The Witching Well

Because adjusting to an upgrade is not really anything new.

The list is up for this year’s Hugos, and Doctor Who has 3 spots in the list of 5 nominees under Best Dramatic Presentation - Short Form: “Army of Ghosts”/”Doomsday”, “The Girl in the Fireplace”, and “School Reunion”.

Personally, while I spent the entirety of “School Reunion” in one prolonged fangirl squee, it was not the best episode of the second series. “The Girl in the Fireplace” really needs to win this one.

And, please, someone, tell me how Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest got on the list for Best Dramatic Presentation - Long Form? I mean, I get as swept away as the next fan by Johnny Depp’s outrageous pirating, but the film itself was not that great. Not that I don’t own the DVD already, but it’s not award material. No. I want to see Children of Men win this one. My Gods is that a film! I still need to see The Prestige, too. Must put that in the Netflix queue.

I haven’t read all the nominated fiction, more’s the pity, but coming up in my reading pile is Peter Watts’s Blindsight, which is actually available online.

My poor old laptop is feeling a mite sickly. She toodles along just fine usually, but at least once a day: POP! the screen goes black and she’s just, you know, off. Sometimes she does this during startup. Other times, she waits twenty minutes or an hour and then POPs when I’m in the middle of typing a sentence.

Not a happy thing for anyone. An especially unhappy thing for a writer. I have become a compulsive presser of Ctrl-S.

I suspect the power adapter. Or it may be a side effect of my battery pack’s being so old it doesn’t really hold a charge anymore. Ah, the joy that comes of owning a five-year-old laptop.

If you haven’t read Max Brooks’s World War Z, you should. The worldbuilding is thorough and concrete. The interview style reads very authenticly. And, as you know, zombies are always fun. The only thing that annoys me is his constant, often clumsy sidestepping of the use of real names when referring to well-known political and entertainment figures.

I think it would make a very cool movie. In documentary style, of course.

So, these last couple of weeks are beginning to make me feel a little bit spoiled.

• I have tickets to two upcoming concerts: Great Big Sea in April and the Police in July.
• The Black Parade is still new enough that I don’t know all the lyrics yet (I will learn them, because they are in the liner notes, and that is what I do).
• Last weekend, Andy bought me 2 Doctor Who DVDs from the Colin Baker era: “Revelation of the Daleks” which is a personal favorite because of Alexei Sayle’s guest appearance, plus Terry Molloy’s Davros, and William Gaunt’s Orcini; and “The Mark of the Rani” which I don’t think I’ve actually seen all the way through, but who doesn’t love Kate O’Mara?
• Yesterday, he bought me the cutest little statue of Zatanna, with half her arm disappearing into her top hat and the tip of her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration.
• This morning, I ordered 3 books from Amazon: Rob Thurman’s second book, Moonshine; the first Harry Dresden novel; and The Land of Mist and Snow by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald. That last one, I’ve been looking for in bookstores since it came out and haven’t actually laid eyes on it. And, you know, when you’re taking writing advice from someone, it might be a good idea to actually read some of his stuff, yeah?

Andy and I just got tickets to the Great Big Sea concert at the Portsmouth (NH) Music Hall next month. Paired with the Police concert at Fenway Park in July, that makes 2007 the year of the Music Orgy.

You see, I can’t remember the last time I went to two concerts in the same calendar year. It’s entirely possible that it’s never actually happened before. Normally, I balk at the price of tickets, or the show I’d like to see isn’t worth the effort to rearrange my schedule, or some such thing. If I sat down and tallied every concert I’ve ever been to, it would probably be fewer that 15.

The GBS concert is on a Wednesday night, but I’ll take a day off midweek to breathe the same air as Alan Doyle for an hour or two, no doubt about it.

Andy just bought me a copy of My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade the other day, too, so you can see that my taste in music is much more twisted than most people suspect at first. One of my coworkers walked into my office a while back and was shocked that I was listening to Duke Ellington. Hell, he was shocked that I knew who Duke Ellington was. (Is Gen-X really that provincial?!)

You should see some of the looks I get when I’m walking the dog and singing Oingo Boingo to myself. Can I help it if “Dead Man’ Party” has such a catchy tune?

They killed Captain America this week.

What the hell is Joe Quesada thinking? That he’d sell a boatload of comic books. And he has. But he’s also pissed off a lot of people.

Sure, Cap was a bit of an anachronism in the Marvel universe. He was an old-fashioned guy with old-fashioned values. But that’s why we loved him. We always knew that Captain America would do the right thing, no matter what. Other “heroes” (I’m looking at you, Reed Richards and Tony Stark) might buy into the idea that the ends can justify the means. But Steve Rogers wore the colors, man. He believed in the idealistic principals. He always tried to hold to that moral compass, because it was who he was.

And they killed him for it.

Because Joe Quesada apparently thinks that old-fashioned heroes are boring. Truth is, Joe, there’s no such thing as a boring character, only writers and editors who don’t know how to handle a particular personality. I can understand that maybe Cap didn’t fit into your vision for the future of the Marvel universe, but you could have used that. Yes, the world is a lot less black-and-white than it was when Cap first came along, and you’ve made it greyer than it’s ever been over the last few months. But I would have liked to have seen how Cap coped with that. There’s a lot of story potential there, a lot of material for conflict.

What a waste.

Rest in peace, Steve. You were an icon. You’ll be sorely missed.

At least until Marvel realizes what a mistake they’ve made and figure out how to resurrect you.

I am having one of those days when I am thoroughly convinced that what I am writing is the worst novel ever. The characters are completely failing to be who they’re supposed to be and nothing they do seems the least bit interesting. The words taste like cardboard. Formulating the next sentence is like chewing ground glass. I’d rather do anything else (gee, doesn’t the cat box need cleaning?).

Yes, I am smack in the middle of a first draft. How’d you guess?