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Sunday, November 30, 2014

Are Doctor Who Fans From Missouri?




 The horrible news is upon us. After months of online chatter, and endless articles and other reportage, the jury have arrived at their verdict.

Clara is still sticking around on Doctor Who. The Doctor's billboard-faced Companion who has caused so much fannish angst amongst Whovians is probably gonna be in the next season of Auntie Beeb's sci-fi classic. Will she-won't she arguments have been put to rest, maybe, by the UK's Mirror.

Perhaps.

WHO fans have been arguing about Clara for awhile, now. The Impossible Girl has a big following, and as many detractors. You know, fandom. The upshot is that the fans believe that they know more about Doctor Who than Moffat and the other show-runners, or even the BBC itself. If you marathon all of the extant episodes from 1963 onward, you are an Expert, after all, and Understand These Things. (Whooaboos need not apply.)




Add in the online scuttlebutt, and you have a Masters in WHOology! The upshot is, fans who are not in the planning meetings think they know more than the planners.

My ham-fistedly clever analogy should be shrieking in your brain by now.

The Grand Jury in Ferguson met. They heard the evidence, data which were unknown and unavailable to the people on the street. They weighed the evidence of science, entry angles, videos, and myriad other details to which those not in the jury proceedings had no clue. The evidence against the policeman who shot Michael Brown was found wanting by the Grand Jury, despite a Democrat prosecutor, a Democrat mayor, and those on the street all crying for a lynching, figurative or no. Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot Brown, was not found to be tryable. There was no case against him, despite the druthers of prosecutors, politicos, race-baiting "civil rights" activists, rabble-rousers from Chicago and such, and the people of Ferguson who cried for Justice, even if it was a justice based upon perjury by some of their number.

Justice was served by the Grand Jury, which the people on the street were not a part of. I suppose that there are dark mutterings of "White Science", "White Ballistics" and the like, because those are the shades with which the media, the politicians, and the agitators have painted the story. Wilson is free, and the peee-pul don't like it, the people who did not hear the testimonies, who either will not read the transcripts, or cannot. It doesn't matter. The evidence is in, and they don't care. They don't like Darren Wilson, and want him dead.

The BBC show-runners know "Who" better than we. They are privy to information which we do not have...things like story arcs, the direction the show is going, and WHY CLARA, ANYWAY? There will continue to be debates, tart Facebook postings, and the cameras will continue to roll until the next Thing for fans to agitate against.

Hopefully Wales will not burn when the next season is unveiled.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Saturday night something-something...



The Dread Dormomoo and I are in the grippe of a virus vile. Yuck is the rule of the day.

STAR TREK - The Corbomite Maneuver


This is a major favorite of mine! I hope you relish it as much as I!

Kirk enters the bridge from the turbolift...hand-held over-the-shoulder shot following him to Uhura's station. A Cube is holding them up the Enterprise.
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Spock: "...some kind of Space Buoy"

Dread Dormomoo: "or Space Girl."
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That's why we love 'er!


Mr. Bailey, the Navigator/Whipping Boy, is a Mouthy Thing, given to Backtalk and Expostulation.





Lt. Bailey: "I vote we BLAST IT!"

Kirk: "I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Bailey, when this becomes a democracy."
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OK...the Fesarius arrives, and I am gripped with...ennui. The ORIGINAL '60s effects show a glowing, somewhat indistinct enormous ship, pulsing with power. It is menacing! Not so the NEW SFX, which show detail underneath the glowy balls, making it look like a Borg cube decked out with Christmas lights. And the different sizes of balls do not pulse, alternating from large to small. It looks...cheap.

I haz a sad.

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The mini-Fesarius looks better.

Balok, the Tranya-loving little corn-toothed freak. Clint Howard before he got to be good-looking. Oh, wait...

Vic Perrin does his voice.
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Svengoolie: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.


I am NOT a fan of the comedic stylings of Don Knotts, but this little movie amuses me. It may be the all-character-actor cast, or the spooky Vic Mizzy score, but 9PM CST, I will be watching it. Fun. Good times!

This from my Facebook last night.

BANG! Right on the head!

Poor Otis.

Less than 10 minutes in, and we have a Barney freak-out.

Image

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Vic Mizzy wins. The organ music sounds like the guy who wrote music for "The Adventures of Mark Twain" was a Mizzy fan.


















Saturday, November 08, 2014

The mourning of things passed.




http://beyondthebooks.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/09876.jpg?w=500


I mourn the passing of the "classic" grandmothers, schooled in kitchens redolent with spices and culinary magic. Bradbury wrote of such in "Dandelion Wine". I have a treasure-trove: my grandmother's cookbooks AND her recipe file cards! I remember cookie-sheets filled with toasted pecans at Christmas-time. Cheese biscuits, fruit cakes, tiny mini-muffin fruitcakes. Humdingers. Crystalised grapefruit peel.

Summer had squash and onions, stewed tomatoes, boiled okra (a travesty, like eating a cold), an amazing fresh cold relish of diced tomatoes, green peppers, and onions in vinegar, outstanding with blackeyed peas! Fresh corn on the cob, wonderful corn OFF the cob! Fried chicken! FRESH BISCUITS! Winter was filled with mason jars full of the summer's bounty! And all, ALL prepared by my grandmother, and Louila, the wonderful black lady who helped her around the house.

I cannot see this being continued this generation. Women are taught to find fulfillment in a cubicle, filling forms and doing PowerPoint, rather than being the provider of miracles from garden and kitchen. Food comes from boxes, pouches and cans, now, pre-measured, pre-seasoned, virtually pre-digested. The government's tax levels require both husband and wife to work, yet they cannot get by beyond the basics. There will be no miraculous grandmothers ere long. Cereal for breakfast, Swanson for dinner, Michelle's Menu for school lunch.

No time. "Lovin' from the Oven" is canned biscuits.

I weep. I mourn.

Saturday Night Somewhat Soberblog.



Dat Wonder Woman! At a sci-fi onvention!! An apparently tiny con!
"Wonder Woman Spaced Out"

Rene Auberjonois in '70s mufti. Tragic.


As I said, tragic.
Rene A. plays an uber-thief hired to steal collimating crystals for an uber-laser weapon. An uber-thief who can't do buttons.

How did we survive the '70s?

Robbie the Robot AND Paul Smith, AKA Bluto, AKA "Beast" Rabban.  Sometimes this is not a dreadful show.
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Star Trek.

MIRI

Dat Kim Darby.

http://dauntlessmedia.net/startrek/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/tos-108-miri-300x225.gif

And Michael J. Pollard. "GWUPS!"


And the ugly kid from To Kill a Mockingbird:



"BONK BONK! On the head!"

This is one of the best Trek episodes!  Well thought-out.

And Yeoman Rand!



NO BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!
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THE MUMMY.

Boris Karloff sure gets wrapped up in his work.

One of the best con shirts I ever did was for Famous Movie Monstercon, a sadness of a con through no fault of the promoter or the subject matter. We used this picture:


to striking effect.

The Western "acquisition" of Egyptian antiquities is a difficult concept for Twenty-First Century sensibilities. The "For Science!" rubric covered a multitude of archaeological sins.

"Do you have to open graves to find girls to fall in love with you?"  That's enough to eviscerate a guy!

The Mummy dood it. You're welcome for the spoiler!
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I gotta get ready for tomorrow. Have a faboo Sunday!