Monthly Archives: June 2008

Midnight – David Mamet meets Doctor Who

Posted on June 14, 2008 | 1 comment

So it’s Episode 10 (Season/Series 4) of Doctor Who, it’s pretty much a Doctor Who only episode, Donna Noble hangs back at the spa so we see her about a total of 60 seconds. The episode “Midnight” is written by Russell T. Davies, the man who revived the Doctor Who series four years ago and is still executive producer for Doctor Who and does the same for spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures (occasional writes episodes for both).

The conversation is cRaZy and and has a bunch of people talking and no one listening and when they are, they aren’t paying attention. It made me think of a David Mamet story multiple times, the conversations seemed so much like that of Oleana and other things he’s written, if you don’t know what I mean I’m not sure how to explain it. It was an interesting episode, if you watch the show you’ll see what I mean, if you know agree with me please let me know. Actually, it was a great episode, but it certainly wasn’t a “regular” episode.

Oh, and Rose shows up on the monitors again. No big surprise there…

I’ve got some spoilers (labeled with “SPOILERS”) but I’m going to talk about the next 3 episodes: previews, rumors and conjecture (some might consider the next few paragraphs spoilers too, so stop at any time). Generally Doctor Who seasons have 13 episodes and several times that last story has spanned the last three episodes (even if you didn’t realize there was more to come after episode 11) and generally the final episodes aren’t too much of a cliff-hanger since the Christmas Special (actually broadcast on Christmas between seasons of the show) has generally been meant to sort of stand on it’s own. Continue reading →

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London Photos – Day One

Posted on June 11, 2008 | Leave a comment

So I got some more photos up. London Day one, not a lot, but I did do some okay descriptions :)

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Drinking at the Theatre

Posted on June 11, 2008 | 1 comment

Theatre-Drinks-Pict2475So at some of the theater’s in London (and I’m sure in other places in the world) you place your order and pay for interval drinks before the show starts. This way when it’s time for intermission, your drink is already ready for you and there is no line. Very civilized :)

It’s just coincidence that it’s in “position L”, that was already on the sheet when I scribbled my name on it. So when I went to get my drink there was my bottle of Schweppes, a glass with ice and my order sheet (see attached photo).

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Posted in food + drink, London 2008

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Sprint called me today

Posted on June 9, 2008 | 3 comments

Sprint gave me a call to make sure I was happy. I told him I was expecting his call, he seemed surprised. I said my contract is up and they new iPhone looks pretty yummy, gotta be afraid of losing me as a customer. All he offered me was $150 off a new phone (you get that every 2 years no matter what, AFAIK).

And he said I could use that for a new Treo 800 (I have the 700p) when it comes out; he insisted it’s a Palm OS device (not Windows Mobile) and I rephrased the question several times. Now that I’ve had time to Google it, I think he’s wrong and it’s a Windoze Mobile device.

Tried to buy a wireless modem card from him, best he could offer me was $60 a month. I currently have internet on my phone for $15 and $25 more (total $40) lets me tether (connect) my laptop to it and use the internet. So if I drop the $25 and pay the $60, I’ve still got the $15 on the phone, now $45 more a month. You’d think he could offer me a better incentive than that. I do already have unlimited tethering, give me a little more incentive to sign up Sprint…

Now that I’ve got the new iPhone specs and at only $199 to switch to AT&T I’ve got all sorts of other ideas in my head…

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Speaking of Garfunkel’s

Posted on June 8, 2008 | 2 comments

london04-707So for the Waffle Toffee Crunch score: We were there eight days (Saturday to Saturday) and I was able to have a Waffle Toffee Crunch dessert seven of the eight days! They only day I didn’t succeed was the day we left for Cardiff. In my defense we were on the way to the train station before Garfunkel’s opened and they didn’t appear to have any in Cardiff (they few people I asked didn’t even know what Garfunkel’s was).

So I consider the dessert portion of the vacation as much of a success as possible :)

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Posted in food + drink, London 2008

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Photos of Cardiff

Posted on June 7, 2008 | 2 comments

Cardiff-Photos
So I’ve got a few photos that I put together from Cardiff City Center. I’m not sure if the castle is technically in the city center or not but I including those few anyways. There are captions on a few of the photos.

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The Long Trip Home.

Posted on June 7, 2008 | Leave a comment

It’s been a very long flight and we took off late so we’re going to get in late. They were having problems with one of the bathrooms and they tried fixing it, then they gave up and had to drain the tanks(?) and that took more time. The long bathroom lines are annoying slow but at least they’re moving. The flight home was already eight hours and fifty minutes; I’m glad it was a direct flight, I’m not sure how it’s affecting the the people with connecting flights.

Saw some cool ice “stuff” while flying, not sure if it was part of Greenland or something else, it was a huge massive land formation that was all while and looked like it was ice.

I’ve got a bunch of other entries and posts that I still have to put on-line (or finish and put on-line still) so they’ll be more to come on-line….

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Streetcar – Pay as you go car rental

Posted on June 7, 2008 | 2 comments

StreetcarSo at StreetCar you can rent a car by the hour. They’ve got 500 pickup locations (and I think this is just spots where parked on the side of the street). It’s about 5.95 pounds ($12 an hour) for a Golf (Polo for 3.95) an hour or 49.50 pounds a day (and you get 30 miles of fuel). You must be a member for 50 pounds a year (show your OysterCard and get two memberships for the price of one).

Assuming you don’t have a need for a car very often, this is economical and ecological: you don’t need to pay for a car or insurance or parking, except for the times you need it; it’s such a waste otherwise if you don’t use it often. You don’t need to maintain it or anything like that. If I lived somewhere like London I would only need it a time or two a week (at the most), maybe big shopping trips.

This is very cool IMHO, this is the idea of of Sci-Fi/Future Utopian stories. Every shares a car or bicycles and has great public transportation. This is very unlike Michigan with poor public transportation and everyone owns a car (or two).

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Posted in London 2008

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