Good Grief, It's Dark... Again...

...And today, it's raining.

Heavily.

Nice way to end my week off.

Popped in to Great Ormond Street Hospital yesterday, to visit my sister and little niece. Both seem to be doing well. Kate especially - shortly after arriving, I caught a glimpse of the top of her chest and saw what appeared to be the remnants of a huge wound... but when the time came to change the dressing, most of the dried blood came away, leaving quite a tiny line that's well on the way to healing. She's sure to have a nasty scar, but she is healing incredibly well.

She was also - according to my sister - rather more conversational than ever before. Not that a single thing made any sense - she hasn't discovered words yet - but she was particularly vocal after lunch (hers and ours). At one point, she started grizzling, and none of the handy toys or the dummy seemed to fix the problem. Bizarrely, though, my attempts to distract her from whatever bothered her weren't too successful until she discovered my stubbly chin. That sorted the problem right out. Seems she enjoys playing with beards...

I left just after she went to sleep around 5pm - rather later than I'd intended, but it was good to spend a bit of time with both sister and niece, especially since she's likely to be discharged and heading home tomorrow.

Not sure what I'll do with today... it's far too dark (at the moment) to do any photography or sketching... and, while I'd like to do some writing, I'm just not feeling that inspired right now.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Something I'm working on has grown a whole new element that pretty much begs to be explored... but repeatedly, whenever something pops into my head, it's gone before I sit down to write it out.

Good Grief, It's Dark...

Only yesterday, the weather was bright and mostly clear. I really should have used that time to either (a) go out, get some fresh air, do some shopping, do some photography, some sketching... anything to take advantage of the daylight.

Today is DARK. It's been overcast all day, the wind is much higher than yesterday, and it's been raining a little every so often. Today would have been ideal for lazing around watching DVDs and mucking about on the computer. I really must learn to take better advantage of the opportunities presented to me.

That said, one of the first things I did with my time off was make a (small) start on Christmas Presents. I have a sneaking suspicion that I won't be going to the winter Memorabilia this time round, much as I'd like to, but there are options for other kinds of Christmas shopping.

On the other hand, I haven't been doing too well on any other score. I asked by sister for a photo of a baby toy, as it struck me as something that could easily appear more sinister. I have the photo, but haven't been in the 'sketching zone'. Nor have I been in the writing zone, for the most part. Ideas are occurring to me, but they disappear before I have the chance to write them up. I've also misplaced some writing I did a few days ago which, while not critical, is rather annoying.

By the looks of things, I'm about 3/4 through photographing my toy collection, but haven't got even half of it uploaded and ready to blog... And until my new computer arrives - whether it's bought by me or built by my brother-in-law - getting that side of things sorted is too painful a process. And it's still very tempting to just get myself a Mac.

Dark times, indeed...

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Doctor Who? Doctor WTF, More Like...

So, 'The Waters of Mars'. Described by some (involved in the production) as 'possibly the scariest episode ever'.

Good God.

I'm sorry, but even the tamest of Moffat's episodes was scarier that this dull, derivitive dross from Russell T. Supposedly there was some sort of emotional core to the episode... I guess I must have missed it in all the unconvincing vascillations in The Doctor's behaviour. First he wants to get away from a disaster he's all too familiar with, then he wants to rewrite history and save some 'little people' then, fast as a gunshot (oops - Spoiler), he realises how wrong he was to interfere. Seriously, if you're going to pull that sort of personality switch, at least have the decency to do it over a number of episodes. Consider the Pompeii episode as the beginning of this change, keep ramping up the 'last of the Timelords' angst, twist it into 'The Only Lord of Time' egotism, THEN pull this story out of your hat. Set up the fall before delivering it.

Sheesh.

What made it all the more unpalatable (for me) was sitting through the Confidential show which ran after the special. The impression the team gave was that they were utterly proud of their accomplishments, without ever acknowledging its shortcomings. Russell T. and team appear to be suffering from the same delusion they painted onto The Doctor: Whatever we do is good and right, because we are the Doctor Who production team.

I can understand some of the cuts - particularly those that turned Gadget from a complex, WALL-E style robot into the flimsy Meccano mating of a webcam and a Segway. What I couldn't understand is why we had a crew we were barely introduced to (and therefore didn't care about) turning into barely threatening zombies that gushed water from every orafice (in the first draft, at least) in an environment that was neither dark nor claustrophobic enough to facilitate any sense of peril.

It honestly felt like half the script had been cut out to keep to a rigid running time, and the end just didn't make any sense (no spoilers this time).

Sure, it had to lead into the Christmas special but, like the rest of these one-shots, lacked any punch and, in all honesty, did not show any true development in the character of The Doctor. In so many ways, it was just cheap.

In other news, I'm off work this week, and I'm not doing too badly so far - went out today and picked up a Christmas present for a friend. I've also been digging around in my old graphic design work for the SAM Coupé, having been recently contacted by someone who's still active in the scene (in the sense of working on a magazine, an accelerator, an Ethernet interface, internet connectivity... and a Twitter client, amongst other things), and intending to do an anniversary issue of his magazine with a feature on games that were announced, but never happened. This article would include one of mine...

Only, since I wrote back in such detail, he's changed his plans... Now, it may well be that some of my other stuff will feature in the 'Games That Never Happened', and the one he contacted me about first will appear in a feature all its own, in the following issue.

How cool is that?

Guess we'll have to wait and see ;)