Fan-boy Wankery*

Rumors of Davros returning to the new Doctor Who have been floating around for a while now, so the pictures of him -- looking surprisingly like his old-series self -- are not, in fact, very surprising.

What *is* surprising are images of new, red Daleks.

Red... daleks. I love red. I love Daleks. The effect of the idea of Red Daleks on my person is shameful to admit. But not quite as shameful as admitting just how much my imported, 18 inch, radio-controlled movie-version red Dalek cost.

And I will hug him as I watch the up-coming series finale.

*Literally. By all that's holy, did you see Colin Morgan in "Midnight"? It's a singing testament to RTD's writing I even noticed /a/ plot, let alone the greatest plot in new Who. Forget Edward Cullen when there are actual people who look like that.

Breezes and Surf. But the Wrong Kind.

I just found out I'm going to the Midwest for 10 days, starting next week.

Do I know anyone in Chicago besides Ross "I'm working a fecking cruise ship in the Med and the Baltic and hence unavailable till Fall" Bryant?

Pour Emily

see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts

You know, I've spent most of the past decade (or longer) thinking Rivers Cuomo is gay.

He's not -- although he does have an Asian girlfriend, so five years ago he could have been bi, since all those "bi-curious" hipster boys of a certain type have all moved on to Asian chicks. Although it is pretty generous to include Cuomo in the "hipster" category.

I'm trying to remember just what put it in my head he was gay, and for some reason I think I remember reading that in an interview in Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. But that makes no sense -- I never stopped to /read/ anything in one of those. I don't think anyone did.

All the Umbrellas of London

If I make it tonight, it'll be all right.
It'll make a good song or something
I've been trying to give myself reasons to live
But I really can't think of one thing

I drive around, I walk around in circles
'Cause I've got no sense of direction
And I guess I've got no sense at all

[chorus:]
All the umbrellas in London
Couldn't stop this rain.
And all the dope in New York
Couldn't kill this pain.
And all the money in Tokyo
Couldn't make me stay.
All the umbrellas in London
Couldn't stop this rain.

I don't cry anymore, I go out the door
And I usually keep on walking
I will sit in the bar where the cocktails are
But I really don't feel like talking

I lie around and let the darkness fall
'Cause I've got a sense of perfection
And nothing makes much sense at all

I've been thinking a lot about the relationship of lyrics to music, and I've come to the conclusion that, at least, in pop music, there's something odd about them. I think most people would be hard pressed to describe -- to even think of -- lyrics in situ as poetry. But they are.

I think the upshot of this is that that fact hits home every once in a while and get you get struck by this new appreciation of a song you've heard a thousand times. This has happened to me several times recently, and did again tonight when I heard the above song. I don't really know where to go with that, but it seems odd to me that music can have such a masking quality.

(Brecht, of course, was aware of the phenomenon, and used it to his advantage, making happy, cheerful tunes out of black deeds. "Mack the Knife" is a jaunty little tunes about child rape, murder, theft, whores and burning down occupied orphanages.)

In other news, I had a dream about Billie Piper last night. Well not /about/ her but with her in. Which is oddly appropriate as her series The Secret Life of a Call Girl premieres in the US tonight.

We were in a van with several other members of my family, crossing the Rocky Mountains when the van wrecked. There was more to it, involving a kitsch 70s-style hotel, but I don't recall that in detail. I do remember thinking, "How odd to be dreaming of a Doctor Who girl instead of the Doctor himself." I've only done /that/ once, when I dreamt I was racing along in Bessie with the Third Doctor. Even if it was the Best. Dream. Ever., it was still yonks ago.

All in all, I was just pleased it wasn't a tooth dream after last night's Britain's Worst Teeth doc.

For When "Big Mouth Billy Bass" is just *too* classy.

America Has Failed.

Don't get me wrong: I love the system of American government. It is an elegant tribute to a generation of men with wisdom, foresight and dedication to their ideals. It is a testament to even more generations that their system has grown and developed with a fervent dedication to the Enlightenment ideas of liberal democracy.

But this isn't about America as a political entity. This is about America as cultural institution. We have failed. Miserably. It's time to up stakes, wash ourselves clean and try a completely new paradigm.

Jingle Jugs: The Jugs that Jiggle to a Jingle.

This is why the rest of the world hates us: Jingle Jugs and Justin Long.

Note to self:

The person who consistently dreams of his teeth falling out, and who constantly worries the chipped tooth he can't afford to have mended probably shouldn't have watched "Britain's Worst Teeth".

Big-Head Want Dolly!

So, I have this irrational hatred of Justin Long. And I'm not sure why, really -- most people I hate, I know /why/. But he fills me with an inexplicable loathing. I would love to see him forced to participate in the most disturbing, degrading sex acts, of the type that women justly use to condemn the worst excesses of pornography. With John Hodgman, as payback for those damn Mac ads, even if Hodgman did include a humorous picture of the Cybermen in The Areas of My Experise, under the caption "Typical Cyborg Mischief".

Sorry. I watched Waiting this weekend and my anti-Long feelings have been percolating around.

Other than that, it's been a reasonably good birthday weekend. There were some nice touches from on high -- Tivo recorded (out of the blue, as far as I can tell) my favourite episode ever of Gilmore Girls ("Emily in Wonderland", if you're interested) and there was a question about Faulkner's Snopes trilogy on Friday's Jeopardy!

I spent Saturday night watching a little Doctor Who marathon -- this series is the best yet, by far, so I watched the three latest episodes over again. Alex King was the guest star for the recent Steven Moffat two-parter, so I was a little confused by having Charlotte Corday from ER sniffing around David Tennant. (For a little present -- the only present I got except for Laura Llew's books -- I got myself the DVD of "Timelash". "Timelash" is without question the worst episode of the series original run and should only be watched under the influence. And so I did. It helped immensely.)

The real treat was my trip over to the local Human Society. My father underwent eye surgery recently, turning me into a chauffeur. Which is nice, because I don't have a car and, consequently, don't get about much. On one trip, I took us over to see a basset hound they had at the Humane Society's huge new complex.

His name is Stetson. He doesn't look very basset-y hound-y in the pictures, but he does in real life. I was able to take him outside and play with him for a few minutes -- he was very active for a basset hound. Meaning, you know, he was actually in motion for a few moments. Like most bassets, he didn't particularly care whom he was with, as long as he could smell things, so he wasn't very interested in me.