Monthly Archives: November 2014

2014-11-30 · 20:12

Chrismas

Christmas is less than four weeks away. It is time to start panicking.

Well panicking is optional but it does seem to be a fairly typical response to the forthcoming season. It is the season of goodwill – or the season to fight people to get a cheap TV. If you don’t know to what that refers just try googling for black Friday and Tesco.

I went into town today and picked up a few things. Actually I only got a present for one person and somethings for myself – so I suppose I rather failed at that. I have bought something else on line though.

For obvious reasons I can’t tell you what I’ve bought. Amazon seemed to have missed that and still suggests that you tweet about purchases – or am I the only one who’s parents might see his Twitter.

I think that I’ve only got two or three presents left to get. Some people are very had to buy for. Hell I’m hard to buy for. I have most of what I want and what I don’t have is expensive.

I received excellent customer service in the shop I went into today. Again I can’t tell you where that was… maybe I didn’t think this through.

I hope you’re doing well with your Christmas shopping.

Why does Christmas always seem to be far away and a shock all at the same time?

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

2014-11-23 · 18:00

Regeneration

We all know that when the Doctor is injured he regenerates. Originally this came from a necessity of having to replace William Hartnell. They could simply have replaced the actor. I remember they did this in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman with the character of Jimmy Olsen. However in Doctor Who they chose to make it a part of the plot which is wonderful. (Obviously not a option for Superman)

I think that regeneration was handled better in the old show. I don’t like the knew graphics used for regeneration. The explosive orange looks silly. Obviously explosive orange was impossible for the original series. In the time The Tenth Planet was made there was nether orange nor computer graphics.

The fading from Hartnell to Troughton looked more natural than the modern series. This is supposed to be a biological function after all. That’s just my two sense.

I wonder though might regeneration be possible for us? Immortality is discussed in many science fictions and some say it might be a real possibility one day.  If you know anything about biology, which I don’t really, you’ll know that human cells replace themselves every seven years. In essence there isn’t a cell in your body that was there seven years ago. As we age this replacement process becomes less and less efficient. So what if there were a technology that could assist the body in cell replacement but not lead to weakening and death.

I rather like the idea of immortality – I’m assuming that your immortal body was one that was still a nice place to live. If you could find a job you enjoyed then you could see the world. Boredom would be impossible. There would still be millions of books to read, TV series to watch and places to visit. And if you left it a few decades between visiting each place, watching a TV series, or reading a book it you would have forgotten about it and, in the case of a place, it would have changed a lot.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

2014-11-16 · 18:00

Reading

On Goodreads I set myself the challenge of reading 30 books this year. I’ve read 37 books. By the end of the year I hope to be at forty-five. My total does include audio books. I think they count.

Next year my target will be about fifty books. I’m wondering how many I can get up to as my maximum. Some people manage to read 200 books in a year which seems a little excessive. I’d like to work up to 104 that seems like a workable maximum.

As I’ve said before reading on the train is the only good think about my journey to work. I’m currently reading Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs and listening to The Nano Flower by Peter F. Hamilton.

Books are very important to me. It doesn’t matter how you read – just read. You can get a lot more from a book than a TV show or movie.

I’ve recently joined OkCupid. This differs from Plenty of Fish in that it matches you based on answers to questions. Finding someone who reads is important to me. It would be nice to read to each other or even just sitting together reading our own thing.

I’m 27 but that’s what I want.

So finishing these two will bring me to 39 books. Then I just have six more to go in the next six weeks. Maybe forty-five is a little optimistic. We shall see…

I suppose I could just read a few Mr Men books just to make up the numbers.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

2014-11-13 · 13:24

Perfect

Had to share this video by Emma Blackery.

A great song.

Enjoy.

All I need to do now is believe it!

Hope you all have a great day.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as ,

2014-11-09 · 20:43

Doctor Who – Death in Heaven

***Spoilers***

***Spoilers***

 

The latest series of Doctor Who has been something of a mixed bag. Yesterday’s episode was fantastic! Often when I’m watching TV I end up doing something else, Facebook or Tetris, this time I was thoroughly gripped. Being from Cardiff it was a little strange seeing a street I know well which has, apparently, translocated to London.

The cyberman are, to me, the most interesting of the Doctor Who villains. To become one of them is far more terrifying than an enemy that simply wants you dead. Speaking of being dead I’m not entirely sure how the cybermen can use the dead. They’re supposed to be cyborgs so they need the organic components. Am I thinking too much into this? Maybe but science fiction is supposed to make you think.

Some people, yes I know citation needed, apparently guessed that Missy was going to be the Master. For me though she was never interesting enough for me to think about it. Had I thought about it I wouldn’t come up with the Master. For one thing I didn’t know Time Lords could change their gender and for another we saw the Master die.

The scene where Osgood was murdered was very well done. I was watching it by myself and I could see what was coming. I was saying ‘No, don’t do it.’ To Osgood. It never goes well when a restrained person asks their captor to come closer. Moffat definitely showed how evil Missy was with that. I know Osgood was only in one other episode but it was very well done. When she was killed I wanted Missy dead from that moment. Having the Brigadier kill her was the perfect end. If Clara or the Doctor had done it wouldn’t have worked.

I have two gripes and one wish for the next series.

Grip 1: They are continually doing stories of global incidents. These seem to either have no lasting effect or there is a global amnesia plot at then end. If big scale events are going to be shown then I feel their should be a lasting result. There have been so many incidents. I would rather they reverted to the ‘base under siege’ plot. If we’re dealing with people in an isolated location its far more interesting.

Grip 2: As well as the attacks being big scale so are the solutions. Rather than the invaders being driven off it always seems as though they are being utterly destroyed. I would rather a… well a more subtle approach. I suppose Captain Scarlet would be a good example, especially as it was mentioned, each episode the Mysteron problem is resolved, but the Mysterons aren’t obliterated.

It could be argued that these weren’t ‘real’ cybermen. Rather Missy had the blueprints; for lack of a better way to put it.

1 Wish: A companion from somewhere, or some when, else. Don’t get me wrong I’ve liked all the companions of the modern series but they are all from contemporary earth. Rose, Martha and Clara are all from London. I just think it would be interesting to have companions from other places. Someone from the future, someone from the past, even just someone from another continent would be interesting. Again there is nothing wrong with any of the companions but variety would be nice.

And now with have the Christmas episode to look forward too. I have another gripe about that which is simply this: why is December such a popular time for invasions and dastardly plans?

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

2014-11-02 · 18:39

Welsh, Writing and Spoilers

This is a blog in three parts. The parts are unrelated but I have three little things I want to say.

Part 1

I’ve been saying it for months but I’ve finally started to learn Welsh. I’m using Say Something in Welsh as a starting point. Will I ever be fluent? I don’t know.

I did Welsh is school but it was badly taught. It seems now that we learned a combination of overly formal language, and sentences that actually don’t make sense. One sentence we learned was: ‘Rwy’n hoffi Star Trek achos mae’n da.’ – Which means I like Star Trek because its good. Obviously we put our own like, or dislike, in it. We also learned to say that we didn’t like stuff because it was bad.

Why we learned these useless sentences I don’t know.

Some say that learning Welsh is a pointless endeavor. They argue that everyone who speaks Welsh speaks English. Its difficult to explain why I want to lean Welsh. A part of me is tempted to answer the question with: ‘If you have to ask you’ll never understand.’

I do feel a connection to Welsh and want to speak it. Without delving too much into the history it feels like its the language I should be speaking.

How long I’ll keep at it is another question.

Part 2

Its November now, you may have noticed, and for many, well some, it means NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is an acronym for: National Novel Writing Month. In which the aim is to write 50,000 words in a month. A tall order to be sure.

I’m not doing this in the ‘right’ way, as large chunks of my novel are written, but I am going to try and write more this month.

Will I finish my novel? If my previous track record is anything to go by the answer is no.

Part 3

Finally I wanted to talk about spoilers. In particular I wanted to talk about Doctor Who. At the end of each episode they have a ‘Next Time’ segment and my question is: Why?

Doctor Who is one of the most popular shows on TV at the moment. It has a guaranteed audience. There is simply no need to tempt views to watch they will be their.

This was especially irritating in the last episode: Dark Water. The villain (click here for the revel) is hinted at, take a look at the doors, and its reveled in a great way. However the effort of the writer to hint at this is ruined by it being shown in the next time segment!

If anyone from the BBC happens to stumble on to this please jettison ‘Next Time.’ We don’t need it. This series has been a mixed bag but on the whole I’ve enjoyed it. To make sure I see the next episode all I need is six words ‘The Doctor will return next week.’ – basically just tell me it exists and I’ll be there!

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,