New Doctor Who Companion

So Karen Gillan is going to be the new Companion.

And she's awfully young. Please, please, please tell me she won't be in love with the Doctor!

Other than that, I haven't a strong opinion either way: The actress was fine in The Fires of Pompeii, but she won't be the same character (Could be kind of fun if she were...), so there's not much to go on there.

Edit1: *Sigh. I misread the quote I thought I liked. Too fast, and too excited. Never mind :(


Edit2: I do like this snarky bit, courtesy of Topless Robot:
"The new Who's new Companion has been cast, and it's the very young, mostly unknown and rather pale Karen Gillan, seen above. The BBC hopes this will draw attention away from the fact that Matt Smith is incredibly young, generally unknown, and crazy pale."

Remake of V?

I'm a somewhat abashed fan of the original V, TV show and all. Abashed because I am well aware of its faults, having finally caught up on the entire TV show after it came out on DVD, but a fan, nonetheless, both because of fond memories of the first time I caught parts of the show as a child, at a friend's house when we were living overseas--a situation which made it doubly strange--an alien invasion of a home country I had not seen in almost three years--and spent the following years happily making up the missing episodes and reading my copy of the miniseries novelization.

Much later, I saw the two miniseries, at home in the States. Some of the familiar, friendly feeling was--and is--still there, and some of it I like for itself, and some I hate for itself: Half-alien children with mysterious powers have been overused by science fiction shows--. Once was overdoing it, really--but I still like the scene with Ruby and Tyler, and love the balloons going up with the newly discovred toxin (or bacteria? I can't remember. Hm... Must rewatch).

The same holds true, though to a lesser extent, for the TV show, which I finally saw in its entirety when it came out on DVD. Overall, it's a trainwreck, but it's an amusing one, watching it was great stress relief, and there are bits I simply like.

I'm in the Phillip/Martin fan club, for one thing.

So I've followed the various sequel/remake rumors with some interest, and will watch this current incarnation, or at least the start of it.

Though...

I almost wish they were remaking it a little bit more. Don't get me wrong--I'm not in favor of a Battlestar Galactica style redo (Yeah, I know, it's brilliant. Lots of people tell me so. It's also far, far darker than I like, and I bailed mid-first season, about the time people were gleefully telling me "It's getting even darker."). But the trailer for this looks like the characters are essentially the same only with slightly less exhuberant hair and some gender reversals, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of point in remaking something just to update the clothing and hair.

Still, there is the intriguing comment made, somewhere in the official releases, that we don't truly know how long the Visitors have been among us. That has possibilities. And, perhaps, they will avoid the insta-grow, just-add-water alien child this time around.

I doubt greatness is waiting in the wings, but it could be fun.

King Triton's Carousel Again

Ok, so it didn't take me too long to fall for it.

Even if it is alllll the waaaay on the other side of That Other Park.

King Triton's Carousel

I am a carousel lover, so almost the first thing I did after getting my annual pass was go looking for King Triton's Carousel.

To my dismay, it was closed!

I asked when it would be opened, made a note of the date and waited, pretty much not going into California Adventure in the meantime (it is one LOUD park).

This Friday was the first day, and my sister, who was meeting me at Disneyland for the fireworks (I love that show!) very kindly went with me on the enormous detour to the very back of California Adventure so that I could ride it.

The carousel itself is a jewel--brightly lit, beautiful, and full of colorful animals and enough glitter and gleam to delight me. I really could fall head over heels in love.

Except--it is at the very back of the California Adventure, which, as I believe I have mentioned before, is an extremely noisy park. More, the carousel itself is tucked in under the giant roller coaster, which means more noise, enough so that it's hard to hear the carousel music--which, oddly enough, does not appear to include any songs from The Little Mermaid.

Will I go back? Oh yes. Of course. If nothing else, I have got to get a good picture of the bejeweled purple whale I rode that night.

But will I go every time I visit Disneyland? Probably not.

Just Another Day in the Garden

This has been the Time of the Garden. Not that I don't pay attention to the garden at other times--plants have this tendency to die if one doesn't water them from time to time--but this month I've been doing all the springtime stuff: trimming back, weeding, rearranging, emptying and scrubbing the pond-in-a-pots (Or is that ponds-in-a-pot?). Most of the attention in the first few weeks of frenzy went to the front yard, where there are roses that need a little bit of trimming as they start coming back for the spring, fountain grass that will take over if it isn't carefully culled periodically, an enormous salvia bush that had just about succeeded in smothering the Kangaroo's Paw, one of the aforementioned potted ponds, and various other little stuff needing attending.

But it's in pretty good shape now, if I do say so myself, and finally reaching that nice, established look that gardens only get after they've had a few years to settle in.

Yesterday, I turned my attention to the back yard. Most of it is covered in cement, so my sister and I built the garden up with lots, and lots, and lots of potted plants plus a couple of raised beds. Like the front yard, it's getting a good established look, and like the front yard, it needs attention from time to time. Unlike the front yard, it has to have almost all the plants moved around from time to time so that someone can sweep under and around them to remove the huge drifts of dog hair that accumulate back there, trapping drifts of dirt and leaves to form a strange, felted mass. Oh, and as special bonus, rats have been known to crawl back behind things and die--well, one rat did, and I found it yesterday, but that was quite enough.

So that is what I spent yesterday doing--pulling the pots out, sweeping, and rearranging. I also cut back, and in one case removed, some geraniums that had gotten overgrown and leggy over the last couple of years, found and threw away the rat (without screaming but with much "ewwwwing"), took cuttings off of the kalanchoe, and generally tidied up.

Dad came out to move a couple of the bigger plants and took a few more fronds off the giant killer-palm tree out back (Never, ever, ever buy a palm tree without checking into how big it grows; this one started out a cute little fellow in a five gallon pot and is now a towering monstrosity with foot-long spines at the base of each leaf; it's an attractive monstrosity, but far, far larger than an urban backyard needs). Between us, we filled the giant garden bin full to overflowing, stuffed the worm bin with sweepings, packed our reserve trash cans, and started in on the regular trash.

At which point, my sister (not the one in Mexico), called to say that she was pretty sure she'd thrown out a recently purchased item by mistake, and would I mind checking the trash to see if it was there? It should, she added optimistically, be near the top because she'd only put it in last night.

And, instead of doing what a sensible person would do (I.e. telling her "It's full of leaves and dust and kleenix and there is a dead rat somewhere in there and I'm not going near it unless the item in question is the Hope Diamond and you plan on selling it and splitting the proceeds with me, and maybe not even then"), I said sure, I'd look (not very graciously, but without mentioning the rat, which she still doesn't know about, unless she's reading this, in which case, she does now), and went and took all those dusty palm fronds and other stuff out in search of the shopping bag.

Part of me knew, just knew what would happen as soon as I had looked:

Sure enough

She phoned again to say that, after all, she didn't think it was there, she was pretty sure she'd left it somewhere else and would get it.

So I put everything back into the trash, sprayed fungicide on the roses, and went to take a very hot shower.

And after the very hot shower and a cup of fairly hot tea, I went out to admire my handiwork.

It looks good.

Very good.

LolCats Strike Again

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson

One of many books the librarians put out to tempt the unwary.

It worked, and it was worth it: The Pluto Files is a good, quick read on the history of the former planet and its fans. DeGrasse explains how and why Pluto got "demoted" and why the new categorization is so much more interesting than the old. Best of all, however, he includes a number of the letters, newspaper clippings, and cartoons that followed Pluto's change of status. The letters from the third graders are the best ("We're sorry we said we liked Pluto but not you").

Starship Titanic by Terry Jones (and Dogulas Adams sort of)

If you find the information that this was written by a naked man hilarious, then you'll probably find the book funny. If, on the other hand, you respond to the information with a shrug and the thought that that must have been uncomfortable at times, you'll find the book similarly bemusing.

Conclusion: I Just Don't Get Douglas Adams, even when he isn't the one who wrote the book.

More Herons

Still the ones behind the library.

I really do not know how I missed them all those years. They are not only there, they are noisy. Of course, when I went to take a video clip to demonstrate to everyone just *how* noisy, they had quieted down.

One of the pictures shows a chick (very large) being fed, but it's kind of behind branches, so I'm not sure how apparent it is.



Oh, and someone did tell me there were a couple of years when they didn't come because the trees had been pruned too much, so that's two (or so) years of non-observance I am not guilty of.

Chatterbox

Because It's a Gorgeous Bit

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?

Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?

Romans 11:33-35 (King James Version)

The Broken Hourglass: Makarios Ringtone

I find it vaguely amusing that there is a Makarios Ringtone out there. It's strictly unofficial, but since it comes off of the music posted on Planewalker Games main site, I guess it's ok.

And, yeah, I should actually be writing quests, not doing google searches on the game, or even working to figure out what Carind's last name will be (whatever it turns out to be, I bet it won't be on the list I just posted on the dev forum. That's ok, though, as long as it is pretty soon).

Still don't know Ioanna's last name, either, come to that. Diversions? Yup. It's the old "blank page" syndrome. Not that the page is blank, exactly, but I haven't been working on it yet, so it's all daunting and new and scary.

It's also all planned out and I know exactly what I'm going to be doing.

It's just that starting is always, inevitably, hard, no matter what I'm writing.

Enough! I will go write, I will go write, I will go write....

A Day with Herons in It

It's amazing how many things one does not see.

I've been going to the Balboa Branch library for years.

This is the first time I've seen the herons nesting out back.

They come every year.

And I've never seen them.

But at least I saw them yesterday.

I want to meet this person.