Aderack's Romper Room

The whole of Children of Earth is riddled with this awful futility.

( If you haven't seen it, don't read this. )

Amandeep: that license board thing, for example
like, why the FUCKING HELL is that in the game?
eric-jon: Yeah, it's been too long. I remember picking over this in detail.
Amandeep: i mean, it's there because final fantasy x had something similar
and they didn't want to totally alienate people who like jerking off with numbers
eric-jon: There's an illustration for someone.
I think the zero is most satisfying.
I know some people who are into the ones, but man, I dunno about that.
Amandeep: i guess if you're a girl, a one would make sense
i think most dudes would want a number that's at least partly circular
0 is good. 2 and 3 - maybe. you got better options, though.
4 could be painful if you aren't careful.
eric-jon: The 6 and 9 are good if you want to lean back and relax.
Amandeep: 6 and 9 - those would work out just fine
eric-jon: I guess 3 is good if you've got company.
Though 8 would be better.
Depending on the typeface, that could also adapt to the occasion.
They're not all vertically symmetrical.
Amandeep: if you could fold it in on itself, 8 would be ideal if you're alone too
eric-jon: I guess you could clamp a 2 or a 5 to something.
Hands-free.

These last two episodes of Torchwood have been pretty brilliant about stealthily establishing elements that will be important later. Usually this business is fairly transparent. Here, it's all so offhanded and apparently pragmatic that you don't question; it doesn't occur to you that these items or themes will come up again. The first scene in Cardiff, for instance, is Gwen at the ATM. Ah-ha, yes? That first child-event, each of the scenes they show serves several purposes, not least of which introducing characters. The only arbitrary kids given much screentime are those around Gwen's ATM and the line not-arbitrarily blocking Rhys's way.

So far, this is not only well-structured; it's elegantly done. You're so distracted by the characters and dialog that you don't see the gears moving at all. However well-designed the machine, you still lose if it's obviously mechanical.

Well. I had wondered why no one had gotten especially creative in killing Jack.

So far, it's good. I know the rapturous noise people have been making, but this is simply the level that I've always expected from the show. It's not exceeding expectations; just meeting them. That's not such a bad thing, in that the show rarely has done so. Occasionally it's done some neat things. But this is good.

This sort of feels like it should have been episode two of the first season. For most practical purposes, you can ignore everything from the second episode (also called, er, "Day One"), and plug this in, and you're not missing much. It's not too different a leap from "Invasion of the Bane" to Revenge of the Slitheen. Tosh and Owen are gone, and Gwen is cozier. That's about it.

But yeah -- this is Davies-style high-level writing. You know how every time the TARDIS turns up in one of his episodes, he has to screw with it? Take some bit of logic to a ridiculous extreme, to see what happens? Okay, here it's going to fly on the freeway next to a car. And here it's going to do this other thing you'd never thought about but, heck, I guess it's plausible, given what we know.

Here, again, he's not exceeding expectations. It's more like he's living up to three years of "why don't they do X?" Which are the kinds of questions Chibnall never thought of asking. You never got that conceptual glee from him.

This feels kind of out-of-date in that respect, because if he'd done this in 2006, it would have been great. But at least the show's finally getting around to it. If it keeps on at this rate, catching up, by the end it should be pretty interesting.

So there are a few things this episode does. One is, it says, okay, nobody ever used any of these toys I set out here. HERE is what I had in mind. And the other big one is concluding, "Oh, screw it. This didn't work. Let's tear it down and start again." Though it only gradually gets around to that.

So. Okay. It's doing a good job of fixing the show. We'll see how this rolls on.

Ah yes, Badart; one of the preeminent degenerate painters.

I am amazed, when I watch real television, how many commercials I'm subjected to. How do people muster the patience to sit through all of this?

I just stopped watching Conan O'Brien; I figure I can see it online when I wake.

This looks like it's going to be a pretty good show too. It's like the WB commissioned a live-action series based on a Japanese anime remake of Blade Runner (directed by Ryutaro Nakamura), and fitted it with Battlestar trappings.

Basically what it seems to exist to do is explore all the culture that's only kind of hinted in the parent show. There, you get all these groups and their dynamics -- Capricans, Taurans, Gemini -- yet never a real sense what any of it means. It doesn't matter.

There are a couple of genius ideas in here. One of them is a pretty simple wardrobe choice that's meant to show that this takes place "about fifty, sixty years ago". The other is a bit more central. Kind of the point of the whole enterprise, actually. Which, I guess, is good.

Just patched my pants in two places. I had already stitched up the knee where I tore it on the pavement a while back. It took three attempts; finally I got it pretty good and solid. When I fell I must also have begun tears on a small part of the seat and a corner of one of the rear pockets; the tears only made themselves evident about a week ago.

So I found some black material, stuck it in place and stiffened it with Elmer's, then meticulously stitched it all together. The pocket was trickier; it took needle-nose pliers and my repeating the same stitches beyond ready count, so as to strengthen them. All told, it took about three hours.

This is nice. I've also mended my jacket, slightly. I'm starting to really own these clothes now.

I must work on my imagination, though. Even now images keep flashing of my jerking the needle and accidentally stabbing myself in the eye. Just in time for dreams! This should be fun.

Today a distinguished old black guy strolled into the cafe, and prompted by nothing in particular told me that the pants I was wearing, he used to own them thirty years ago. Then they disappeared. And now here I was, wearing them. Then he said I was... wait, I wrote it down.

He said I was the conglomerate essence of Kurt Cobain, Charles Manson, and Jim Morrison, with a bit of David Byrne.

Then he walked out.

...

So, okay, there's episode one. Now starts episode two.

You may recall that several decades ago I wrote an article for Insert Credit about a tool in my philosophy class. Well, he was actually in most of my philosophy classes. This was a fellow who just thought wrong. We kept getting into inane arguments because of his linear thought patterns. He'd cite page numbers and give prior examples. I'd reason something out. He'd ask who said that. I said no one said it; it's just there. Put the pieces together. So I made it up, he'd say.

Yeah, one of them. I couldn't escape the guy. So that was in Maine, years and years ago. Now I live in Oakland.

Later on in the cafe, I was talking with another of the regulars. One of his friends strolled in. It turned out this friend had dated that guy -- the guy from college, about whom I wrote that thinly-veiled article. She told me that she had dumped him, because he was a tool. We discussed his character traits and wardrobe, and found much to agree on.

So. That was different.

How many Doctor Who stories have at the heart of them a Problem Bureaucracy? I'm talking about a horrible central power, usually run by a paranoid and irrational old man who won't listen to anyone, that serves mostly to string out the story's run time or give it a reason to exist at all, by creating unnecessary and often unnatural conflict?

Often in these scenarios, everyone else in the story's world seems more or less reasonable; it's just this one bad apple, with a few of his puppets, who causes all the problems that allow the story to wheeze along.

Oh, wait.

Humor is a product of ransacking the obvious in search of something less tedious.

Well, the best-laid plans are the first to go bottoms-up. I find it most prudent to approach life from a vantage of abject befuddlement.

In the 1980s, there was a theme that I repeatedly heard during commercial breaks -- maybe for some drama, maybe a talk show -- that had the exact melody of the "Yea-ah yea-ah-uh yeah!" from Nirvana's "Lithium". It was played on a sort of synth brass.

Whenever I hear the song, my brain replaces it with that twonky, honky TV theme.

I've spent months, off and on, searching for my passport. I've rent my apartment asunder. Today I found it. My passport was, and is, at eye level, thirty degrees from center, in front of the chair where I now sit. Two feet away from my face. Alone, obscured by nothing.

Well. Okay, then.

Today at the cafe, I remarked to someone about the variety of algae currently choking the lake. Was I particularly interested in algae? He asked. No, I said. I was just observing, in reference to the sidewalk and landscaping improvement going on around the lake. It should make the neighborhood much nicer, in addtion to clearing the water. Was I particularly interested in civic issues? He asked. No, I said. I was just observing.

A while back I chatted a bit with a girl, on the history of the Western playing card; she grew excited at my apparent obsession with tarot. I could see her face fall, when I shrugged it off. It was just something I'd studied a bit.

It's always this way. There I go, bumbling along, thinking out loud, making random connections, and every node I arrive at, the other party yells "Aha!" So that's what I'm really interested in! And... no, not really.

My toaster oven is clicking in precise time with this Queen song. Headlong into toasted cheese!

Okay, I figured things out.

and cult of personality.

So okay. Today ends the penultimate season of Riven: The Series Lost. Tomorrow ends the penultimate season of Supernatural. After today, only two more episodes in the second season of Lupo & Cutter. (Yeah, season 18 was practically a reboot. It's good now. Also, Season 20 is Dick Wolf's "goal" for the show -- anything after that is bonus. So, in that sense sort of penultimate here as well.)

A bit of a relief, I can tell you. Somehow, however much I like a thing, I welcome the opportunity to divest myself of the self-imposed responsibility of keeping in sync with it. Nothing more to pay attention to! I can focus those brain cycles elsewhere.

Good year for Upper Boat to cut back, while we're at it.

I think one of my unlisted super powers is precognition toward which bozos are going to eat with their mouths open.

Yeah, that guy -- I had him pegged the moment he started to talk.