Archive

Archive for April, 2007

Doctor Who Review: Smith and Jones

April 26th, 2007

Series three starts with a bang as we get a new Rose in the shape of Martha Jones, excellently played by Freema Agyeman. The pace and dynamism of the first series was back and it felt far more of a new start than last season’s opener, New Earth. Odd, considering we got a new Doctor last time.

Martha looks like she will be a very good Companion. Different from Rose, but the same in a regenerated sort of way. She impressed both the Doctor and viewers with her attitude and character under pressure.

Child’s View

My four year old thought it was excellent too, liking the Judoon and the fast pace of the episode. It scored bonus points for having a New Rose and an alien that sucks people to death with a straw.

It scored points with Dad for having an alien very much like the Sontarans and the Doctor having to solve something without his Sonic Screwdriver (even though he simply made a new one in about 30 seconds).

This Years Bad Wolf

Clearly the theme is going to be Time Lords. In the first series [1] they were very careful not to mention the Doctor’s race, only that they’d all died. Now the Doctor is telling someone he’s only just met that he is a Time Lord. Plus I’ve seen one of the later episode titles in the Radio Times.

[1] Hang on, when did I stop calling it Series 27?

Paul Doctor Who, General

Life On Mars: The Answers

April 25th, 2007

A bit late on this one as the series finished a few weeks ago, but I wanted to comment on Life on Mars.

So, was he mad, in a coma or back in time? And what happens at the end?

Co-creator Matthew Graham reveals in The Life of Wylie: Life On Mars: The Answers that it was all quite straightforward really.

“The truth is, when I wrote it, what I was trying to say is that’s he’s died, and that for however long that last second of life is going to be, it will stretch out for an age, as an eternity for him. And so when he drives off in that car, he’s really driving off into the afterlife.”

Basically, he was in a coma then. And if you woke up in the real world and you hadn’t been playing the game all wrong (you bunch of twonks) then maybe you’d throw yourself off a tall building as well.

Paul Television

Putting out the rubbish

April 17th, 2007

Some people will be South Africans tonight.

On the positive side, at least we weren’t humiliated by the Australians in the semi-final.

I heard on the radio someone say that Sheffield United would be happy to keep United to an English cricket score tonight.

Paul Culture

Secrets of Google Earth

April 13th, 2007

1: Indian in the mountain
2: Nazi building
3: Hidden Donut store
4: Cat in a bottle
5: Google in a bathtub
6: Big Fuck
7: Crop circle
8: Dutch sunbather
9: Weird black line and a fire on ice
10: Giant Firefox symbol

Paul General, Technology

A Simple Guide to installing anything on Redhat

April 4th, 2007

Don’t do it. Installing RPM’s appears to be like having your teeth pulled out by your dentist. Only the dentist will stop half way through the painful experience.

He will say “Sorry, in order to pull out the rest of this tooth I need to cut off one of your fingers. But you have to guess which one”

You pick a finger. He chops it off. After attempting to pull the tooth out again, he will stop and say “Sorry, in order to pull out the rest of this tooth I need to cut off one of your fingers. But you have to guess which one”.

Repeat until you have to type out your rant with your blooded stubs ruining the keyboard.

Thank god for Ubuntu and it’s Life on Mars coloured package manager.

Paul Computing, General

Serenity named top sci-fi movie

April 3rd, 2007

Joss Whedon’s western in space, Serenity has been voted top sci-fi movie in an SFX polls, says the BBC :-

“The TV show may have been cancelled, yet the Serenity universe clearly struck a chord with fans, thanks to its likeable characters, witty dialogue and amazing special effects.”

Is it really that good? The DVD sits on the shelf at home and quietly whispers at me “watch me, watch me” every day. So far I have resisted. Ok, I haven’t had time. The Star Wars box sets get watched quite often by myself and my son. Serenity is better that the latter 3 Star Wars films, but the originals have turned into timeless classics that will not be beaten.

The excellent new episode of Doctor Who has inspired me to start up regular Who episode postings here (like I used to). Expect some more “what my son thought of Doctor Who this week” to appear.

Paul Culture, General