Mostly Media Musings

My brief opinion on things I've seen on TV and such.

Doctor Who - The End of Time
Good send off for David Tennant, Russell T. Davies, and probably John Simm as well. It was good to see The Doctor and The Master sort of on the same side against a common enemy...briefly. Also, there was a nice twist in the prophecy in the end. And apparently Timothy Daulton's character is someone from previous episodes (?). Next season will start with a new Doctor played by Matt Smith, the youngest Doctor yet. Will this bring down the age of the audience and therefore dumb down the content?

Next season:



Demons
Right after the finale of DW, there was the premier of Demons, which I think used to be called The Last Van Helsing. I like Philip Glenister from Life on Mars, so I gave the show a try, but it's really not my cup of tea. Meant for a much younger audience. It's basically a British Buffy the Vampire Slayer with better effects (CGI). Glenister was good, though--always weird to hear him without the Manchester accent. And MacKenzie Crook was adequately freaky. Ashes to Ashes is better :)

Demons:



Golden Globes
Prior to the Globes, Ricky Gervais was on Conan and Ellen (he was hosting the Globes this year). On Conan, he poked fun at Conan for getting canned by NBC. He told him he has to discernible skills. Conan said he could be a lifeguard to which Ricky said his skin would "dazzle ships." There was a new exclusive from the Ricky Gervais Show cartoon, too.

Ricky's presentation was predictably self-promoting. If I had to guess what he'd do, I'd say he'd plug his new stuff and pick a fight with Steve Carell. He did both these things before the first 5 minutes were up.

Question: Why in the world did Avatar win best picture? Shouldn't it have been in the animated films section? It IS an animated film, isn't it?!

Funniest speech: Robert Downey, jr., who didn't want to thank anyone and listed all the reasons why he didn't want to thank each individual.

Touching moment: tribute to Martin Scorsese, and rightly so.

Thank god there were no musical interludes. I hate those. They drag these things out so long! You need to have the host introduce the person who's going to introduce the person who is going to tell you who won the award who is going to come up and tell why they're happy. Just list the nominees and who won! The acceptance speeches were short, though.

Ricky's Globe Highlights:



Work related news: I'm being paid for social networking now, and also I missed a fire where the whole roof was on fire and smoke in the halls, but not a single alarm went off in the building. I feel safe now.

What I've been up to, aside from looking for a full-time job and working the internship: reading Then We Came to the End, listening to Unseen Academicals, doing part 3 of the podcast (definitely the funniest yet), working on my fiction blog (out in April), failed to write a story about fire chasers (will try again once I figure out what it's really ABOUT).

Book Event

I went to a book event this week for an event that I helped organize. I didn't realize that it would be in Spanish and felt awkward being the only one in the audience who didn't know Spanish and had to have everything translated. But it was completely worth it and I learned a lot about not only this great little book (which has the perfect ending) but also about the language of Basque.

Here's the poster that I made for this tour.

Fast-paced weekend

I'm including today in the weekend since I only work Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Saturday, I flew back into JFK. I actually managed the trip in one day this time.

Sunday, I went to the Times Talk (see photo above) to watch three playwrights get interviewed. These writers are contributers for a book we released at work. I'm not very familiar with their work, but it was a fascinating and funny interview. Afterward, so many people bought the book, we ran out of copies. The book is already on its second print run.

I also stopped in Barnes and Noble and they still don't have the recent Doctor Who Magazine issue with The End of Time. But I did get the unabridged audio book of Unseen Academicals (Terry Pratchett) for only ten dollars. Why it was on clearance, I don't know. Stephen Briggs is a rocking reader.

Today, I had a job interview with a company that I really, really want to work for. I think the interview went all right. It's just the waiting game now.

Afterward, I went to the DMV to get a New York driver license. I thought I'd be there forever, but I was in and out in less than half an hour. I have a temp license until the real deal comes in the post.

On the ride home, I finished reading The Stingray Shuffle by Tim Dorsey. Click here to read my review.

And now relax before work tomorrow.

Winter Break

I'm not in school anymore, but I still managed to have a winter vacation. Here's a summary of the week:


-Sherlock Holmes in the theatre
-New Years Eve family night with picnic snacks and movies: Angels and Demons, Julie and Julia, The Merry Gentleman, episodes of Black Books
-16-hour Firefly marathon with friends
-Dinner at Nicole's
-visiting family members around town
-Mom's birthday

Podcast Episode 2 part 2

The second episode of the We're NOT John Stamos Podcast comes in 5 parts. I just finished animating part 2, which features two segments: How Lady Gaga made Lindsey's hair catch on fire and the perils of online dating. Think this is funny? Want to see more? Leave me a comment.




Watch it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u07eoPZHirc

See all the episodes in one place at http://werenotjohn.blogspot.com/

Flying

Things I don't like about flying:

People breaking wind in the cabin of the airplane.
Maintenance delays causing me to miss my connecting flight, which means that I am stuck in Ohio for New Years Eve, missing the New Years party of the year.

Things I like about flying:

Witty remarks from flight attendants.
The nicest person working at the airline, Kelly, who kindly found me a flight for tomorrow morning.
A friendly shuttle driver.
A free night at a hotel so fancy, they give you a fresh gooey cookie with your room key. Two beds, a leather couch, and a chaise longe. And meal vouchures and free transport to the airport.

Well, happy new year. More from me later.

random quotes

I'm loading Ricky Gervais Show xfm episodes onto my ipod for the plane tomorrow. While I'm waiting for it to load, I've decided to click on each episode one fourth into the program to hear what they're talking about. This is pretty funny out of context b/c I know it's not much saner in context.

Ep 11-22-03
Stephen: sorry, mum. Can I call you back? You know you wanted me to meet more women?
Ricky: and you know how you sent me that 30 quid for my birthday?

Ep 11-29-03
Ricky: what's the fish doing up there?
Karl: it's just sat there
Ricky: no, I mean why did it go up there?

Ep 12-06-03
Karl: it's like the chat we had last week about a giraffe having a long neck.

Ep 12-13-03
Ricky: you're going to be disappointed again. It's not going to be like a baby with 4 legs running around, running up the curtains.

Ep 12-20-03
Ricky: we call him a bald little manc twat, but a national magazine can say that! Aw, bless his little round head.






Ps. Disappointment of the day: the word "potation" has to do with drinking, and is not a cross between a creation and a potato as I had so hoped.

J

Things I <3 today

Things that tickled me today:

The Ricky Gervais Guide to the Future is out today on iTunes. When asked what he'd do if he knew the world would end tomorrow, Martin Luther replied "Plant an apple tree." Karl Pilkington replies "I've always wanted to kick a duck up the arse." Brilliant.

I'm browsing some of Tom Milsom's songs because I still have a few bucks left on my iTunes gift card. There's a song called "We Made a Film" that has the lyrics "We'll be the men that we wanted to be / our own Wright, Frost, and Pegg / but much better, you see."

I like the harmonica. I like Fisher Stevens. Even moreso, here's Fisher Stevens playing harmonica.




Things that don't tickle me:

Snow is coming just in time for my flight out of this city.

I can't watch the How to be a Nerdfighter video. Stupid technology.

Where exactly is The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus playing?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Here are some pictures of my Christmas. We had a nice Christmas meal and presents, you know, the traditional Christmas stuff, here in New York. It's my first Christmas away from home, away from my family, but I will be back in WI in the first week of January.

Please note the three consecutive posts: this one, the Doctor Who review, and my drawing.

Doctor Who End of Time part 1

Part 1 of the Doctor Who special End of Time played this week. It's special for two reasons: One, it's David Tennant's last episode in Doctor Who after four years. Two, it's the return of the Doctor's archnemisis, the Master.

First off, I thought the acting was quite good. John Simm, who plays the Master, gets to really go completely crazy this time around because the Master has really lost his marbles now. He's also the emo version of the Master, so he's sporting the bleached hair and hoody. The character notes how funny it is that he's the master of disguise trapped inside the body of the prime minister, one of the most recognizable faces.

The story caught me off guard. I don't know if I misread the Sound of Drum/Last of the Timelords episode or if they purposely misled us. (Spoiler alert) I assumed that Lucy had shot the Master because she knew he had told her to because he knew he could come back to life using that ring of his. She wears red nail polish, and at the end, a red nail polish hand picks up the ring. I assumed it was Lucy. But in fact, it wasn't her that picked up the ring and she really did want to kill him, as was hinted at when she made a grossed out face after he kissed her in season three finale. It almost felt like whoever wrote this epsisode had nothing to do with the writing of the other episode and is fabricating the answers to the clues. I don't really know.

But it's a really good episode. More Doctor/Master moments, which was lacking in season 3. I liked when the Doctor can actually HEAR the sound of drums inside the Master's head and the Master realizes that the sound isn't just his insanity, and that it is real. The heartbeat of a Timelord? I suppose to heartbeats would sound a bit like that.

And the cliffhanger. Oh the cliffhanger.

Next week: