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OK Doc. p.11

Title: OK Doc
Characters: 9th Doctor and Rose
Author:

betawho
Rating: PG
Note: This is a Doctor Who Western.

Summary: The Doctor and Rose return to Tombstone, Arizona, site of the gunfight at the OK Corral. This time it isn't the cowboys causing the trouble, but an ancient Hopi Indian spirit. The feud between the Earps and the Clantons is hoting up, babies are dying, spring is late and the Tombstone silver mine has just collapsed.

It's up to the Doctor and his new friends to stop the spirit causing all the problems, and prevent an alien invasion. Because there's a secret buried under Tombstone. And it's waking up.

Story starts here.

Chapter 11 here.

(Did I mention the Doctor's all decked out in a leather duster and cowboy hat, like a gunfighter?)

First Post

I have been watching this community for quite some time and have finally decided to post my pictures from an abandoned dairy. Hope you enjoy!

Lookie Here: http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l48/paradiseis808/Scary%20Dairy/

Current Mood: accomplished

Ahahahahaha my DOS-fu and Doctorish tinkering-fu are strong!
I laugh at your fatal kernel-level memory leaks!

I piss on your corrupted APCI drivers!

Artoo lives again!

Which means I now have two fully operational machines - if the connectiing fuse in Lesley's between the power jack and the AC distributor can get fixed that'll make three.

Perversely, Bender runs faster than Artoo, but I am posting this message from Artoo...

Now copying all current documents to a spare memory chip (what else does one do when the backup itself may not be reliable...

2012

We saw 2012 this morning. I went in with pretty low expectations and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I’d have to say that it’s the ultimate disaster movie; The special effects were excellent, oodles of stuff got destroyed, and the story sufficiently held it all together in a cohesive manner. It even has a few notable dramatic scenes. That said, what more could you possibly ask for from a disaster flick? Well, the science behind it was a little sketchy (a planetary alignment causes our sun to set off flares which heat up the earth’s core thus causing all sorts of natural disasters to reek havoc on the surface), but the movie chose well not to delve into much detail and instead focused on the action. Anyone with an elementary science education could spend all day picking out this movie’s flaws, but thankfully this production has something that logic just can’t compete against—awesome special effects! The destruction scenes were so over the top that they bordered on surreal. I felt like I’d just gotten off a roller coaster after the Pasadena scene. I’m sure some people will find the imagery, which includes buildings collapsing down into bottomless canyons, to be highly disturbing, but it was executed with such sovereignty that all realism and horror were transfigured into pure celluloid entertainment.

Anyway, we have a party tonight to rest up for!

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Music: Leaether Strip - Whisper Your Poetry

Dear LJ,

Monday is Kanye day at work.
I am so excited.
I plan to listen to Stronger on repeat all day, because it's the anthem of my life.

( Read more... )

Love always,
Emily

nice
Current weather conditions: sunny and 70°F (21°C).

!!!

It's a beautiful day here. Last one for awhile, I fear. The rain and cold moves in tonight and we'll stay wet and chilly at least through the middle of next week. After that, who knows? But it is mid-November, so realistically it will probably stay cool to cold, and only get moreso as we go onwards towards Winter. (see? Meteorology degree put to damn good use there)

I've tried to make the most of it - Hammond's windows rolled down while running errands, and Scooter and his little friend Sparky taken for a nice long walk (small dogs + large leaf piles = LOLz). Now the sun is already beginning to set, so I suppose it's time to bid goodbye to the lovely day and think about how I wish I had a nice pair of wellies for the upcoming week.

Tomorrow! New Doctor Who episode! YAAAAAAAY!

Current Mood: content

Thoughts on Bender, the ancient and forever desktop PC
It strikes me that although Bender was an amusing name when I first got it, it probably does the machine a disservice now. Bender and I have been through a lot together and still it steps in to save the day when all else fails.

It's 9 years old, well past modern computers' designed-in lifespans, it's battered, spent the last seven or eight months on the floor under the table getting illicitly pissed on by Her Mogjesty, it's been (literally and physically) blown up, and had most if not all of its major components replaced and tweaked over the years.

And still it works, and runs faster and smoother than a lappie half its age.

(Hm, it actually begins to feel like I'm describing me at taekwondo...)

I don't think it is Bender - it's surely the TARDIS, or, more like, the Millennium Falcon: old, battered, but I've made a lot of special modifications myself, and she'll do point five past a machine half the age...

As for Artoo, I've found some advice on getting round the safe-mode boot hang, so I'll try that tomorrow. But first I'll have to bring a spare monitor down from storage, cos that laptop's screen doesn't work and I'd been using Bender's monitor....

Current Mood: quixotic

A few questions on UK education for a fic.
I'm writing a Doctor fic and I have a few questions for those of you in the UK.

1. What level of education is Donna most likely to have.

2. Is there something like a school/class reunion for graduates such as Donna?

3. What is it called and when are they usually held?

Thanks, in advance.

Pyxl

Mona Lisa's Revenge Part 2
5/10 - which makes this still the weakest story of season 3 by a long way for me, but the episode a considerable improvement on the first half (which I give 2 or 3)

Clyde steals the show easily, and Suranne Jones seems to tone it down slightly, but is still the worst piece of miscasting and dire performance I've seen in two or three years... (of TV as a whole, I mean, not just in the Whoniverse!)

dw specials icons
in anticipation of waters on mars, i made some doctor who specials icons
(also some icons of torchwood and emma)

preview;

here at

fou_tu

Current Music: sad movie ost - Good Bye (Jang Pil Soon) | Powered by Last.fm

Accents
The post about the Mona Lisa's less-than-genteel 'northern' accent reminded me of a problem I have with all of the Doctors. Being an American I have a tin ear when it comes to English accents. Unless Bert the Chimneysweep or Queen Elizabeth is talking to me I can't hear any difference in accents at all.

I understand #9 has a northern accent and #7's isn't supposed to be English anyway but what about the rest? If any one of them were talking to a stranger in a ~~bar~~ pub, what would that stranger assume (wrongly) about the Doctor and his background? Other than "This man's clearly escaped from his keeper."

I'm especially interested in #6 for a fic I'm writing. He sounds so incredibly smug and snooty, does his accent match?

I'm worried
'The Waters of Mars' is supposed to be on tonight, right? But my TV schedule says 'The Voyage of the Damned' is going to be on instead.
I hope it's a mistake and 'Waters of Mars' will be the one aired.

DT on Graham Norton in US
The Graham Norton Show with David Tennant will air tonight on BBCamerica. Not seen it mentioned before.

Current Mood: busy

All-White Friday Night
At around 9pm I met up with Rani and Sean around Clark and Belmont and walked down to the Duke of Perth to chit chat over drinks. I’d actually had the apartment all to myself that evening while Rani was at Caesar’s Margarita’s. Of course my time alone didn’t yield anything productive. I really wanted to get into reading my new book, but the only time I’m really motivated for that is when I’m on the L. At the Duke of Perth I had a Belhaven Twisted Thistle, which I found drinkable but not terribly appealing. We still have yet to visit this place for dinner instead of going there just for drinks; Perhaps sometime in the near future (?).

After the Duke we walked down to the club. Mind you, Rani and I were dressed in all white. Stef pushed the idea that since it was Friday the 13th it would be amusing if all the stuff and patrons wore white. There were only a marginal amount of participants but that’s understandable. At the end of the night we got all the all-white people together for a group shot, which included Dennis, the birthday boy. The whole night I was worried about sweating so much that it would soak into my pants and make me look like I pissed myself, but I had enough layers of shirts that it the sweat issue wasn’t apparent at all. I was actually quite surprised. Anyway, after the club we walked over the Lincoln and took a cab home. I was dead tired and fell asleep a couple times in the cab. Rani scorned me accordingly. :)

Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Leaether Strip - Black Gold

computer update
Well, Artoo, my laptop, has bricked - it now won't even load up on safe mode - it just hangs at the point of loading agpCPQ.sys and doesn't do any more.

On the upside, I guess we now know which driver caused it, even if it's too late to fix it without remote access from another machine.

Also on the upside, I've now got Bender (this is a nine-year-old desktop PC, folks!) running again - for various reasons it runs XP now, having had a long history of home modifications and resucitations from the dead. It's a bit slow to boot, but actually runs faster than Artoo, who's a 2004-model Packard Bell... And it has net access.

Unfortunately, with Artoo having itself been the backup machine this means everything I've been working on on it, and Lesley's Mphil work, is now lost and inaccessible, along with shitloads of email addresses - at least until or unless her laptop can get fixed.

So, Bender works, and I'm posting from him now, but I really don't like, or trust, having to rely on such an old machine... (replace it? What with, I had no fucking income this year, remember?)

Teaser. The TARDIS lands on Mars; the Doctor walks off and gets right into hands of ex-pinkfloyder.
Watch tomorrow on BBC the sci-fi movie Waters On Mars (working title The Dark Side of the Mars).

Fierce storm

http://blog.thomasdolby.com/?p=957

There’s a big storm in the British Isles today. I just measured a wind gust of 81mph! It is rocking the Nutmeg to her foundations…. er, bilges. Small domestic animals flying past the windows. No ships to be seen on the North Sea, which is unsurprising seeing as the waves look to be about 12ft.

I just finished a remix for Interscope/Geffen. It took me five full days, which is what I budgeted to get it done. I thought it would be a welcome break from work on my own album, provided it went smoothly. The biggest ‘gotcha’ was if the label wanted changes. Fortunately I heard back from them that it’s a super-hot remix and they love it. It’s a pop tune, kind of peripheral to the Lady Gaga family (not her.)

I don’t often get approached to do remixes. It’s the first paid work I’ve done for a record label in about twenty years. I feel if I ever go back to producing, I might need a reel including a few songs from the 21st century. But I did enjoy it, and it gave me a chance to explore some recent sample library acquisitions, including the rather intriguing RA which is a collection of exotic instruments from around the world, published by EastWest. My remix featured Dubuk, Tambur, Thai gongs, and Panaang.

Getting this done and dusted in five days reminded me that I have to not be too precious with my own stuff. I should be willing to take chances, have fun, get it down—there’s always the <undo> button. Unlike in life.

Am now making a little video of the lifeboat to send to our friend Abdellah in Marakesh. Our gardener is going there for a holiday tomorrow, and Abdellah offered to show her around. So we’re making a little DVD for her to bring him. Walking round the lifeboat trying to do a commentary in French, and struggling to translate words such as Wheelhouse, Rotten Wood, Pot-bellied Stove, Wind Turbine. Thank heavens for online dictionaries.

Then later off to see ‘Amelia’ starring Hilary Swank. If only because she was the subject of one of my all-time favourite Joni Mitchell songs. I’m sure she won’t mind if I reprint the lyrics:

Amelia

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you
Then your life becomes a travelogue
Of picture post-card charms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

People will tell you where they’ve gone
They’ll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Others just come to harm
Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I wish that he was here tonight
It’s so hard to obey
His sad request of me to kindly stay away
So this is how I hide the hurt
As the road leads cursed and charmed
I tell Amelia, it was just a false alarm

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Maybe I’ve never really loved
I guess that is the truth
I’ve spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude
And looking down on everything
I crashed into his arms
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

I pulled into the Cactus Tree Motel
To shower off the dust
And I slept on the strange pillows of my wanderlust
I dreamed of 747s
Over geometric farms
Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms.

Drabble: Fighting Spirit, Green Cortina, Gen, templeremus
Because my brain is stuck on 100 words at the moment. Enjoy.

Title: Fighting Spirit
Pairing: Gen
Rating: Green Cortina for angst
Word Count: 100

Fighting Spirit

“What have you got against us, Tyler?”

Some days, if he was honest with himself, Sam didn’t know.

Some days he looked at them all and saw ordinary people; people with ingrained habits and imperfect lives and a basic, human determination to keep going.

But then he would close his eyes, stop the struggle, just for one moment, and in his head the monitors would falter.

So he raged out at the wrongness of this world, hit and yelled and railed against it, every day.

He fought to get back home, and tried not to imagine what might be waiting.

Current Mood: moody

Well, I'm offline for a while... due to what I suspect is a nonpaged pool memory leak
Posting from the local library, so don't bother replying- I won't see it. But if anyone needs to contact either Lesley or myself, do it by phone, cos her machine is still bust (we hope to get it fixed for £80 on Tuesday or Wednesday, but the shop warned that if the connection that went blew a hole in the board, it might be irreparable. In which case we can't afford a new one - though it works fine on battery power, we just need to be able to charge it)

Mine now crashes out with a BSOD stop error 0x0000007F, occasionally throwing up a "page fault in nonpaged memory" - since I'd had some "low virtual memory" errors over the past couple of weeks, and it works on safe mode, I suspect a driver memory leak from when it downloaded service pack 3 last month. I shall try to identify and fix it...

Unfortunately, said safe mode doesn't give me internet access for some reason, which means I can still write my work in safe mode, but can't deliver it...

And as if that wasn't enough, Lesley's mum got taken in to hospital yesterday with heart failure (not a critical version - but they want to monitor her and test out her treatment under controlled conditions to see why the latest drug regimen is working less well than the previous - allergenic - ones.)

Happy Friday the 13th...

You can tell I'm sick of this year - started off by breaking my wrist, had the sequels to Light Of Heaven cancelled, the oldest cat died, Lesley broke her ribs, I got told I was doing a Trek book which I'm now not, and now both computers are fucked and Lesley's mum's in hospital.

I'll be glad to see the back of 2009...

Off to see if I can check email on the website...

Current Mood: beaten
Current Music: none, I'm in the local library

Question: Annie's fate
I gave up on 'Ashes to Ashes' after episode 1, because it struck me as a lightweight LoM rip-off. But I'm curious to know; they explained Sam's absence from the team straight away, but what about Annie? Is it ever stated what happened to her after the LoM finale?
If they bumped her off as well, then I really will be Seriously Annoyed.
EDIT: And I know that this is, technically, an A2A query, but since it concerns a LoM character who doesn't appear to feature in the sequel at all, it made more sense to ask it here.

Current Mood: curious