Everyone loves a flying car!

How can you go wrong with flying cars!

Thank God we invented the blue ashtray!

A couple of times in the past week, I've seen a clip from the new film version of Christopher Buckley's Thank You For Smoking. In the clip, Aaron Eckhart and Rob Lowe discuss adding cigarettes as product placement to a science fiction film.

Lowe: Sony has a futuristic sci-fi movie they're looking to make.
Eckhart: Cigarettes in space?
Lowe: It's the final frontier, Nick.
Eckhart: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment?
Lowe: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... ' you know, whatever device.

From Resurrection of the Daleks.

The smoking in space presented here was supposed to have been a directorial decision - it shows that the sense of professionalism has broken down. The episode was targeted by parents' groups who felt that the smoking was glorified (the argument being, as it often is, that if something is shown to exist then it is being glorified).

I like how the ashtray sticks out on the console, the sole bit of color in a sea of grim and oppressive technology. Also the design; I'd hate to be in the control room in some emergency when the gravity gets shut off and the great big cloud of spent ash and squished out butts comes flying at me.

I am beset with bugs

The one thing that I was worried about with the premiere of Doctor Who on the Sci-Fi channel was all the garbage that they tend to put on the screen. All in all, not as bad as I've seen before, but I really have to say how much I hate those little corner bugs:

Let's just hide in here until it's over

The blogspot server troubles seem to not be affecting this blog in the least, so if things get really cock-eyed I might have to re-think my dual blog set-up.

Another thing about today...

It's Saint Patrick's Day!

The best Doctor Who connection that I can think of off the top of my head is that portions of The Invasion were filmed at the Guinness Brewery in Park Royal, Acton.

It's D-day in America

Don't forget to set the Tivo.

Future advances in penmanship

Look at how Mavic Chen holds his futuristic writing implement in The Daleks' Masterplan:

In the DVD commentary, Kevin Stoney is asked who came up with the idea of holding a (for lack of a better word) pen this way. He can't remember, which is sensible as forty years have passed.

Still, I love that somebody, whomever it was, decided that they needed to come up with a clever new way to hold a pen, just to show that it is the future.

A sense of fashion will run screaming as you approach

A Dalek Tie. It even has a little sound chip that says "exterminate!"

Perfect for that important sales meeting or first date.

Everything I learned, I learned from Doctor Who

Here is what I consider to be the "unified field theory" of the show, two thoughts that I've taken to heart:

1. The universe is a huge, magnificent, wonderful place. It is filled with amazing things, that often go unnoticed. The best way that anyone can live their life is to spend as much time as possible enjoying all the little things that you would be inclined to ignore.
2. The best case scenario is to die screaming.

Anybody up for a trip?

Welcome to Cromer

Cromer (seen here) is a seaside resort town on Norfolk's northern coast. It is a Victorian-era resort town, and I believe that the pointy thing sticking into the water is the amusement pier, pictures of which can be found here

To my knowledge, the only intersection between Doctor Who and Cromer is The brigadier's remark about mistaking an alien landscape for the beach nearby the town in The Three Doctors.

Many American fans have interpreted the line as being "I think that's chroma." They use this as an example of the show's willingness to break the fourth wall - chroma-key is the American term for what the British call CSO (Colour separation Overlay). They find this to be even funnier than the original intended joke. Such is life.

I was asleep when I visited Cromer. I was having a nap in the back seat of a car when all the awake people decided to take a detour along the coast, instead of heading straight back to the house we were staying at. Later on, when I was shown all the places I had slept through, I remarked that I would liked to have been woken up for Cromer.

"Why Cromer?" I was asked.

"It's supposed to look like the interior of a black hole."

"Oh."

It was at this moment that there was a silent agreement that we all should drop the subject.

In the ghetto

This blog has a self-destruct button.

I want to point that out right off the bat.

Like all the blogs on blogger, in the first tab of the "settings" there is a dark blue button that says "delete this blog." If I start to feel like it's silly for me to be having two separate blogs, then this one will be nuked.

So why am I doing this?

It all started with my other blog. I decided that I wanted to try having a blog for a couple of reasons:

1. In my life, I have accumulated a lot of things. I decided that it would be interesting to talk about them someplace.
2. I enjoy poking around and discovering things. Answers to questions that I didn't know anyone wanted to have asked.
3. I wanted to have a place where I could pass along news and information that interests me to a venue that I thought would find it of value.

I've discussed a wide number of things on my blog, from wine to kangaroo meat, from the history of Cricket to Aquaman. There also a number of almost posts - things that I have held back on:

A post on an underground city in Moldavia is still sitting in the queue, waiting to be completed - which I am starting to suspect it never will. Reviews of CD's by folks as diverse as Al Stewart and The Boomtown Rats are waiting for my attention as well. A post on the new (then upcoming) Harry Potter movie was posted and then deleted moments later, as I felt that it really was saying nothing that hadn't already been said all over.

The one thing that seems to happen is my wanting to say something about Doctor Who, and then I don't because I don't want that one subject to start to dominate the focus of the blog.

So here we are - my first spin-off.

I have some misgivings about doing this - in some ways it's almost like I'm banishing a part of my life into some dark alley, like I'm ashamed of it. But in another way I'm getting a bit of breathing space.

I could use a bit of that.