Sunday, 5th November, 2006

We Are All Made Of Stars

photo

I kinda wish I'd taken a tripod...

OMG

Woah — And it's a fluid layout too *applause*

It's weird, isn't it, when people/blogs you know change their template. That jolt of the unfamiliar when you first see the newness, which, over time, fades into a regained comfortability.

I guess it's like a new pair of shoes

how did you do that

Open shutter for four seconds, try to stand still

Wet Floor

code flickr api demo

Linking to Ms Everson above reminded me of something I knocked up whilst working on something with her. I realise that the wet floor effect is all over the place these days — and is, perhaps, becoming a little clichéd (like drop shadows before it) — but while we were experimenting with ways of displaying photographs, I tried playing around with a 'Coverflow-like' way of doing things ... and I thought I'd share

It's just pulling the five most recent photos out of my photostream. If you want to try yours, put your Flickr username (which, unlike my comment form, is your screen name ) into the form and click "Go!"

Flickr username:

I say "Coverflow-like", but it doesn't actually do anything as such. One of these days I might get around to animating it or something — unless anyone wants to chip in and help?

Siobhan's Top Tips For Bloggers

Number 41: Always make sure you renew your domain name in time.

Dammit. You know, if I'd been a little more on the ball, I could be having enormous fun at someone else's expense right now...

Ha! I promised I wouldn't

Stupidly Pointless Flashing Blue Lights

Ack, let's disect Torchwood, for a laugh.

I've been avoiding this, it has to be said — partly out of lack of time, but also partly because the crushing weight of disappointment floating over me at this moment in time is counterbalanced only by the eternal optimism I have that It Might Get Better™

Others have expressed similar leanings, and I'll try not to repeat what they've said, but there are some specific things that are bugging me about the new 'saucy adult' Doctor Who spin-off that I'd been waiting for for so long.

Firstly, the music. It sucks.

Not just the title music — which whenever I try to hum it in my head, all that comes out is the theme to Spooks — but the general, incidental music.

It's all too dunderlunderdunderdundun¹, and a bit 'pantomimey' if you ask me.

Secondly, the characters are (so far) so dimensionless. I know that (according to the Beeb) we'll be finding out things that flesh them out a bit, but my only reaction to them up till now is that they look far too much like knock-off Blue Peter presenters.

Even the ugly guy.

Thirdly, I was expecting something a lot darker than what we've seen so far. Doctor Who has a tradition of campness about it — and I think the current series(es) have preserved that perfectly — but they've proved they can do 'dark' with the "Are you my mummy?" two-parter (which, incidentally, was where we met Captain Jack for the first time), so how come Torchwood feels too 'light'?

I'd presumed that the forboding air and menacing nature of Torchwood as it was introduced to us slowly in Doctor Who meant that there'd be something sinister about this new spin-off, rather than the Scooby Gang hi-jinx we've had so far.

Fourthly, the hand. It's obviously the Doctor's hand from the end bit of The Christmas Invasion. OBVIOUSLY. And it's also obvious that Jacks hoping he can somehow find the Doctor using it, so he can cure him of his immortality.

AND it's obvious that it's made out of latex

Fifthly, the sex. It's been a bit 'corny', despite us being promised all sorts of adult naughtiness. In that one about the sex-crazed alien smoke (for example), the announcer enticed pre-warned us with "will contain scenes of a sexual nature", only to let us down with a bit of dry-humping and black powder.

Sixthly, the swearing. Now, I might be wrong here, but I can only recall one "fuck" so far — and that was within ten minutes of the opening of episode one. Since then there's been plenty of time to say "pissflaps", "felching" and "cocksucker" — but have they?

Seventhly, Cardiff. It's just not a sexy place. Sorry. No matter how many times we swoop over it at night, it's just not Las Vegas, New York or Miami.

Eigthly, On a similar subject, why is there a disued London Underground station in the middle of Cardiff?²

Ninethly, Gwen stopped wearing a policewoman's uniform by the end of episode one, which (frankly) ruins it for me

And finally — tenthly, the stupid and pointless blue flashing lights on the edges of the windscreen of the Mystery Machine Torchwood car. What are they FOR?! I can understand the idea of trying to 'pimp up' their kit to make them look cool — but sticking a couple of disco-lights like that your uncle Steve the Mobile DJ has on the edge of the window with double-sided sticky tape (for speed) is, quite frankly, naff.

*harumpf*

¹ © EnVérité, 2006.

² OK, that one's a bit crap. I was just trying to get the number of Things That Irritate Me™ to ten.

They have 'Torchwood' on the side of their car

In big blue flashy lights!

You know what we need? Greasemonkey-style plugins for your telly that enhance your Torchwood watching pleasure — for example, a simple search-and-replace changing all Welsh voices into sexy Irish ones (for example).

We could collate them on a site — www.pimpmytorchwood.com

SPOILERS!

Will all you people who whinge about how you don't get BBC3 go and buy a fucking Digibox FFS

That had everything!

Crying Welshmen.

In-mortuary inter-cast snogging.

Top bloke-on-bloke action.

And Cybermen fighting dinosaurs!

What's not to love?

I retract everything I said above (Except for the music. It still sucks. *dah dah. dadadadadadah dah. da da dah dah*)

I quite like the music [...] been watching Lord of the Rings instead for the 4 millionth time

You, my dear, are lost to the world

Something just occurred to me BTW...

when you try and access their secret files over the internet, you get a big sign saying 'TORCHWOOD access denied'

Jon? How do you know that? Have you been trying to access secret files over the internets?

It's like watching a "Data goes a bit bonkers and takes over the ship" episode of Star Trek EVERY week.

Damm you Becky for having a wittier insight than me

so we downloaders have a chance too.

Hmm, now there was me, just about to launch into a (hypocritical) "Downloading is baadd, m'kay?" rant, when it occurred to me that if you pay your license fee, does it actually matter how you get telly?

Having said that, cable? Sky? I mean, it's worth it just for five CSI US...

Now that you finally did the preview, can peoples request more features?

More features? What could I possibly add to this to make it better

I particularly liked Gwen's "Shit".

I'm glad you put quatation marks around that. Otherwise I'd worry about you

...

Just for the record, I know the comment abouve Lauren's is spam. I took out the link, but I thought I'd leave it in for the sheer bizarro factor of it