Barkerburgh

The A&E Andromeda Strain Remake

If nothing else, it’s got a good cast. Updated, it nevertheless follows the general storyline of the original movie and book (which I think stands up better than a lot of science adventures from the same era), and of course, there’s iPhones and cellphones and references to WMDs, North Korea and Homeland Security (how 1984 / Brave New World / THX1138 / Sleeper is that name anyway?).

You probably know that the action starts in the isolated Utah town of Piedmont, where townspeople find a recently fallen satellite and take it to the firehall, where they open it, exposing the entire town to an immediately deadly pathogen, killing almost everyone. Soon there are vultures.

What got me was a Ford commercial about 20 minutes in during the first episode. A couple is driving a Ford vehicle through a town identified on-screen as Piedmont. They see a vulture right beside them and they hightail it outa Dodge (Piedmont). Struck me as real tasteless.

& Et Cetera.1

There’s this Cialis commercial with a bathtub overflowing, a turkey burning in the oven, a dog scratching to be let out and a lawn sprinkler flooding the front yard. There’s a nice little Spanish ditty playing as we see all this.

The husband and wife run around and turn off water and save the turkey, but don’t let the dog out.

Since they’ve been off carpe dieming thanks to Cialis, shouldn’t they have first turned off the sprinkler and the bath, and turned the oven down? Or is Cialis just that compelling?

And it’s just plain irresponsible not to have let the dog out first.

& Et Cetera.2

Egad! CBC will be carrying Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune in the fall. Rest easy, all, though. Coronation Street is safe.

For the first time in a jeezes long time, I watched three full hours of CBC last night.

First was that Japanese-Canadian sciencey guy whose first name I always forget, with an excellently beautiful hour of Canadian geology, the first of a series (Geologic Journey), focussing on the history and formation of the Great Lakes, with some great geology of the Niagara Escarpment. Cool shots, cool knowledge, cool host - you know the guy I mean, right?

Second was The John Chew Show - I mean, Test the Nation, during which, out of 70 questions, I answered 63 correctly. Seriously, John was there as part of a group of word-gamers and he got talked to by one of the hosts, Brent Bambury. There were teachers, puzzle guys, comics and ad-writers, too.

Inspiration! Vicky Pollard should be the Doctor’s new companion!

<br /><font title=”I made it up. ‘Vicky Pollard as the new companion?’ Phwoar!”>’You know Liz? Liz! Well, Cilla told me that Liz said that that slag Rose told her mum that that Shaniqua told Ricky that sometimes you-know that fat Madonna told Flavour-Hanif that she told him that she reckoned Rocky knew some slag who had a T.A.R.D.I.S. up her jumper.’</font>

Here there be spoilers. (more…)

Think I’m still liking it.

It’s obvious that Torchwood ain’t the same kind of fantasy dressed up in sci-fi drag as Doctor Who.

Torchwood is more like a good Lynda La Plante British crime drama, like Prime Suspect or her new ones like The Commander.

I still like what I said before: it’s dirtier, meaner, darker, weirder than Doctor Who.

But it’s not better.

And it’s still not important.

Holy shit. I can’t say yet that I love the series - maybe, though -, but Jesus H. Christ. Seriously. And those Welsh accents…well, think rude and think randy. (Just talk to me, baby…I’m thinking Michelle Yeoh speaking Mandarin with a Welsh accent…Sorry.)

I know I said Captain Jack was wooden in the first episode, but he’s from the 51st century, stuck in the 21st and he knows way more than the people that work for him.

I was way too flippant in my comments on the first episode. Davies has a brain and a plan. I should know that by now.

The third episode is copying over even as I scribe this.

Maybe there’ll be literal miscegenation.

And by that, just so we’re cool, I don’t mean anything like the stupid racist American concept of ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’ making babies (Really, how can you even conceive of miscegenation as a sin-crime when the participants are of the same fucking species????!!!) . I mean the Star Trek kind of race-mixing: Betazoids and humans, Romulans and Klingons, or even Flurms and those fucking Kweekwets.

Seriousfully, don’t watch Torchwood if you’re thinking it’s just like more Doctor Who. It ain’t.

But watch it anyway.

It’s fun.

But it’s not important.

Fresh Ground Peanut Butter From Strictly Bulk At Pape And Danforth

I haven’t been there to get it yet. I’m just saying.

The First Episode Of Torchwood

First, it’s with the first 7 or 8 episodes on a DVD. Second, my machine that will actually play movies can’t read DVDs (it’s SCSI). Next, the network connection between my Pentium One running Windows 98 (with a DVD-ROM) and the Pentium III running Windows 2000 is all impity-jumpity and problematic. Next, the Windows 98 machine and its DVD-ROM don’t really like each other a lot. Finally, the DVD stayed running and the network connection stayed online long enough for me to copy the first episode of Torchwood from the DVD to the Windows 98 machine through the network to the Windows 2000 machine. Lastfully, I watched it at 4:00 this morning because I have a noisy neighbour and there’s shit on my beloved TV-TMSL at 4:00AM.

Okay, the review. Wow. Not your granddad’s Torchwood. Frankly I was expecting Doctor Who and more of the same. It wasn’t. I really liked it; dirtier, meaner, darker, weirder (really: weirder than Doctor Who). But as much as I liked the character of Captain Jack back in his Who days, I kinda thought he was a piece of wood in this, even though the plot, the shots, the hot lady cop, and those - you should pardon the expression - exquisite Welsh accents were really effective. Was the actor who played him like Russell Davies’ boy-toy or something? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But, like Little Mosque and Heroes, I’m willing to give this a big chance, considering that I think it will probably be worth it in the long run. I’m even willing to go through all that shit in the first paragraph again to catch up.

Fun With Food

For a great, amazing sauce, mix ground tomatoes (canned), peanut butter, garam masala and lots of garlic and onions and fresh ground pepper.

It’s awesome.

TLA

Much progress on the PHP/Javascript Jeopardy front. I love it. Wish I was younger so I could have more time. Mark my words, they’ll patent and market the digital-neural mastoid implant the week after I die. I’d bet you but it’s a sure thing and I’m not.

Well, the new season of Dr. Who premiered on CBC last night. I’ve been waiting for it since forever and was pleasantly confused, since I had the sound muted most of the time.

It’s like a zillion years in the future, but humans are still around. The Doctor and Billie are on New Earth, which is really a moon of an apparent gassy giant. Since there’s a New New York, it must be a cross-over episode with Futurama, but there’s no Planet Express. There’s cyclopses, but we never see them. I think I did see the Planet Express ship off in the distance during a long shot.

Anyway, there’s these sort-of lizard-witches who run a youth hostel. Sister Bertrille is in charge.

There’s a fat guy turning to textured cement, a giant head in an aquarium who’ll grant your wish if you rub his tummy, the Imperial Senate from Phantom Menace but filled with sick people like the Matrix, buncha stuff.

There’s also the Snobby Snotty Flat Lady from the second or third episode last year, whichever it was, and her tattooed, cicatrixed pet humanoid, Smitherz.

I won’t spoil the rest of it for you. If you missed it, you’ll just have to wait for the DVD.

(Next week is Dame Ian McKellen as Queen Victoria looking for Prince Albert in the can, or something…)

All very exciting. Very cool.

What a disappointing load of crap.

All the same cliches and plots and characters.

Even more emotionally manipulative than last year, especially that last episode.

And Satan? Are you fucking kidding me?

When K9 showed up, I warned Davies (as I warn all writers and/or directors when they introduce a dog character), “Don’t kill the doggy.” He killed the doggy. So he replaced him. Big whoop.

I’m really saddened that after that spectacular first season, Davies let this happen.

I hate to say it, but even Star Trek:Enterprise was better than the second season of Doctor Who.

Happy Easter.

Well, I’m hooked. I’ve got a pretty basic freeware application that lets you mark the cells for what they might contain and then tells you if you’re right or wrong once you start filling the cells in for real. So right now it’s kinda like playing Doom in semi-God Mode, so I’m happy.

With that help, I’m down to about half an hour per medium skill game (ie, 1 or 2 cells with 3 or 4 filled in and the rest with 2 or 3.) I’m sure it would take much longer on paper, which I will try eventually.

A little annoying when I’d rather finish a timed game of Sudoku than watch my TV shows, but whaddaya gonna do?