the chocolate vat

Q
pleased to see this season replicating the 'desmond story > everything else' pattern i loved so much last year

*finally gets around to buying a digital coverter box with the coupon i got sent*

*and then finally gets arsed to hook it up*

*does so*

...

*blinks*

*blinks again*

...i can see! sweet jesus mcjenkins, I CAN SEE!!!

good sweet suckling lord, that's so much better i can't begin to say...

Q
*settles in to watch part 2 of cranford on my local pbs station (one of FOUR local pbs stations, now), and looks forward to being able to recognise the guv before he actually opens his mouth*

wow...you know, i actually kind of liked this one.


Q
so, agatha christie next week, with the brilliant actress from bright young things. wonder if she'll recognise her old pal ginger littlejohn without his 'tache? :)

i saw a clip of philip glenister swearing his head off in a squirrel suit last night, and i think part of it bounced off my subconscious.

NOTE: i'm writing this here mainly for my own record since i'm too lazy to write it down in a dream journal or something, so unless you're utterly fascinated by the wankings of my subconscious, then you might be happier giving it a miss. (and no, it's not dirty or sexy or anything. sorry.) :P


Q
considering watching some old eighties cartoons and some nine inch nails tonight, just to see what the hell my subconscious spits out with those particular ingredients in the morning

*sigh*

you know, if these two will keep on being so goddamn adorable together, i might actually, you know, start shipping their tv characters, or something. (many thanks to wibble1 over at lifein1973 for pointing this pic out, as well as some further loveliness over at the radio times website.)

*stares at the hawt tuxedoed schmex, imagination having entirely too much fun deciding just exactly what monseignor glenister just said to monsieur simm to inspire that particular facial expression, as well as plotting the trajectory of where exactly our mister glenister's hand appears to be headed*

*blinks*

you know...damned if that scruffy simm!beard isn't starting to grow on me. (not literally grow on me, i mean - that would be weird) i don't like beards on any of my favorite actors, but if certain mistakenly-believed-to-be-dead timelords with a history of nefarious facial hair happened to reappear sporting this one? guh...*drools*

Q
'HA! come at me with your sissy itchy rugburn-giving chin-stubble NOW, tennant! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!'

mm-hmm. Q liked.


Q
next episode: feh. pfred could kick her ass. blindfolded. :P

you know what absolutely, totally blows? having an interstitial cystisis flareup and an acid reflux flareup both at the same time. peppermint tea would help the ic but would make the reflux worse; bananas would help the reflux but irritate the ic. about the only thing i can have to eat that they both like is baking soda.

fucking yum.

anyway, which do i choose...? sitting here cross-legged rocking back and forth and wailing in freakish misery, or feeling like i've just swallowed a box of thumbtacks and worry that i've got a bleeding ulcer?

oh yeah. fun times.

Q
dear body: shape the fuck up now, please. your mistress is not fucking amused.

okay, waaaay behind on these, but here's me playing catch-up: this one? loved it.


Q
next up: OMG OOD!

i was chatting to my friend ping today, and in the midst of putting the world to rights, i asked him if he'd seen ashes to ashes. i'm still trying to deal with how much i wanted to like that show but didn't, and i wanted to get a reaction from someone who wasn't a die-hard life on mars fan. the conversation went something like this:

me: so, did you watch it?
ping: no.
me: why not?
ping: well, i just...i 'get' sam tyler, and when i looked at it, i went, 'oh, same story'. so why would i want to sit through the same story with a much less appealing character?

ouch. but true. and then, later on:

ping: i couldn't understand why they'd want to make keeley hawes look like a cheap eighties hooker for the whole series.

ouch again. (and he never even saw an episode, mind; he only saw the trailers).

anyway, now i feel a little less defeated about my utter failure to love the series.

Q
and yes, i still miss sam. the scruffy bastard.

special thanks to swordznsorcery over on hot_gear for linking to this, and reminding me to regularly check hammond's mirror column.

apparently, not having gotten enough of hospitals two years ago, our man recently decided to get a touch of appendicitis. his tale of the surgery and one of its unexpected results is one of the funniest columns he's written in a long time:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/hammond/2008/04/26/my-mot-s-an-organ-failure-89520-20395000/

he generously omits the part where he delayed the surgery in order to keep a lunch date with fans who'd won a contest to dine with him at the ivy, the loveable clod, but still. poor man...going through the world without his hamster fuzz... (oh come on, you were thinking it too!)

Q
btw, was it just me who got a vivid mental image of him giving the anaesthetist the exact same 'you bastard!' look as he gave the scuba diver who pulled off his face mask in that 'how to get out of a sinking car' top gear episode? yes? probably so...

shit. i'm really, really liking this series. in fact i'm loving it. and i know they're gonna fuck it all up in the last three episodes and take it all away, and mess up all the good stuff they've been giving us so far.

and yet, i still keep watching.

Q
*wonders if there's such a thing as doctor who methadone*

...i think that has to be just about the best comeback i've ever seen. and i don't mean the sontarans.


Q
*is actually impatient for next week now*

yeah, yeah, i know...finally. here at last is the third and final installment; i hope it was worth the wait. (here's part one and part two, just in case you missed them) i will warn you, though - i've done my best to funny it up, i really have; but it's still depressing as all holy befuggery. you have been warned. oh, and certain bits are probably NSFW. :)

i adjure, enjoin, and entreat you all - go and watch this video, right now. immediately. laugh, giggle, snicker, squee; and pay worship to its creator. and then go back and watch it again.

Q
i love myself, i want you to love me; when i feel down, i want you above me...

writers are weird. i understand why people say we're all a little bit funny in the head, because we spend so much time dealing with people who don't actually exist....which may go some way towards explaining why i am currently missing a made-up fictional character so badly.


Q
i spoke into his eyes, 'i thought you died alone, a long, long time ago'...'oh no, not me, i never lost control.'   ;)

taken backstage at the 2008 bafta awards, courtesy of the radio times (with two more visions of loveliness here and here). many million thanks to duckyone for alerting me to this on lifein1973...ducky, i love you, and i want to have your ducklings.

anyway, come ON...i mean, they're just teasing us at this point, aren't they? bad boys. naughty boys. keep it up.

i think i am beginning to love the rt just a little bit, too - first they give us the scrumminess of this pic at their 2008 cover party, and now smirky, slashy, besuited gropings. rt, get published in america, and not only will i subscribe, i might actually marry you.

Q
*goes back to staring at the photo for several hours*

omg - my last meta post got deleted in doctorwho! *feels all hard and street and rebellious* i suspect it was 86'ed under the 'no character bashing' clause, which is fair enough, although i wasn't really bashing the exact character they're maybe thinking i was.

anyway, the upside of the post is that i was actually having some very civil, intelligent discourse with some ten/rose fen before the flamers arrived en masse. the downside is that it's rapidly transforming into an epic hydra monster of wank - i woke up to nearly 200 new comments in my inbox this morning! so if things don't die down pretty soon, then i'm afraid i'm going to have to disable commenting on the post. i don't really know where else to announce this, since i doubt the doctorwho mods would be thrilled with me taking up a whole post just to announce something that would be happening to one post in my private blog. and there's no guarantee that anyone would see it if i added an edit to the original post, since people aren't really reading that anymore anyway (and i get the distinct feeling that several of those making comments never really read it to begin with). but i might try that.

anyway, the other upside is that a whole bunch of cool new people added me to their f'list! *waves at all the new people* welcome aboard, have a cuppa, and don't worry, i probably don't understand what i just said there either. i'll be sorting through all the new adds over the next few days, but i'm behind on a ton of other stuff, so yeah...slow-moving Q at the moment.

hi. :)

Q
EDIT: omg, i just had to banninate someone for being hateful on my blog! first time ever! i am the man; i am the oppressor... *wallows in freakish oppressive misery*

This has been knocking around in my head for quite a while now, and I think I might just about have got it to say what I want it to. Maybe.


Q
please for everyone to be civil and kind and excellent to one another in the comments, yes?


EDIT: Er...wow. What I thought would be a few comments about some stuff I've had rattling around in my head has exploded into a gargantuan hydra-monster thread of epic proportions (438 comments, at last count). It's also sadly devolving into a mud-slinging wank-fest, which is sad because it started off with some genuinely engaging and intelligent debate. Plus the sheer volume of comments is KILLING MY INBOX TO DEATH. So if I wake up to another 200 new messages tomorrow like I did today, I'm going to shut the comments off just for the sake of my own sanity.

So, yeah...say what you need to, and try and bring the various conversations to a good close soon, yeah? And thanks to everyone who contributed their polite and thoughtful insights to this discussion. :)

you can find part one here, complete with background and h/c warning.


Q
*feels like i have fuzzy pixel-lines burned into my retinas, making the world look like a bad eighth generation copy of a PAL-to-NTSC video*

youtube worked fine for me this morning. now it doesn't. it says i have an old version of adobe flash player (version 9 is old??? wtf???) and need to update it.

it's like that time when totem movie player decided, out of the clear blue, to suddenly stop playing any and all .avi files, including ones i had saved on my friggin' hard drive and that i'd been playing fine for months. i mean, seriously - what kind of pieceashit operating system has components that just randomly and magically decide to stop working?

Q
dear linux: fuck you and the anal retentive code-obsessed computer geeks that spawned you. no love, me