Doctor Who Series 6

OK, I just finished the first disc of Series 6/Pt 1 of Doctor Who. I thought "The Curse of the Black Spot" was lame, lame, lame, and in retrospect I shoulda/coulda/woulda fast forwarded the whole dang thing. OTOH, "The Doctor's Wife", the episode written (mostly) by Neil Gaiman, rocked. I love the notion of the TARDIS interacting with the Doctor, and I'm pleased to see a bit of the mythology expanded upon - a pretty neat trick for a show in it's 48th year.

The Sports Illustrated Issue with the Brewers on the Cover

This is going to earn me more anger than it's worth, but I wish all the Brewers fans clamoring for a copy of SI would nut up and quit acting like rubes. We are a large metropolitan area with a franchise in its fifth decade, and yet the cover of SI inspires such childlike idiocy. Good grief - a DT from Nebraska was last week's coverboy! To paraphrase Lombardi, Milwaukee, act like you've been there before.

(BTW, belated congrats to Prince Fielder for becoming the first MLB player in 2011 to notch 100 RBI's.)

YaYa's new Do

Storytime

kids and lisa are @ BN (Barnes and Noble) enjoying a back to school storytime

Quote

Need went deeper than proscription - Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

On Gadhafi

While the world seems all giddy-goo over the likely fall of Gadhafi, I call B.S. You're ditching a known but neutered bad guy in exchange for a bunch of unknowns who will - I'm sure - install a fair, democratic gov't that is pro-US & believes in equality of the sexes, the right of Israel to exist, & freedom of speech. OR they'll install a Sharia gov't that'll serve as the Iraq for the next generation of American soldiers. Either/or. What a crock.

fred, let's try to speak tonight, once i get some more who under my belt

Better Off Ted

A few nights ago we finished up season 1 of "Better Off Ted". It was a very funny, very well written show that deserved more than the chance it received.

Cronos

I watched the Mexican horror film 'Cronos' last night, the 1993 directorial debut of Guillermo del Toro. I liked it, and actually thought it was very sweet at times.

Quote

"Haters are confused admirers who can't understand why everybody likes you" Paul Coelho

Audrey Rose

Watched the '76 horror flick "Audrey Rose" starring Anthony Hopkins. Awful, boring, and lame.

Some more yield from Smiley's garden

Quote

"The best lie is silence. It's consistent, it speaks volumes and you never have to remember what you said last time if you remember that the last time you said nothing." - Steven Moffatt

Thanks Fred!

My friend Fred sent me the new season of Doctor Who via BBC America (all praise Fred!). "The Impossible Astronaut", the series opener, was a grand Who tale full of action, humor, and twists. Moffatt is a hell of a writer, and Dr. Who is lucky to have him at the helm. Also, Farscape's S4E5 "Promises" was excellent, just a prime example of why the show deserves more attention than it gets.

The Art Museum

@ the art museum w/  Smiley and Yaya, then later visited UWM and dined with Junie 

Ok, it's official. Amy Pond is the Doctor's yummiest companion ever.

@ IHOP w/ the family (kids eat free on Wed)

Farscape: House of Cards by Keith R.A. DeCandido

I finished reading 'Farscape: House of Cards' by Keith R.A. DeCandido. I read a scathing review of it on a fan site, but it was a fine novel for what it was, and it captured the character's voices very well. As for the review, chalk it up to typical fandom b.s.: namely, a belief that u & u alone are the guardian of all that is 'true' and good in ur niche of the sci-fi universe. It's that mentality that gives sci-fi fans a bad name. W

That's Why

On why she became a writer: I didn't want to work. It was as simple as that. I distrusted work, disliked it. I thought it was a very bad thing that the human race had unfortunately invented for itself.

-- Agatha Christie

The Monkey Bars

@the park w/ the kids. Lu is zipping along on the monkey bars. Meanwhile Smiley who threw up 3x today, is sitting w/ me. He just scolded the girls for going up the slide - a daddy in training

my sick boy :(

and here's a pic at the house

4  job apps in today . . .Two more submissions left hanging; need to get my online portfolio up . . .

Found it!

@ long last I found YaYa's missing volleyball (she's never even had the chance to see it; it vanished the day we bought it). To think, if before today I'd only lifted the entire ten foot trampoline by myself, balanced part of it on my back, and hacked through weeds the size of mature marijuana plants to discover it in the foliage layer beneath it, we'd have found it before. How could I have been so lazy in my prior searches?

A Question

Serious query: IIRC the income tax was enacted ~ WWI. How did the fed gov't raise revenue in the 140 yrs before that? Sure, they didn't have SS, Medicare, and 1000 useless cabinet positions, BUT it was still a world power that funded the Civil War, The Great White Fleet, the construction of canals, dams, etc. So where did the $ come from, and is it still a viable source of moolah?

102 Minutes: The Untold Story of The Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn

On lunch at work I finished reading '102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers' by Jim Dwyer  & Kevin Flynn. Powerful stuff, and very well written. I recommend it, especially given the upcoming 10th anniversary. I will say that a few times I caught the authors repeating information. Whether or not that was sloppy editing or a fault of the division of labor (or both), it was jarring each time it happened.

@ Junie's bday party