I’ve been trying not to read too much about the impending new Doctor Who series, because I’m a Doctor Who fan. My heart’s been broken too many times by the words “New Doctor Who!” and I have been hoping to avoid that happening again.

There’s every reason to be nervous. After all, we live in the age of ironic detachment, where the only reason to bring up items from the past is to mock how lame they were. I’ve heard people say that the “essence” of the show is bad special effects, so it just wouldn’t be the same without them. Many people feel that as long as something is “stupid” or “kitschy” then it’s okay for it to be treated like crap. So that’s the one side, the people to whom the show is “camp” and want it to be all full of tired self-parodying zaniness. And of course the fans, who would like to see something respectful, are expected to just be good sports and play along.

Another side are the people who, since the show has survived by essentially publishing and recording fan-fiction for the past several years, are reluctant for the show to leave the hands of the “true fans”. They have every reason to want the BBC show to fail so they can get back to their own little Doctor Who island.

And then, of course, there’s the BBC itself. I can’t help but be wary of how well they’re handle a show that they treated so poorly for so long. We also can’t discount the vision of the show presented by the Fox TV Movie (which actually sported some nice elements, but they were completely weighed down by the huge flaws.)

I can’t help but compare to Star Wars, which shares a lot with Doctor Who: huge fan base, ignored for a long time by its creators, elevating second-rate properties to take its place, eventually ridiculed by geeks who are too cool to have ever liked something so lame, and now, suddenly, given a new expensive lease on life. And we know where that’s gone for Star Wars.

But I have to admit I’m getting tres excited about what I’m hearing. I don’t know much about the stars, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, but they look okay to me, and I don’t even have a problem with the idea of the Doctor sporting a black leather jacket, if he in fact will be. And what Doctor Who fan wouldn’t be excited about this:

The news that the Daleks will not be coming back is disappointing and stupid. I’m not exactly sure what the Terry Nation estate is holding out for? I love the Daleks, don’t me wrong, but I don’t think any other show is going to make an offer for an army of shrieking robots. The Daleks are a fixture of the show; hell, they made the show, but I think we can say their story went about as far as it could go. Plus this frees up some spotlight for the Cybermen!

So yeah, as photos and information leak out my way, I’m finding myself less guarded about the whole thing. It also helps that I’ve been scanning old issues of Doctor Who Magazine lately to preserve the great comics within, and this has reminded me how much I enjoy this show. I’m hoping for good things here.

Great quote from this interview with comics writer Alan Moore:

Any kind of involvement with Hollywood is a waste of my time and there is no amount of money that can compensate for that. I think the industry is an embarrassment on all sorts of levels but sure there are bad comics, bad books and bad culture so it’s not just films that produce an overwhelming majority of unwatchable rubbish but films that are unwatchable rubbish cost $100 million. That is the budget of an emerging third world nation, which is the point where it goes from being merely tasteless to being kind of evil.

(NOTE: the interview is on suicidegirls, so questionable content may show up in their banner ads.)

Too busy at work for proper blogging at the moment, but there were a few things I wanted to mention.

Happy Birthday wishes go to Anna, Dave, and of course, Becky!

The other day I was reading an article in “Smithsonian” magazine about taste buds. Of course, they mentioned how most of our sense of taste is actually smell, and suggested an experiment. I didn’t have any jelly beans handy, but I did have gummy bears, so I held my nose, closed my eyes, picked a bear at random, and popped it in my mouth. Holy cow that’s freaky! It’s true…you don’t taste it, you only feel the texture. You can sense that it’s something sweet, but nothing beyond that. The second you let go of your nose, though, you get lemon or orange or whatever the flavor is. Very cool.

Here’s a joke I got off MemeMachineGo!:

A fifth level paladin takes his car into the garage and tells the mechanic, “Normally I’m out fighting evil and defending the helpless, but whenever I get behind the wheel of this car, I suddenly want to run down old ladies and do donuts on church lawns.”

The mechanic says, “Hmm. Sounds like your alignment’s out of whack.”

Har!

Quick note: remember me saying before how I thought a Green Lantern movie starring Jack Black was a stupid idea? Well, please disregard that. All the COOL people think it’s a great idea, and we all want to be cool, don’t we? After all, if you give a few reasons why you think it’s a poor idea, you’re going into histrionics, but if you unload a dozen paragraphs of vitriol at people who don’t like the idea, you’re clearly the more reasonable party.

Shasradio is gone and lamented, but Last FM is walking the trail that it blazed. Worth checking out while it lasts.

On a political note, I think it’s hilarious how John Edwards is too inexperienced to be Vice President, according to conservatives. If only he had George Bush’s experience of being a weak governor for a few years and running a couple of countries into the ground, then he’d be all set. (Edit: “countries” in that last sentence should be “companies”. Freudian slip.)

I’ll have a full-on Digby’s Daredevils RPG update soon (and probably a page devoted to it, but so far I’ve got three players who have submitted character ideas and Jim, the guy who runs my comic shop, has expressed interest as well! The plot of the first adventure is taking shape as I type this. It’s all coming together…

The Doctor Who comic scanning project proceeds apace. I’ve been cleaning up scans and securing more issues. Soon I will have them all archived, so no more having to treat my old issues of Doctor Who Monthly with kid gloves. (I’m getting the Panini reprints as well, but until they catch up, these will have to do.)

Here’s a bit of dialog between myself and some friends while I was scanning:

10:46:00 [legomancer] ka-thramm! ska-choom!

10:46:47 [legomancer] I’m gonna run an all-thri-kreen D&D game and name all the characters after sound effects from this comic

10:48:21 [lanfaedhe] can I play Bla-zam?

10:48:56 [shasticon] Is there a Bliggidy-ow?

10:51:41 [legomancer] lanf, you can be Kr-choom, and shas, you’re Ka-krask

10:52:00 [legomancer] there’s also room for a troll named Whumph

Better get back to work now. I’ll blog more soon…

I sent this to James Randi a while back, and he put it in his weekly commentary a few weeks ago. I thought I’d share it here:

Mr. Geller’s claim to fame is that he can bend spoons with his mind. Oh sure, he claims a lot of other kookery, but it’s the spoon-bending that most people know him for. He purports to be able to bend a spoon just by concentrating on it. Let’s assume for the moment that he really can do this feat. Some observations about it:

1) His method is inefficient. It’s not like before Uri came along, we were wondering how on earth we’d get a spoon bent. If the need for a bent spoon arose, we’d grab it in our two hands and bend it, simple as that. We didn’t have to concentrate very hard on the task.

2) His method is slow. The “grab it with both hands and bend” method of bending spoons is demonstrably faster than the “concentrate and rub” method.

3) His method is unreliable. Believers in psychic ability call this the “sheep and goats effect.” For some reason, when a skeptic is in the room or scientific controls are in place that would eliminate cheating, the spoon will fail to bend through mind power alone. Sometimes the “vibes” aren’t right. However, the no-rubbing grab-and-bend method works independently of vibes, regardless of how many people in the room doubt it will work.

4) Most importantly, people don’t need spoons bent. In fact, the optimal configuration for a spoon is un-bent. The only purpose for bending a spoon I can think of, is demonstrating one’s psychic abilities. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I can’t think of a single time I’ve needed a bent spoon. Fortunately, although I’m not psychic, should the occasion arise, I’m pretty sure I could bend one with just my hands.

So in conclusion — this man enjoys fame and, I presume, wealth, because he has a slow, inefficient, and unreliable method for accomplishing a task that no one needs done. He gets invited to TV shows to demonstrate this completely substandard method of performing this useless task.

I am almost certain I can find some job that no one needs done and find a really poor way to do it. I won’t claim psychic abilities, though, just my own inept skill set. Do you think I can get some fame and money? I really only want a little…

I’d just like to add that in addition to bending spoons, Geller has a similar slow, inefficient, and unreliable method for making wristwatches tell the incorrect time. Is there no limit to this man’s power?

Star Wars, Episode III, now has a title, which was announced at the San Diego Comic Convention:

(Gentlemen, start your “Revenge/Return of the Jedi” jokes.)

As a bonus, here’s a joke I made up:

Q: How many Star Wars creators does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Nine. No, six! Six! And I never said “nine”!

I’ll probably be too busy to post, what with fielding all the phone calls and telegrams from well-wishers, but Sunday will mark the two year anniversary of this blog!

Many thanks to team Slithytoves for hosting it, and to them and others for helping me make improvements to it! And of course, to my faithful readers.