Rantings

Hope you all had a good Christmas! Did Santa bring you everything you wanted?

I'm still pooterless, so currently hijacking Mr Lisa's laptop for now. I don't have long to update you all.

Me? I got the latest Terry Pratchett book, "Wintersmith". Also, the complete boxed set of Farscape Season 3 (Mr Lisa got me Seasons 1 and 2 last year), the complete Life on Mars (Yay! Can't wait for a Series 2) and the complete boxed set of Doctor Who Series One (the one with Christopher Eccleston). A geek's paradise!

Speaking of which ... wasn't the Christmas Day Special of Doctor Who great?! I was pleasantly surprised by Catherine Tate as I don't usually enjoy watching her on telly, and Sarah Parish as the Empress of the Racnoss was just superb. Also on Christmas Day was the Doctor Who Confidential Christmas Special which went behind the scenes of the Doctor Who concert which was held at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff in aid of Children In Need. Just wonderful.

And yesterday? Well, the wonderful John Barrowman got hitched, of course, to his long term partner of 16 years, Scott Gill. Some nice photos to be found here, including some rather lovely pictures of JB in his kilt (swoon). It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling and makes me proud to be British (which is a rare thing in itself) to know that same sex couples are entitled to just the same rights as everyone else. And quite rightly so.

Speaking of JB, I can now own up to my little jaunt last month when I went in search of an unusual Christmas gift for Mr Lisa. As I had been keeping it a surprise for him I couldn't really write about it in my blog in case he reads it. I don't think he has so far, but you never know. Well, let's just say I got him a signed and personalised copy of JB's CD "Swings Cole Porter". Damn that man has a good voice. Also, I got myself a nice photo of JB autographed and personalised for me, and my picture taken with Captain Jack himself. He was so patient and polite while I fumbled and got lost for words, a real gent.






Right, I think that's it for now. I'm going away for New Year (Whitby) so I may not update till I get back. In the meantime, here are some photos from the last Whitby Gothic Weekend.

Apologies if you're getting bored of hearing about him, but for those of you who can't get enough of him, don't forget to tune into Radio 2 tonight at 7:30pm for Friday Night is Music Night, where Mr Barrowman himself will be singing a selection of songs from our favourite musicals, along with a festive selection of carols. This is a recording of the BBC Christmas concert which took place on the 18th.

If, for whatever reason, you can't listen to it on air, you can listen to it for up to a week after, at the BBC website, here.

Well, I eventually sat down to watch the first part of the Hogfather last night. Now, I have been a fan of Terry Pratchett for years and have been reading his Discworld novels since I was a teenager (yes, I'm 38 now, what an oldie), so following the storyline was a no-brainer for me, but Mr Lisa had problems understanding what was going on. Did anybody else have trouble following it? And if so, do you think the producers kind of assumed/relied on most people having read the book first? Bear in mind that PTerry himself had a hand in the production, so the whole thing could have become somewhat self-indulgent for him.

Thoughts?

Is it because you are looking forward to getting lots of prezzies? Is it because you get to spend quality time with your family? Is it because you get to eat and drink as much as you like without anyone nagging about your expanding waistline/heart/teeth*?

* delete as appropriate

Nope, none of the above for me. This year it's because the Christmas Special edition of Doctor Who, "The Runaway Bride" is on TV!

Me? Sad? Whatever gave you that idea?

I found my mobile. Or rather, Mr Lisa found my mobile hiding under one of the seats in the car.

My laptop is still well and truly broken, though. So, this is currently being typed at work, and sometimes I can get my ancient fossil of a desktop PC working well enough to catch up on email and stuff, but for the most part I feel pretty much crippled.

[sigh]

With much thanks to Dan's Movie Digest for these items:

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made. It is so bad, that it is actually fun to watch. The filmmakers were probably too embarrassed to renew the copyright, so it’s now in the public domain, free to download.

and

Actual English subtitles used in films made in Hong Kong

I have lost my mobile phone. Not only that, but it's either switched off or the battery's flat. I've been trying to ring it to find out where it is but nothing. I just keep getting through to voicemail. :-(

Not only that, but my laptop died a couple of days ago. When I switch it on the lights come on, but that's it. The hard drive won't spin up. I do have a copy of Knoppix on disk, and thought if I could boot up into a disc version of Linux I'd be able to repair or recover info from the HD, but it won't even boot from CD ROM drive, even though that's what it's set to do in the BIOS. Yesterday I took the HD out and put it back in again, thinking maybe it was a dodgy connection. I switched it on and got as far as the big windows logo on the black screen, and it froze. I've never got past that.

Now, what's worrying me the most is that I have all my website files on there, including my FTP login info, and so I can't update my site to say I'm not taking any more orders till after the New Year. And I've just got an order from someone who wants it before Christmas. There are also all the wages on there, because I use the Inland Revenue P11 calculator that comes on their CD. And I haven't backed up the wages for about three months. Yeeargh! What am I going to do? I am in such deep doo doo right now, I feel sick. And I had just bought John Barrowman's Aspects of Loyd Webber off iTunes, as well. Downloaded but not listened to all of it yet. Now it's gone.

Ok, calm down, Lisa. You need to phone the guy at Tyne Computers and see if he can help. Maybe it's just a loose wire or something. Yeah, that's it. A loose wire. Everything will be fine. I just need to keep telling myself that. Everything will be fine, everything will be fine, everything will be fine ...

Ok, so who watched the Royal Variety Performance last night? And I defy anyone to say they didn't swoon when John Barrowman did the last number at the close of the show. That shameless Torchwood plug halfway through was a bit cheesey, but I can live with that.

However, I was quite disturbed by Barry Manilow's performance. So much so that I had to fast forward it (I was lucky I was watching it an hour behind everyone else due to the wonders of Sky+). I couldn't help but think that he'd had so many face lifts he no longer looked human, nor could he stop smiling as his face has been stretched into a pained rictus. Now then, that's just given me a good idea for a new monster in Doctor Who ...

10th December 2006

As many of you will already have picked up on the grapevine, an autographed script for the third episode of Torchwood, "The Ghost Machine", is currently being auctioned on eBay, the money going to Cardiff & District Samaritans.

While I think the Samaritans do wonderful work, I am personally very surprised that the current bid is so high. Someone is either very caring, and their conscience tells them it is their responsibility to do their bit for charity, or they are barking mad and have too much disposable cash (or a credit card, as the case may in fact be). Given the nature of the human race and my overdeveloped cynicism, I think I have a pretty good idea which it is.

What do you think?

UPDATE: 12th December 2006
The auction has ended, the winning bidder getting the script for a measly £565! ;-) Good show, Cardiff Samaritans ... let's hope the buyer coughs up the cash ...

Woo hoo! I'm so pleased! My current favourite programme is to continue for a second series, the BBC have just announced today!

"BBC Three's Torchwood is back for a second series but this time it will premiere exclusively on BBC Two as confirmed by Jane Tranter, Controller of BBC Fiction, and BBC Two Controller Roly Keating.

Starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori and Gareth David-Lloyd, Torchwood has captivated audiences and smashed records.

It attracted an audience of 2.4 million viewers for the broadcast of its first two episodes - securing the highest-ever audiences for a BBC Three programme and the highest-ever ratings for a non-sport programme to air across all channels in digital history."

Click here for the full press release

Yippeeee!

Women: Know your limits

You can read about it here and here. Ohdearohdearohdear.

Via John Scalzi

Thanks to John Scalzi

Ok, so I've just finished watching Torchwood on BBC 3 ... did ANYONE understand that reference in the conversation between Jack and Ianto at the end about the stopwatch, because it has me completely confuzzled ...