Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods

I have to say, as a long-time admirer of South Park, I’ve been bitterly disappointed with the new season so far. There’s been no bite to it, and worse yet, no point. I don’t require every episode to be issue-oriented, but so far this year we’ve gotten a spoof of Cloverfield with a dash of spoof of Guantanamo Bay, and a bizarre indictment of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull set to the tune of every notable Hollywood rape scene that Matt and Trey could think of. In both cases, what’s being spoofed was months past its sell-by date. But beyond that, what irks me is that were are in the midst of historical events that are positively bursting with moments rife for ridicule. Come on, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are on the prowl, each seemingly trying to one-up the other for campaign trail howlers that leave their respective party handlers burying their faces in their hands. South Park is losing relevance – fast. But it’s also just possible that Matt and Trey have lost track of what people watch their show for when the abysmal “Imaginationland Trilogy” has won them an Emmy, after so many far worthier installments were passed over.

Jumping tracks a bit, my wife and I watched the aforementioned Indiana Jones flick tonight, and I just do not see why some people (including, apparently, Matt and Trey) were so upset by it. Predictable as hell, sure, but I don’t see where it somehow soiled Indy’s holy legacy of supremely intellectual artsy filmmaking…oh, wait, yeah, there is no such legacy. They were always popcorn flicks. So was this one. So far as I can tell the complaint seems to be that there are sci-fi elements brought into the story, but come the hell on…Raiders had glowing supernatural crap emanating from the freakin’ Ark of the Covenant, melting Nazis’ faces off. What’s the problem? Is there some contractual delineation of suspension of disbelief that we just can’t cross without getting the unions involved? Or is it just a healthy dose of received-wisdom knee-jerk hate left over from the Star Wars prequels? It was a fun enough movie, and set things up in a way that I really wouldn’t mind seeing a fifth installment if Harrison Ford was up for it.

Of course, that is, if Matt and Trey don’t mind.

David Tennant is apparently hanging up his time-travelin’ sneakers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7698539.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/29/doctorwho-bbc

As the Brigadier once said, “Oh well. Here we go again!” It’s fun watching the younger folks on various forums just implode, as if this hasn’t happened eight or nine times already. Was 2005 really so long ago?

You know, every year that I boldly state that the only thing left on my music want list is that year’s Doctor Who soundtrack, Mr. Tim Finn sneaks up and throws a new studio album at me. So there you have it – I’m going to start saying that the last CD I want every year is Doctor Who, and that means more Tim, right? More »

Seen in a localized ad window on Livejournal:

…man, I hope they can get their money back on that ad.

In other news, to wrap up today’s marathon run of blawg entries, the Phosphor Dot Fossils DVD (wow, I haven’t talked about that in at least 20 minutes!) is now available at Digital Press Videogames in Clifton, NJ, where it made its in-store debut just in time for last weekend’s NAVA gathering. If you’re within the reach of the mighty DP store, go hit Joe and co. up for a copy.

Okay, no more bloggage until tomorrow. I promise.

After a little bit of tinkering with a woefully crippled but otherwise very attractive theme (I think the idea was, though I didn’t see this explicitly stated anywhere, that you’d pay for an uncrippled version), I’m happy to unveil the latest regeneration of Scribblings Of The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods.

If you’re reading this on Livejournal or Myspace…this won’t affect you a bit. Carry on. (My wayward son.) Those who do occasionally drop in on the point of origin of all of this blithering that I do, go have a look – I think it’s pretty cool, and I’m happy with the job I did of excising the not-quite-expert job of hobbling the original theme. I can live with the results. There are still a few very minor bugs to work out, but not game-killers.

I’m still picking out stuff for the end-of-year favorite-music podcast-o-rama. How’s three hours sound to you? No?

We have our first freeze warning of the season tonight, and the wind is positively fierce into the bargain, so Xena’s spending a rare night inside with us. Too bad Evan was already in bed – he’d be delighted to see her. As much as he loves kitties (and he even says “kit-ty!” when he sees one of the cats), he gets so excited and forgets to be gentle. Olivia bears it up to a certain point and runs away; Oberon takes a lot more abuse, probably because he’s bigger and obviously not as “fragile” as Olivia, and will make a token “I’m gonna bite you” gesture before taking off and hiding. (He never actually bites. He just tries to psych the kid out.) With Xena, Evan’s not-so-gentle pats are par for the course. And since he’s learned to say “dog-gie” too, she’s perfectly happy. If he gets too overbearing, she just asks to be let outside – problem solved.

I gave the 30-second track-by-track previews for the Doctor Who series 4 soundtrack a listen today, and I’m much more excited about it than I already was – it’ll certainly be better than the series 3 soundtrack, which was heavy on stuff from Human Nature, which, while it was based on my all-time favorite Doctor Who novel, turned out to be far from my favorite episode. Now, the flipside of that is that there seems to be a notable lack of action music from the Sontaran 2-parter on the series 4 CD – at least if the track samples are anything to go by – including the repeated build-up to (and avoidance of) the nuclear launch, but I’m waiting for the CD itself to see if any of that stuff is tucked away somewhere. You can pretty much bet on a couple of selections from this working their way into what’s looking like it’ll be an epic-length year-end favorite-music podcast. With my recent lucky find of a very, very cheap (i.e. less than $3 – yay eBay) copy of Levinhurst’s House By The Sea album, as well as the final trio of Alan Parsons Project remasters, the Doctor Who CD is the last thing on my music want list for this year. At least soundtrack-wise, this has been a dandy year for music (Lost Season 3, Torchwood, Prince Caspian, Wargames, the Stargate direct-to-DVD movies, and new Indiana Jones and Batman music); I’m not complaining too much on the non-soundtrack front either.

How I made the leap from Evan and the dog to soundtrack music, I have no idea. Which probably means I need sleep.

Well well well, it seems Evan has discovered another shelf full of games:

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