The Girl in the Fireplace
• 2×05 – Rise of the Cybermen
• 2×06 – The Age of Steel
• 2×07 – The Idiot’s Lantern
• 2×08 – The Impossible Planet
• 2×09 – The Satan Pit [Editor’s Note: Hrrm… I’m noticing a distinct lack of originality on these names. Here’s hoping the stories are better than the generic “The Adjective Noun” format]
• 2×10 – Love and Monsters
• 2×11 – Fear Her
• 2×12 – Army of Ghosts
• 2×13 – Doomsday

So if anyone else can’t wait… you know who I am and where to find me. Buy me a pint and I might even burn them onto DVD for you.

Hrrm. I wonder if I should try for Booblestar next and watch it over from the beginning just to see if it can catch my attention. It wasn’t overly compelling to me for some reason the first time around, but who knows, maybe I’m just not into blonde cyborgs with LED enhanced spines. Oooo I know!

TORCHWOOD!

(wait… is that even airing yet?)

*scampers off to check*

Okay. It has grown on me. It’s quirky and happy and oddly fun to listen to. Part of me think it sounds a lot like old Cure with all the organ/keyboards but it still sounds like Gord and the boys.

At least it’s not ‘Butts Wigglin’ though. *shudder* But hey, what do I know. We all know I’m easily amused.

So I started playing Bloodbowl again recently. Personally I’m just using it as an excuse to paint miniatures again, but I guess playing is just as fun.

I resurrected my old Human team The Blitzkrieg Boys for the league I’m playing in and remade them using the latest version of the rules so as they include an Ogre and aren’t quite as squishy vs Undead as they were (plus thankfully the undead have been toned down). It’s been fun, but I’m seeing shades of the past. In my first game against a Necromantic team I lost both a blitzer and one of my catchers to the inevitability of death. Not an auspicious start by any means. But hey, I still managed to win the game and one of his werewolves managed to trip and kill itself as well so I didn’t do as bad as I expected.

I actually liked the layout of the Necromantic team a whole lot better than the original Undead one. The combination of flesh golems, werewolves, wights, ghouls and zombies appealed to me so much more than the mummy, wight, ghoul, zombie and skeleton combo from the original undead team. So much so that I grabbed what remained of my undead figs after Karen had picked through and “borrowed them” for her team (yeah, I’m still a little bitter. STFU) and realized that with the addition of a couple of golem and werewolf figs, I had a complete Necro team ready to go… and ‘lo and behold the Necrovore Nightstalkers were born. I’ve yet to play with them, but I’ve had more than enough fun just posing them and modelling some proper neck fur out of green stuff for the wolves for them to be a fun alternative team.

So, now I have a whole plethora of teams on the go (if you want a running count, I have eight teams now: my primary Human team, enough miniatures for 2 more human teams, my Lizardman team, my ever-beloved “feral” Halfling team, the aforementioned Necromantic team, my Orcs and I also have the makings of a Skaven team that I’m still debating on using) and I’m having a blast alternating between which ones I am painting. The silly thing is, I think I’ve painted more of the teams that I’m not using in the league than my humans that I AM using. Go figure. Oh well. I’m having a blast. Once I unpack my camera and set up my makeshift lightbox, I’ll try and get some decent pics and post them in on the site in some sort of gallery format… but that’ll mean I’m going to have to start working on the website again. Bah. Damnitalltoconfoundationandbackagain!

All of a sudden I feel like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. Anyways… I think I’ve blathered for long enough today. I’m off to find something productive to do… like shower and then perhaps paint some miniatures.

I bloody well wish this torrent file would hurry the hell up and finish. I really can’t stand seeing 28.X% anymore. I needs my Doctor Who fix stat! I am seriously starting to wonder if I’ll get this torrent of season 2 downloaded before CBC starts airing them in October though. Course it would help if there more than 10 people seeding the file. I guess the good Doctor isn’t good enough for everyone *sniff*. Bastards.