So, I’ve just finished watching The Killing. It’s been sitting on my iPlayer Desktop for flipping ages (and looking at it now, I’ve got lots of Spiral to watch, and Episode 2 of Rubicon, though since that was the last episode on which downloading was enabled, (thanks a lot for that, by the way, The BBC) I might not bother. And the first new Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle) and I’ve at last wrapped it up, blasting through the final three episodes last night. I appreciate lots of people were watching them on BBC 4 as they were broadcast, but I don’t have BBC 4, and have had to rely on the internet. It’s been rather interesting, as my viewing sessions have been rather temporally diffuse. I’ve also got a few other things I want to discuss, which I’ll stick in here as well rather than posting separately.
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Category Archives: Cool Stuff
Review: Doctor Who : The Rebel Flesh
Eee-by-by-gum.
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My dad the GeekDad
Taken from http://farm5.static.flickr.com/3439/3771386114_0ee269d238_b.jpg on 2011-4-01
Original URL – http://www.flickr.com/95492938@N00/3771386114/ created on 2009-07-30 14:47:04
AlanCC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Well, would you look at that? I claim partial credit for a) sending him the link inviting him to submit, and b) providing him with the required ‘dad’ credentials. The image there is the one originally intended, but since Conde Nast apparently has something against Lego steam robots, I thought I’d use it here.
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new Doctor Who trailer
I must have watched this at least ten times now. I will be wishing the holidays away waiting for this.
where ideas go to die
New podcast – Feedburner is messing me around, so it isn’t on iTunes yet, but you can get it straight from the site. Go and listen. Subscribe and review us on iTunes!
A few things. I’ve been spending a little time over the last few days unfollowing people on Twitter and unfollowing feeds on Google Reader. Partly because I was following over a thousand people on Twitter and separating the good from the cruft was becoming increasingly problematic, so I cut it down to 551. I just read this thing which Merlin Mann wrote some time ago. I think I was subconsciously trying for something in this vein – trying to ingest only the best, rather than an absolute cavalcade of crud.
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podcast again
Alright, new episode of the podcast! Check hecklr for all the details.
the same plot
Hello! I’ve had rather a long day, visiting the University of East Anglia in sunny Norwich. Very nice place, and I’ll hopefully be going there in September*. I’ve also been playing Dragon Age 2, which is excellent. I’ve been playing Origins for the last month or so, and the improvement in combat is VAST. The increased immediacy of the combat is such a welcome relief after the sluggish, shuffle-around-to-hit-anyone combat of Oranges. I prefer the Hawke character to the Oranges character, if only because he has a name characters can call him**, but also because his family and background affects you immediately and continuously, rather than in the origin story, wherever you visit that’s relevant and in the epilogue.
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kings place
Last Thursday, NRB associate and hecklr co-host Scott and I took the train up to London (I’m steadfastly refusing to refer to it by a stupid nickname) to watch Peacock and Gamble‘s Emergency Broadcast, which was very funny. At one point, they gave a man a fish. I hope that bit makes it into the podcast (which will apparently be edited down from the two hours of performance to just one). I’ve mentioned the podcast on here before once or twice , and if you don’t already, go and listen to it.
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My idea for a new electoral system.
I haven’t actually seen 300, by the way. This is just to signify that this is the 300th post on this blog. In all honesty, I’m not sure what to write here. I’ve been caught up with other things and I haven’t had time to think of something to write, so instead, I’ll introduce you to an idea for a new voting system that I had.
Just a brief preface to the abrupt change of pace. Around the time of the General Election, I was discussing the idea of electoral reform with my family over dinner. This was before it was apparent that the Lib Dems were going to a)not make any significant gains in terms of seats or b) trade in their principles for the tawdry promise of power from the evil evil Tories (with a few notable exceptions). At the end of the meal I excused myself, promising to come up with a better alternative system. This is that system.
All In The Game : The Wire, Season 5
So I’ve been watching through box sets of The Wire for the last few months. For the most part, it’s really, really good, and when I’ve finished watching all of them, I’ll do a longer post on the topic. I’m currently midway through Series 5, and before I started, my father told me that Series 5 isn’t really as good as preceding series, that it gets a bit ‘weird’. He’s right – it is different to the other series, albeit subtly so. One of the things that makes The Wire so great, so unique, is (at least in comparison to the majority of television dramas involving police) the lack of artifice. It excels at portraying brutal mundanity – the harsh truths of life on the street. Series 1 chiefly deals with the Barksdale drug dealers, Series 2 with the slow death of the Baltimore docks, Series 3 with the corrupt and corruping world of Baltimore politics, and Series 4 with the Baltimore school system. The new element introduced for Series 5, however, is the Baltimore Sun newspaper, where David Simon, series creator and producer used to work.
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