dogpoet

Further evidence of why Davies shouldn't have been allowed within a mile of Doctor Who?

I've always got a much more complicated, science-fictiony version of each episode in mind, and I always filter that out, and go for the more straightforward version -- the more emotional, honest version. For example, there was a great, complicated version of "Tooth and Claw" in my mind where, at the end of the episode, Queen Victoria is killed, and that creates the parallel universe which becomes the world of "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel". It would have been the most brilliant ending, because the Doctor and Rose would have stood there and gone "That's not supposed to happen!" But it's very subscription channel, cult audience, male sci-fi. It's a brilliant moment, but its legacy is too complicated, and too dark in a boring way.'

Fucking twat. Maybe it's just me, but you know, I sort of prefer science fiction to kitchen sink drama when it comes to Doctor Who.

I don't believe so. No.

Pity that. It's a very funny piece, so you'd think at least one of the authors would have collected it by now (it was printed twenty odd years ago, after all...)

Has that "Culprits" story he did with Kim Newman and (I think) Eugene Byrne ever been collected anywhere? Don't think I've ever seen that one reprinted.

Balthazaar, what everybody else has already said. I hope your mum comes out of this okay.

People who spew propaganda and received wisdom usually are hard to talk to.

"Impossible to talk to" is the phrase I'd use myself. The whole point of swallowing an entire philosophy (economic, political or religious) largely unexamined is that it frees you from the worry of ever having to think about certain things (or in a few cases anything) ever again for the rest of your life. Given this, such people can get quite aggressive if you can produce a solid argument that what they're saying is bullshit. It isn't just the ridiculous crap Ayn Rand/Francis Futuyama/L Ron Hubbard/Whoever spouted you're having a go at, it's them and the core of their worldview.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert T. Kiyosaki (with Sharon L. Lechter)-Same. I have ADD, so switching between these two will not be a problem.

 

Why the hell are you reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad?

My cousin the Capitalist neocon fundamentalist with a degree in economics raves about how that book can change America, if everyone were forced to read it.

He refuses to read fiction, as fiction is just a diversion from making profit, so he can't hold up Ayn Rand next to his Holy Bible, so he holds up Rich Dad, Poor Dad next to his Holy Bible instead.

By the way, his Holy Bible comes from the Republican Christian Church. I kid you not, his church is actually the Republican Christian Church.

This is the guy who read Fast Food Nation and claimed it was a book "praising the free market".

Should you really be taking reading recommendations from somebody who's so raving mad that they feel the death of Feudalism was a bad thing?

(I'm astonished that they'll let him call himself a neocon if he hasn't read Rand, though. Most of what's described as neocon values reminds me of objectivisim/libertarianism, the way Tori Amos reminds me of Kate Bush...)

Grinning Fellow: I like Frankenstein a lot, myself. Inarguably it's dated, but it's still a very modern book compared to most late gothic novels of the same vintage (try wading through Maturin's Melmoth The Wanderer or Lewis' The Monk and you'll see what I mean), it has great characters and it pretty much invented Science Fiction. Bear with it.

Word is that the rhinos are the Judoon, the new boys on the block.

 

The nearest I could find to a rhino reference in old who are the monsters from The Android Invasion:

 

That'll be them, probably.

It's cool if Davies is coming up with some new monsters though, particularly if these one aren't flatulent and don't look like refugees from Bad Taste...

This whole Y: The last man-debacle has me quite flabbergasted. I must say I'm baffled that anyone can work up such amounts of emotional energy over this comic. I essentially agree with Mark and Abhi, but Avaunt has one point: It IS a totally, GLARING logical error that the women don't even harvest Yorick's semen. (He doesn't even have to fuck anyone - he could father millions just through wanking...) However, this doesn't make the comic "misandrist", just silly.

Maybe if they're all lesbians nobody wants to hold the bucket while he's beating off?

(They were likely just worried about revealing he exists, before the silly sod did that himself, though.)

No, these guys are new.

 

You might be thinking of the Sontarans:

 

I'm not thinking of the Sontarans: there was apparently a story (I've not seen it) that had portly rhinos as the bad guys: I couldn't find a picture on that link, but I wondered if it might not be Davies having another go at old stuff, as he did with the Daleks, Cybermen and Autons.

OMG...Giant Space Rhinos have attacked the buffet!

 

I think these are the baddies for the first show of the season which introduces Martha.

It's another b list '70s revival, I think. (From a late Pertwee story, if they're the ones I think they are.)

Oh man, The Girl who would be Death was so unintelligent, I was insulted for reading it. Was the artist the same guy who did BoM:LDWT. It seemed similar but sloppier.

I think the biggest problem with that (apart from the fact that it could have been done in about half the length as a Dreaming annual) is that Kiernan desperately wanted to do Lovecraft but was stuck doing Gaiman instead, and couldn't get the two to mix very convincingly. Pity really, because (as you say) the art was wonderful and I actually liked a few of her characters for once.

I'd go along with that as well, Christian: the fact that most of the characters Kiernan set up to carry the story weren't terribly interesting didn't help any either. A few of the bits of her huge arc were pretty good (the story with the Corinthian in Bangkok springs to mind), but a lot of it was terrible and there isn't a single issue of it that stands up to Dream Below or Jeff Nicholson's Merv Pumpkinhead story.

What are the effects of kind bud?

 

That shit will get you fuckin' high. High? No I mean real high. Like the first time you ever smoked type of high. twice the cost, four times the buzz.

 

[edit] oh and The Chronic is one of the best rap albums ever made.

It's Tricky's dope of choice as well, or at least it was back when he was making records that were any good.

Thanks, gen. That's a nice thought.

dogpoet - was this the chair you did most of writing on....?

It was indeed. Unfortunately it was also starting to rattle ominously, so I thought I'd better get another before it fell apart.

Fingers crossed, Coralys.

"Too much energy to shut down my mind, but not enough to get myself organised..."

You know, it seems intentional that the First in Hellblazer is absolutely not Lucifer (isn't that explicitly stated?), but I'd also say that Lucifer in Carey's title seems very different from Lucifer in Sandman. Perhaps it was simply the differences in artists' rendering, but Carey's Lucifer seems much less vain and feminine than Gaiman's.

You couldn't see him admitting that the sunsets are marvellous, true enough.

Dog Welder upsets me.

 

you upset the dog welder.

If she doesn't watch out, she'll end up with a dog welded to her face...

Might as well start cussing and drooling already, get the Alzheimer's in full gear.

 

Actually, I'm going to make what might sound like a racist statement, but unintentionally, I assure you:

 

It seems to me that people from the mid-Asian region age much more gracefully and with more sound faculties then us westies--what gives? You walk into a nursing home here in the states, and people are shitting themselves and speaking to people who aren't there, yet it seems like you fine folk from mid-Asia seem to avoid all that nonsense, or am I completely out of line? I honestly don't know what inspired me to think about that, except I was imagining you all old and demented, having blown your wad of grandeur, and the image didn't click. It was like: does that DO that? Don't mind me, I'm on my 4th energy drink (I found these really badass ones that make you tingle when they kick in) and pretty much typing out of my ass...but I hope you understand, I meant not to generalize, just to make an observation which may or may not be accurate.

You may be correct, spider, but I fear you're also a wee bit off topic.

Just bought (and assembled) a new office chair. Of no great interest to anybody, but the old one was getting a bit a bit tatty, and thois one is finished in leather rather than vinyl, so I don't have to put down a towel before sitting on it if it's a hot day.

That was a tedious post, wasn't it?

Looking for a friend, looking everywhere

Walked along the boulevard, the boulevard of friends

All those mild mannered friends I've got

They're careless and they fall down

All over the place, all over town

I don't want them talking to me

 

'Cause I'm leaving it, leaving it, leaving it up to you

Have to leave it, leave it, leave it up to you

 

All the buildings are breaking down

Like the whispering in your heart

And it's sordid how life goes on

When I could take you apart

And if you give me half a chance

I'd do it now, I'd do it now, right now, you fascist

I know we could all feel safe like Sharon Tate

We could give it all up, we could give, give, give it all up

And the newspapers, oh the newspapers

They'd be listening, listening to me giving it to you

And the radio, what about the radios?

They'd be listening to me giving it to you

 

Right mama, damn right mama

 

I hear hissing, I hear hissing in the distance

I hear the tanks crawling

They're crawling over the hill, they're crawling over the hill

Like rattlesnakes in the desert sun

They're blistering up my spell, they're blistering it up

They're breaking it up, they're breaking up my spell

And what else is there, what else have I got?

What else have I got but that spell?

 

Ah, leaving it, leaving it, I'm leaving it up to you

Leaving it, leaving it, leaving it up to you

Leaving it, leaving it, leaving it in the cloakroom for you

 

I've got to give it up, I've got to give it up, give it up

Up, up, give it up

 

I can't take it.

Good--way to plan ahead--don't be surprised. I like the cut of your jib! (what's a jib?)

Either a sail or something a sail hangs off, I'm not sure which.

But did Dream seek the end to his existence because of that little bruhaha with Orpheus? (I'm not wanting to divulge spoilers and too lazy to do them right, currently) Was he really that sad about it? I always got the idea that Orpheus was a piece of shit, as far as Dream was concerned. But I loved bringing back Lyta from the beginning and ultimately making her the catalyst of his destruction. BUT I can't recall the connection her superhero mother had to the Furies--might someone tell?

After Lyta's ma ceased to be Wonder Woman prior to the (first) Crisis and became the Golden Age Fury Roy Thomas (I think) retconned into existence while he was trying to paper over the terrible cracks the Crisis had kicked in Infinity Inc, it seems to have been decided that she gained her powers as a gift from the Furies.

I'd want to mess a Mac, too. With OS X, there's the, uhm, Unix terminal, so I wouldn't really be getting away.....

True that. It's supposed to be a less impressive kernel than the one in Linux as well, isn't it?

I don't know. (I'd think the important thing would be that it works well with all the hardware it's likely to come in contact with.) But I did use my sister's Mac to get a Unix homework assignment done when I just had to get out of my house on a particular day. In fact Mac OS X pulled my fat out of the fire that day. Its Unix seemed fairly standard and very usable.

I've never tried to use the Unix shell, to be honest, just the GUI (which is very stable compared to the previous version). As you say they're in a better position to tailor the hardware and the software together than some poor bastard who has to to have their OS capable of running dozens of BIOSes, drivers, odd bits of hardware, chip combinations and Christ only knows what else.

I'd want to mess a Mac, too. With OS X, there's the, uhm, Unix terminal, so I wouldn't really be getting away.....

True that. It's supposed to be a less impressive kernel than the one in Linux as well, isn't it?