eruthros

So, thingswithwings and I get together and watch episodes of Doctor Who together. And then we sit around on the couch bullshitting, which is how we end up with ep reviews like this one, which describes what we thought were going to be the themes of the series based on episode one. So! Now! Some more things we have noticed in random, random, random order.

( Doctor Who speculation, spoilers only for aired eps )

1. Waiting in line overnight for products or movies. I just don't get this. At all. I mean, I understand that it makes people happy an' all, but -- I waited in line for an hour and a half to see Star Wars episode one, and that was plenty for me. Is it the experience? Is it the camaraderie? I'd rather buy online and wait for delivery, or buy tickets with assigned seats (yay some theaters!), or wait a week. ( though waiting for SW Ep One was actually amusing because ... )

2. Why the Fourth Doctor essentially always wins favorite doctor contests. I mean, I can get why the First Doctor never wins (patronizing and yick), and why the Sixth Doctor never wins (omg ew the writing in those episodes ew). But I do not get why the Fourth Doctor is the fan favorite even of people who didn't see him as their childhood Doctor.

2a. Why people think RTD's series is really all about how he hates DW, how he hates companions, how he hates women and people of color and plots and fans and ... wtf.

3. Automated menus. "Automated menus simplify your access to our customer support service!"

Or... you end up doing what I did this morning. See, I wanted to change to a veggie meal, which involves phoning the airline.

Automated menu: We only need a little more information! Now, what is your reservation number?
Me, speaking slowly and clearly: Z N X W C 2
Automated menu: Got it! Was that ... D M X W T Q?
Me, speaking slowly and clearly: No!
Automated menu: Sorry! Let's try again. Because some letters are hard to tell apart, try saying common words after the letters, like "C as in Charlie." For numbers, say "the number three."
Me, speaking slowly and clearly and trying the NATO phonetic alphabet: Z as in Zulu, N as in November, X as in X-ray, W as in whiskey, C as in Charlie, the number 2.
Automated menu: Great, got it! Was that ... Z M X W T Q?
*repeat five more times, using different words*
Me: OPERATOR. SPEAK TO A HUMAN.
Automated menu: Got it! Was that ... O P R T O R?
Me: How about ... I don't know my reservation number!
Automated menu: Sorry! Let's try again. Because some letters are hard to tell apart, try saying common words after the letters, like "C as in Charlie." For numbers, say "the number three."
Me: *cries into phone*

It took me a mere twenty-five minutes, but eventually I talked to a person. Who, inside five minutes, located my reservation, registered my veggie meal, changed my seats, affiliated my frequent-flyer number with my reservation, sent me a confirmation by email, etc. After twenty-five minutes of "because some letters are hard to tell apart..."

Two fannish take-offs on tossed aside lines...

One silly response to a line from Doctor Who series 2/28. About as spoilery as the title of the episode in question. (2x05) ( Behind the cut! )

And the second, from a tossed-aside line in the latest episode of Stargate: SG-1. It spoils... the theme of the last two seasons. Shocker, no? ( Behind the cut )

graycastle talked about Dalek carolers, and this sparked in me a desire to make an album of Dalek choirs singing Christmas carols. Featured songs: Silent Night, Joy to the World, Carol of the Bells, What Child is This... and other stuff we haven't thought of yet. (Obviously these are new series Daleks, with a Dalek god and Dalek heresies.) It would be GREAT.

No, seriously, imagine for a moment a Dalek chorus doing Joy to the World. Especially that last verse. "He rules the world with truth and grace, / And makes the nations prove / The glories of His righteousness, / And wonders of His love, / And wonders of His love, / And wonders, wonders, of His love." AWESOME.

ONLY! I don't have a Moog MF-102 ring modulator, which is the modulator BBC Radiophonics used to do Dalek voices. I just have a VST ring modulator plugin, and no idea what the Dalek Voice settings would be (fiddling got me a sorta-cyberman, but not the exact right lag for Daleks). And my google-fu has failed me.

You know you want to help me out! Because then I will make a whole album. And we can share and glory in Daleks singing "Angels we have on heard high / Sweetly singing o'er the plains / And the mountains in reply / Echoing their joyous strains." And it will be kinda scary, because the coverart will include scenes of flying Daleks from "Doomsday," but also it will be hilarious awesome.

1. Cooked! A lot. I made apple-pear crostada and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and mashed yam with oranges and rum and pecans and salad and other things as well that I've forgotten. m_shell made kick-ass apple-cranberry-turkey sausage stuffing, and was responsible for cooking the turkey. (Turkey is scary.) It was all quite good, even if we did have a minor pie crisis (for unknown reasons, it took an hour to cook instead of thirty minutes -- baffling). Also, we then ate leftovers for days.

2. As a corollary to #1, I did a lot of dishes. Because I have only three mixing bowls, I washed them about every thirty seconds all day Thursday.

3. Taught m_shell to knit. Go me! She picked out some yarn and everything, and is knitting a hugemongous scarf, which she had time to practice because...

4. ... I watched the entirety of the 2005 series of Doctor Who since Friday. We'd both sit here with our knitting, and then I'd pause it to explain Daleks to m_shell, and then we'd agree that Daleks were creepy, and then we would watch more Doctor Who. Um. Yeah. It ... didn't feel like thirteen episodes?

5. Knit. A lot. (See #4.) I finished a scarf and am halfway through a purse made of sari silk.

6. Discovered that I live in a town where you can buy pony carts on craigslist and the police need to remind people to lock their doors when they leave for a month. A month. I cannot deal. It was a front-page story in the local paper: attention! lock your doors! Where is reality from here?