"Weird Al" Yankovic concert in Raleigh was FRENETIC!

I'm writing this on Friday afternoon.  It was on Wednesday night that Kristen, Chad, Marissa and I saw "Weird Al" Yankovic and his band in concert as part of his Alpocalypse 2013 tour!  I'm still coming down from the high and I think everyone else is too (especially Marissa who was bouncing off the walls so hard during class at school yesterday that she reportedly had to be sedated with Valium).  And after seeing Al live for the seventh time I have to say: this was easily the best show I've seen him perform yet!  Weird Al and his band were positivalutely ablaze with energy and sheer fun.  They were electrified and enthused as I've never seen any performers in a live concert!  This is a man who obviously loves his work and that comes across very well.  I've also never seen an audience so "into it" as they were at this show :-)

So... wanna hear about it?  Of course ya do!!

Al stormed the stage at 8 on the dot with the "Polkaface" medley from the Alpocalypse album.  They did another number and then the stage went dark while Al and the band (John "Bermuda" Schwartz, Jim West, Ruben Valtierra, and Steven Jay) did the first of their many costume changes.  The intermittent periods are filled with various Al videos, such as his "interviews" with celebrities like Eminem and Umma Thurman, his recent "5-Second Films" series and the "Weird" trailer that FunnyOrDie.com released a few years ago.  There was even the "Dirt" documentary!

"A garage band from Seattle.
Well it sure beats raising cattle."

When the lights came up it was Al in his Kurt Cobain outfit as he and the band did "Smells Like Nirvana" from the Off the Deep End album.  Al gargled water from a red Solo cup during that part of the song then spat it upward and threw the cup into the audience.  The crowd sang along after the "...how do the words to it go" while Al feigned forgetfulness.  This song's video is one of the better ones that Al has produced and the live performance does a fabulous job conveying that same crazy spirit.

From there it was a series of many of Al's more recent works, such as "Skipper Dan", "Party at the CIA" (a parody of Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA") and "Canadian Idiot" (Al's parody of "American Idiot" by Green Day).  Al and the band were dressed in their finest secret agent finery for "Party at the CIA" and Al was perfectly resplendent in a red-and-white maple-leaf motifed jacket for "Canadian Idiot" (the climax of which saw red and white streamers violently fired into the air above the audience).  My favorite of this set was when Al did "CNR": his White Stripes style parody about Charles Nelson Reilly.  I had a picture of Reilly loaded up on my iPad and was holding it aloft and waving it as Al sang!  Alas he didn't see me but later it turned out to be a good thing that I did that (find out why later).

"You're absolutely perfect. Don't speak now you might spoil it.
Your eyes are even blue-er than the water in my toilet."

Then Al hurried back for another costume change while we were treated to more video clips and when he came out it was with a song that truly has become one of the most anticipated of his live shows: "Wanna B Ur Lover".  It's a style parody of the kind of music that Prince/The Artist Formerly Known As Prince/whatever is known for.  This song is from 2003's Poodle Hat album and when he does it live Al comes out in a Prince-esque outfit while carousing among the crowd and serenading ladies in the audience (unfortunately we were close to the front but he didn't come down our side of the auditorium... and Marissa was seated right on the aisle!  Lord only knows what that girl would have done if Al had chosen to sing that to her :-P)

I'm just gonna post a couple more pictures of Al doing "Wanna B Ur Lover" even though they can't do the live performance any true justice :-)

Is Al channeling Gene Simmons??

"Anyone ever tell you you've got Yugoslavian hands?"

"Grab yourself an egg and beat it!"

Following another costume change/video intermission (one of these was "Wheel of Fish" from Weird Al's movie UHF and of course the whole audience had to scream "STOOPID!!  YOU SO STOOPID!!" along with Kuni), Al and his band did "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies" then a medley of some of his other songs, like "Whatever You Like", "Ode to a Superhero" (Al's parody of Billy Joel's "Piano Man") and of course no "Weird Al" Yankovic concert would be complete without Al putting on the red Michael Jackson jacket and going into "Eat It"!  Hey, that's the song which not only fired his career into the outer stratosphere, it's what for many of us was the very first Weird Al song we ever heard... and we're still tuned into him almost thirty years later (but more about that in just a bit :-)

"As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain..."

 "Eat It" wrapped up the medley then it was another costume change... and when the lights came up there was Al "looking plain" in Old Order Mennonite garb.  Of course it was time for "Amish Paradise"!  Some consider this to have been Weird Al's best music video ever (from what many already believe is his best album, Bad Hair Day from 1996) and the first several seconds of it synced up perfectly with Al's on-stage persona.  This is one of his songs that the audience really "gets into": everything from waving the hands to some people even whipping out black hats.  Who'da thought that a song about Amish would be such a hit crowd pleaser?

HE is the Lizard King!

(Who would have also thought that a live concert would feature the word "uvula" not once but twice?!  Only at a Weird Al show... :-)

Another costume change and then it was Al looking like Jim Morrison and all the rest of the band as members of The Doors for "Craigslist".  This was originally part of Al's "Internet Leaks" series from the summer of 2009 and then appeared on Alpocalypse.  It has become one of my favorite songs of his for some reason or another.  Instead of "the Coffee Bean" Al changed the lyrics so that they were about a Raleigh-area cafe.  He did that at the Charlotte concert we attended in October 2011 as well.  Gotta love when an artist goes for the local flavor like that :-)

(As an aside, I finally understand what the Indians and car wreck scenes in the "Craigslist" video are about.  Chad told me about Morrison having seen a car crash on an Indian reservation when he was very young and how it affected him.  It's not a big thing but that level of detail is something that makes Al not only entertaining but educational as well!)

Donny Osmond and Minesweeper. Only at a Weird Al concert!

Another costume change: Al in a peacock getup while various members of the band wore likewise outrageous outfits (Ruben Valtierra with a beehive on his head, Jim West wearing cheese etc.) for "Perform This Way": Al's parody of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga.  It woulda been kinda cool if Al had wrapped his intestines around himself while being set on fire but I guess there's only so much that can be done without the CGI effects of a music video, huh?  Maybe someday he can wear raw meat and throw chunks of it at the audience!  Hey I'd fight for some of that :-)

After "Perform This Way" it was another brief intermission and several seconds later it was "White and Nerdy" time!  Al's rendition of Chamillionaire's "Ridin'" is another of Al's recent songs that became an instant classic  Al arrived on stage riding a Segway while a crazy montage of clips played on the screen behind him.  We'd forgotten about how much Donny Osmond was in the music video... and there's even MORE of him in the concert edition!!  Another song that the audience can't help but get themselves involved in :-)

Al and the band had performed a hefty number of their tunes for our pleasure, but of course they weren't going to let the evening end without "Fat": Al's parody of Michael Jackson's "Bad".  I've heard that it took Al four hours to get into makeup and costume for the music video in 1988.  The live concert version takes him something like forty seconds!  Is this guy a show-business beast or what?

Considering that it's "Fat", here's Al in an extra-wide photo...

"You know I'm FAT, I'm FAT, you know it!"

Then Al introduced the band members and thanked the audience and said "Good night Raleigh!"

But as any veteran of a Weird Al concert knows: this is NOT the end of the show...

A few minutes later Ruben came on dressed as Darth Sidious from the Star Wars movies.  He played a spooky organ interlude as a Tusken Raider, several Stormtroopers, Boba Fett, Chewbacca and Darth Vader himself (all courtesy of the 501st Legion) paraded onto the stage.  They were followed by Al and the remaining band members dressed as Jedi Knights.  And so it was that Al did "The Saga Begins": a parody of "American Pie" so spot-on that Don McLean complained that for awhile he was singing Al's song instead of his own!

There was one final song to perform.  Not just a "song", but a transcendental experience unlike any other.  You see, "Yoda" is far more than a Star Wars-inspired parody of "Lola" by the Kinks.  It is several minutes' worth of communion with the inner geek we all share.  The culmination of which is the very, very strange, wildly surreal and unbelievably coordinated "Yoda Chat" that Al and his band go into.  How it began and how the guys practice it will likely always be a total mystery but the Alpocalypse 2013 version is certainly the longest Yoda Chant they have done in all my years of attending Weird Al concerts!

 Then Al and the band said their final goodbyes to the audience and we all got up from our seats happy and content and totally, totally exhilirated from an evening of pure undiluted WEIRDNESS.  And a few seconds later we got a surprise: our friend Eric and his two sons were in the audience behind us!  They had come all the way from Charlotte for the show and he'd wondered if he would see us there.  Turns out that my waving around Charles Nelson Reilly's pic on my iPad during "CNR" was spotted by Eric and he knew where to find us after that.  Gotta love how things turn out like that :-)

But of course, we were NOT going to go home without attempting to meet Weird Al.  Fortunately there was a small line waiting at his tour bus and he graciously spent several minutes greeting his fans and signing autographs!  He signed my copies of When I Grow Up and Weird Al: The Book (Kristen got that for me for Christmas).  Then he let us get photos with him.  Here is life-long best friend Chad and I with Al.  This really meant a lot to me, since Chad is the one who first introduced me to Weird Al's music all the way back in March of 1984!  This was his first Al concert.  Somehow, it seems like there's a sense of completion at long last...

Me, Weird Al, Chad

Is Weird Al putting the moves on MY girlfriend?!?

And there is Weird Al, Kristen and me.  We even got to tell Al about how his music was one of the things that we had in common with each other when we first met and how it has become one of the bigger parts of our relationship!  He seemed rather fond and appreciative of that :-)  Before the show we met a couple and the lady was extremely pregnant.  I told her that my girlfriend thought she looked so beautiful the way she was cradling her unborn child and how wonderful they were to be introducing the kid to Weird Al music already!  Lord willing, that will be Kristen someday and if they coincide we will CERTAINLY take him/her to an Al concert before the decanting takes place!

So the four of us and Eric and his two boys all got to meet Al and tell him and the band that it was a terrific show.  One that if you can, you really should try to see sometime during this tour!  It really was the best and craziest and funniest that I've ever seen Weird Al do in live performance.  It was also the best audience that I'd ever witnessed for an Al show.  Like Kristen and I were discussing yesterday afternoon: this world would have been far less interesting and much poorer if it weren't for "Weird Al" Yankovic running loose in it :-)

Mash here for the official WeirdAl.com website and see if he's coming to a town near you!  Buy tickets and then use them!  You won't regret it :-)

(Thanks to Kristen for taking so many awesome photos of the show!)

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Ed Stetzer on Christians, churches and mental illness

This past weekend Matthew Warren - the son of Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life - took his own life after struggling for years with mental illness.  In the wake of this tragedy there has already been considerable reflection by many among the body of Christ about mental illness and what our reaction should be to it.

Ed Stetzer, the president of LifeWay Research, has a very good guest essay on CNN.com.  Titled "My Take: How churches can respond to mental illness", Stetzer relates his own experiences with Christians plagued with such conditions and how churches should and should not approach it.  From his article...

The first time I dealt with mental illness in church was with a man named Jim. I was young and idealistic - a new pastor serving in upstate New York. Jim was a godsend to us. He wanted to help, and his energy was immeasurable. He'd visit with me, sing spontaneously, pray regularly and was always ready to help.

Until he was gone.

For days and sometimes weeks at a time, he would struggle with darkness and depression. During this time, he would withdraw from societal interaction and do practically nothing but read Psalms and pray for hours on end. I later learned that this behavior is symptomatic of what is often called bipolar disorder or, in years before, manic depression.

I prayed with Jim. We talked often about the need for him to take his medicine, but he kept asking God to fix him. Eventually, at his lowest point and filled with despair, he took his own life.

As a young pastor unacquainted with how to deal with these events, I found myself searching for answers. I realized two things:

First, people with mental illness are often attracted to religion and the church, either to receive help in a safe environment or to live out the worst impulses of their mental illness.

Second, most congregations, sadly, have few resources for help.

Stetzer has much more to say about Christians and mental illness, but you'll have to click on over to read it all :-)

As a Christian with bipolar disorder, I can readily identify with Jim and his story.  In fact, everything he went through is something I have also had to endure except for taking my own life... and believe you me, I have felt like wanting to do that more times than I can count.  I've even been hospitalized more than once because of that. It does not mean that I or anyone else is weak or bad or beyond the forgiveness of God.  What it does mean is that we know a pain that is more excruciating and self-destructive than can be known by anyone without bipolar or other mental illness and we just want the pain to stop.  It IS that horrible a thing to live the rest of your life with.  Sometimes I honestly don't know how I've made it this far but if it's at all within my power, I want to use this blog to encourage others and help them find the strength to keep going.  Followers of Christ have it no easier to endure this than anyone else and sometimes I wonder if the spiritual expectations of ourselves might even make the pain worse.  Stetzer's article is a brief but brilliant resource from which to begin meditating upon being Christian and being affected by mental illness.

(Speaking of bipolar, I currently have four installments of Being Bipolar on the front burners... but I can't figure out which one to run with first!  Maybe the write-up I've been doing about what it's like to have one-on-one counseling.  Or the one about bipolar disorder and loved ones who are affected by your having it.  Or about drugs... yeah maybe the drugs one.  Drugs are cool.  No not like that...)

A very big tip o' the hat to Mark McGinnis for finding this article!  Be sure to visit the blog that Mark and his spousal overunit Dalerie maintain :-)

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And the band played on: Obama's House party at taxpayer expense

One of the classic signs of imminent collapse of a culture is the brazen decadence that its leaders and elites start to exhibit.  Nero and Commodus magnified lavishness to scales unprecedented even as the Roman Empire was rotting from the inside and slowly collapsing.  The nigh-invincible Babylonians were in a drunken stupor of self-edification until Cyrus invaded and Alexander after him.  Louis XVI wasn't a "bad" man per se but he was too busy partying and having fun while being horribly negligent about the affairs of the French people... and then he lost his head as bad as anyone could.

There are too many other examples that could be cited from the tale of years.  And you would think that we might have learned something from six millenia's worth of them...

But here was the scene last night at the White House.  In spite of the "sequester" that is halting performances by the Blue Angels and nearly derailed the annual Easter Egg Roll on the White House lawn and is now threatening to shut down air traffic control towers, Barack and Michelle Obama held a glitzy, vainglorious command performance in their own honor.

It was called the "Memphis Soul" concert.  Queen Latifah, Justin Timberlake, Booker T. Jones, Al Green, Cyndi Lauper and others performed for the President and First Lady and their closest friends and supporters.

But none of the peons got to attend.  We did get to foot the bill for this however.  The money for this and the nine other concerts the Obamas have "hosted" all came from the publick treasuries.  But if you feel bad about that, at least PBS let everyone watch it live last night...

If a group of musicians want to celebrate soul music, fine.  I don't see a problem with that.  But they should do it on their own dime, not mine or anybody else's.  I don't even have a problem with them using the White House for their celebration of an art form... but they should pay rent for the privilege.  Pay it to us.  Because that's our house, not Barack Obama's.  The President - whoever he or she might be - is only a temporary tenant.  We The People own it... or we're supposed to own it anyway.  It's funny: celebrities like Timberlake, Queen Latifah and others can get the red carpet treatment at the White House, but school children are completely shut out.

There's not enough money for you and I to visit the people's House but there's plenty of money for the Obamas to get down and boogie.  It's like grand theft squattery.

Let's drop the pretenses.  This was all about Barack and Michelle Obama feting themselves.  Unfortunately it is not a new occurrence.  I've watched shameful waste of our money at the White House for years now, irrespective of whether it's a Democrat or Republican in the Oval Office.  And this should be something to outrage everyone regardless of their political affiliations.  But it has to be said: Obama has taken it to a whole new level.  Between he and Vice President Biden, they've had eight vacations so far this year.  Also paid for by us (Biden's one-night stay at a hotel in Paris cost $585,000: that better have been the best mint on a pillow in the history of anything).

Eight vacations in just over three months?  In that same time I've been doing everything from writing to computer support to farm work to make ends meet.  I'm looking hard for employment... and I'd dare say that I've done more real work than Obama and Biden put together.  Where the hell is my vacation, huh?!

A lot of people are looking for good, honest work.  They want to support themselves, their families, make a better future for their children.  What little money they can scrape together, they want and deserve to use it for their own benefit.

It wasn't meant for Barack Obama or anyone else to squander on parties for themselves.

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CALVIN AND HOBBES: THE MOVIE trailer

Unfortunately it's something fan-made and... eeeeeaaaaaAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE THIS MOVIE MAKE IT REAL SERIOUSLY MAKE IT REAL REAL REAL!!!

Bill Watterson should let us chip into a Kickstarter and get this produced! Make $50 million the goal and it will reach it in less than a day...


Props to GrittyReboots for the great work!  And thanks goes to Billy Cripe for finding this :-)

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BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS swoops in on October 25th

There goes whatever plans I might have had for that day...



GameInformer.com has news and details about Batman: Arkham Origins: the follow-up to Rocksteady's Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.  However this is a prequel to those games, taking place "years before both of the previous Arkham titles when a young, unrefined Batman encounters many supervillains for the first time".

Rocksteady won't be developing this new game however.  They've handed the baton to  Warner Bros. Games Montreal, but have made all their tools and resources available so that the series' look and feel remains consistent.  Given how Arkham Asylum garnered universal acclaim as one of the best video games of all time - and that Arkham City received even greater praise - WB Games Montreal has a high mark to hit, much less surpass.  But after seeing that trailer I've confidence they can pull it off.

Now if we can get a proper sequel to Arkham City.  There were way too many dangling threads in that game screaming to be addressed...

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Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey: Now in a new bottle!

Whenever I post anything new about the legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton, traffic to this blog flies off the chain.  It has been a pleasure to write about him and chronicle his life and times during the past several years and Lord willing, I'll get to continue to do so for a long, long time to come.  It'll always be one of my bigger regrets that I never got to meet him personally but it has been a tremendous honor to have come to know those he was closest to, including Popcorn's widow Mrs. Pam Sutton.

Photo Credit: Jamey Grosser via Facebook

Before his passing four years ago Popcorn was well into plans to legalize his famed likker.  Last year Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey - made with Popcorn's original recipe - went on sale in Tennessee.  And demand for it exploded!  At one point the moonshine - originally packaged and sold in mason jars - was going for $150 and up on eBay.

But Popcorn had a grander vision for his likker.  He wanted to "upgrade" the container as soon as it was feasible.  Some will argue that the mason jars have greater character and are more "authentic", but apparently Popcorn had problems with some people brewing 'shine on their own and selling it as his!  I can understand why he wanted his whiskey to have a more distinctive and unique look.

Yesterday it was announced that Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey is now coming out in a brand-new bottle!  You can see it in the photo.

Here's what Jamey Grosser - master distiller and the man Popcorn Sutton entrusted his mythic recipe for likker to - has said about the bottle:

It’s finally here, Popcorn's new Bottle! Popcorn always told me and others that his whiskey was “too damn good to be put in a jar,” but mason jars were all he could afford. He’d get pissed when other bootleggers would try and sell crap whiskey and pass it off as his. Popcorn said that if he had his own bottle, they would always know who's the best was.

When Popcorn and I started the company, our plan was always to start in a mason jar - as it’s all we could afford - then move to the bottle his whiskey deserved. Well we did it Popcorn! Here's your bottle for the world's finest white whiskey! I hope you all love it as much as I know Popcorn does.

It doesn't matter what it comes in, just as long as it's Popcorn Sutton's tried and true likker. The new packaging? It's but one more step toward Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey busting its way out of Tennessee and into ABC stores and grocery marts all across the fruited plain. He may no longer be with us on this Earth, but Popcorn's likker is well on its way to taking the world by storm!

(No I don't drink... but I do plan to take a healthy swig or two of his likker, just to have that much more appreciation for the man and his legend :-)

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Tammy Tuesday: A boy and his dog...

(Awright, who will get that reference without having to Google for it? :-)

A few nights ago I was trying to snap a photo of Tammy and myself together.  Of the ten or so that I took none of them had Tammy looking at the camera!  She refused to cooperate any way at all.  I think it's because she figures she has to be the star of everything and she doesn't share her stage with anybody...

Anyway, here's Tammy and her always-loving/more than occasionally exasperated owner:

Here's a hint: next week's Tammy Tuesday features these same two characters in altogether different circumstances :-)

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NBC's HANNIBAL: Bold, brilliant, bloody... and frustrating

Hannibal - NBC's new series based on Hannibal Lecter and other characters from the novels of Thomas Harris - has a daring premise: exploring the motives and methods of "Hannibal the Cannibal" in his time leading up to the events of Red Dragon.  There is an execution to this show that rivals that of cable series such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.  It is grisly and gruesome and graphically disturbing as anything about Hannibal Lecter should be.

But having just finished watching the pilot episode ("Apéritif") I find myself wondering how much ... or how at all... I would commit to continue following this series.

The acting quality in Hannibal is premium.  Hugh Dancy is compelling to watch as FBI Special Investigator Will Graham: a forensic profiler with a talent for getting into the minds of serial killers.  Laurence Fishburne - always a welcome measure of gravitas - is performing admirably as Special Agent Jack Crawford.

And then there is Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  And he's definitely bringing all the right elements of Lecter to the table: his sophistication.  His cold demeanor.  His skill as a gourmet.  The subtlety of his evil.

The problem for me is, Hannibal seems like a melding of too much other television that we've seen before.

The BBC's Sherlock comes most to mind.  Imagine Martin Freeman's Watson from that show with Sherlock's overwhelming deductive abilities and driven nature.  But instead of "consulting detective" Sherlock his flatmate is "consulting criminal" Moriarty.  That is what Hannibal felt to me soon after Graham begins working with Lecter.

I also thought that Hannibal borrows too much from Dexter.  Except that in Dexter's case there is justifiable motive for his actions (okay, kinda...).  Has broadcast television ever before attempted a series focusing on a villain?  Nothing comes to mind but Dexter has proven such a thing is possible.  Hannibal's Lecter however is a persona dependent upon those around him more than the character's own deviousness and depth of history.  Mikkelsen is an arresting delight to behold as Dr. Lecter.  But for how long can viewers be expected to buy into that on its own merit, absent Lecter being a dark force of nature for his own twisted sake?

(It's going to bug me if I don's also get it out of my system that there are some things about Hannibal which remind me of Fox's series Millennium from a decade and a half ago.  I don't know why I should feel so led to note that but, there it is...)

Personally, I have to question the decision to set Hannibal in the present day, rather than what should have been the Nineteen-Seventies (the period of the novels in which Hannibal Lecter is active and eventually stopped by Will Graham and Jack Crawford).  It's the same concern I've had with A&E's Bates Motel, but considerably greater.  In retrospect it was a bad idea for Thomas Harris to explore and reveal Lecter's childhood and early adult years with such vivid detail in his 2006 novel Hannibal Rising.  Yet I've always been fascinated by what should have been fleeting glimpses of the experiences which molded such a promising young man into a legendary monster: the butchering and devouring of his sister by fugitive Nazi soldiers, his coming-of-age in postwar Europe, his multi-disciplinary medical training, etc.  No person comes from a vacuum and there is a load of back story for Dr. Lecter that could have... should have... been allowed to  be touched upon.  Was NBC trying to make Hannibal more consumable (no pun intended) for a modern audience by bringing the character ahead forty years?  I don't know... but it would have been worth a gamble and in my mind, there was a tremendous payoff to have been had.

Hannibal is, technically and dramatically, gripping television.  Unfortunately in my estimation it misses the mark on being true Hannibal Lecter.  Series developer Bryan Fuller could have just as well crafted this drama with a new set of characters absent any referencing of Thomas Harris' books and it would still be "Must See TV".  Simply slapping the "Hannibal" label on it however does not make it Grade-A meat.

(That was a pun intended.)

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Man's $150 "toy poodles" really ferrets on steroids

A retiree in Argentina bought two toy poodles for about $150 (American) each.  When he brought them home it was discovered that the "dogs" were in reality two ferrets pumped-up with steroids and then had their fur styled to make them look like poodles!

From Mail Online's article about this very bizarre con...

"Beware of rodent"

Gullible bargain hunters at Argentina's largest bazaar are forking out hundreds of dollars for what they think are gorgeous toy poodles, only to discover that their cute pooch is in fact a ferret pumped up on steroids.

One retired man from Catamarca, duped by the knock-down price for a pedigree dog, became suspicious he had bought what Argentinians call a 'Brazilian rat' and when he returned home took the 'dogs' to a vet for their vaccinations.

Imagine his surprise when his suspicious were confirmed - he had in fact purchased two ferrets that had been given steroids at birth to increase their size and then had some extra grooming to make their coats resemble a fluffy toy poodle.

Previously considered an urban legend of the giant La Salada market, local television news in the capital, Buenos Aires, discovered that the unidentified man was not alone - another woman had been told that she was buying a Chiuhuahua, but ended up with a ferret.

It's still not as weird as that surgery which turned a goat into a unicorn for the circus, but pretty crazy all the same.

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The Iron Lady has left us...

Margaret Thatcher

October 13, 1925 - April 8, 2013

___________________

Prime Minister of Great Britain

1979 - 1990

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"The Rings of Akhaten": Chris gets moved to tears by the profound beauty and wonder of this season's best DOCTOR WHO yet!

"Come on then... Take mine.  Take my memories.  But I hope you've got a big appetite, because I've lived a long life and I've seen a few things.  I walked away from the Last Great Time War.  I marked the passing of the Time Lords.  I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained.  No time.  No space.  Just me!  I've walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a MAD... MAN.  I've watched universes freeze and creations burn.  I have seen things you wouldn’t believe.  I have lost things you'll never understand!  And I know things.  Secrets that must never be told.  Knowledge that must never be spoken.  Knowledge that will make parasite gods BLAZE!  SO COME OOOOON THEN!  TAKE IT!  TAKE IT ALL, BABY!!  HAVE IT!!  YOU HAVE IT ALL!!!"

And if you weren't moved to tears also by Murray Gold's majestic orchestral score and Matt Smith's epic stand of daring in the final moments of "The Rings of Akhaten", then... well, you're a pathetically jaded person who needs a hug in the worst way.

The reviews of "The Rings of Akhaten" seem to be all over the place, with most saying that they felt "underwhelmed" by this newest episode of Doctor Who.

Me?  I thought it ranks as the best of this season by far... and so help me, I had to choke back from full-blown crying during the final few scenes! 

(Only twice has that ever happened to me from a Doctor Who story.  David Tennant's final bow has always choked me up: a LOT of people consider it to have been the finest and most moving regeneration scene ever.  That, and pretty much the entire episode of "The Girl in the Fireplace": an episode which never fails to break me down...)

 For the first half or so of "The Rings of Akhaten" we aren't getting to see much that we haven't already, although the marketplace scenes are among the most visually thriving we've beheld since the show was revived in 2005 (if there's a British equivalent to 5-Hour Energy then this show's costume department must have pushed themselves to exhaustion coming up with all those aliens' designs).  I think some strong comparisons could be made to "The Beast Below" during Matt Smith's first season (which was also Amy Pond's second episode as a companion, just as "The Rings of Akhaten" is for Clara).  And yeah there are some things which could have been better in terms of pacing and plotting...

...but that first half is rife with more legendary Doctor Who mythos than any episode we've seen lately.  C'mon: I couldn't have been the only one who noticed Matt Smith's Doctor take that defensive stance with the Venusian Aikido that the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) was known for.

The car which almost hits Clara's father is the same one that we saw crashing into Rose's dad in "Father's Day".  Coincidence?  Where Steven Moffat is concerned, there are no coincidences...

And then, there was The Doctor making an almost-glib reference to "my granddaughter".

There is setup going on here, people!  What is being set up, only Steven Moffat and a few others in the BBC's Doctor Who production offices know.  But in the name of all that's good and holy The Doctor just mentioned Susan!!  Not by name but that HAD to be Susan!!  When was the last time Susan got mentioned in anything Doctor Who-ish?!?

That very, very fleeting snippet of dialogue alone is going to make "The Rings of Akhaten" memorable.  And I think it's going to become even more memorable as this season continues to unfold on the way to the fiftieth anniversary in November.

In terms of performance, Matt Smith has perhaps never looked so dark, so dangerous, so defiant as The Doctor as he is now.  It's a trend that began with "The Snowmen" and I was hoping to see that grow in "The Bells of Saint John".  Last week's episode in retrospect missed the mark more than it hit... but having seen "The Rings of Akhaten" I'm feeling that groove again and it's getting deeper.  I'm also really digging his revamped costume: it's definitely more brooding and dashing (sorta like he's got a Sherlock motif going lately).  His "in-your-face" to what can only be described as a star god should go down as one of the most powerful scenes in Doctor Who history.  Nothing else comes to mind that has so conveyed the triumph and the tragedy that is the life of The Doctor.

Jenna-Louise Coleman is increasingly growing on me as new companion Clara, and I appreciated how her back-story was presented at the start of the episode.  And for a role that came to have such import, I thought that Emilia Jones handled Merry quite well: a frightened child, without being especially "childlike" about it.  And does that young lady have a lovely singing voice, or what??

But I thought the two biggest things that "The Rings of Akhaten" had going for it were its sense of scale and the episode's music.  C'mon: when was the last time The Doctor had to take on an opponent like that??  We're talking cosmic scope the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko here, folks!  I have to tip my hat to freshman Doctor Who scribe Neil Cross (creator of Luther) for cutting his teeth on such high-concept storytelling.  This was his first time out the gate... and I think he's going to only get better.

And so far as the music goes, Murray Gold was firing on all cylinders with "The Rings of Akhaten".  The score went from setting the atmosphere to an integral part of the story... and I think he handled it magnificently.  I want this season's soundtrack album right now, just to have the pieces he composed for this episode (along with Emilia Jones' choral accompaniment!).

It also must be said that "The Rings of Akhaten" is an absolute feast for the eyes.  One well-respected friend with cinematography experience remarked that he had "never seen a more beautifully filmed episode".  The camera work, the composition, the music... all orchestrated together in one epic harmony.

A very, very solid episode that gracefully overlooks whatever faults it may have.  "The Rings of Akhaten" gets Four and 1/2 Sonic Screwdrivers from this Whovian blogger!

Next week: The Doctor and Clara aboard a nuclear submarine amid tensions between the American Navy and the Soviet Union.  Six days from now brings us "Cold War"!

EDIT 11:20 p.m. EST: So what did it look like when The Doctor fought a god?

Somebody has kindly posted "the speech" scene.

Since writing this review I've watched "The Rings of Akhaten" once more. But I've watched this scene at least ten times now. This is what brought the tears. EVERYTHING about it is darn nearly too beautiful for words...

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Hell hath no fury! Turkish TV station neglects special effects mid-show

Television station STV in Turkey - an outfit apparently specializing in religious programming - recently produced a movie or series episode or something about a father and son and the father dies and goes to Hell and the son gets to watch him burn in tortured agony.

Yeah, I'd probably be screaming too if I were locked in a deep blue chromakey room being chained-up by guys covered head to toe in Hulk-green nude suits!

To STV's credit, the first part of the clip does do a decent job of portraying Hell... or at least the Hell that we saw in Michael Jai White's Spawn movie back in 1997. Looks like the graphics were drawn with a Sega Saturn. Anyhoo after the clergy dude shows up, the After Effects guy apparently fell asleep at the switch...


That's either really bass-ackwards, or STV was counting on everyone to ignore the scene and focus instead on the soccer score at the upper-right.

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33 most beautiful abandoned places in the world

Nothing of man lasts forever.  In the end, all crumbles to dust.

But some things sure do give us haunting beauty during the course of their long toil to entropy.

BuzzFeed has compiled photos of 33 places build by man throughout the world, left to ruin but gorgeous to behold.  There is quite a poignancy in these images.  I thought the one on the left - of the remains of the bobsled track from the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo (at the time in the now-disbanded country of Yugoslavia) - was especially moving.

That was one of the most well-remembered Olympiads of the past half-century.  And now, look at what remains  A long concrete chute, left to decay amid the foliage.  A few years after those games, Yugoslavia disintegrated into ethnic warfare and religious strife which cost the lives of countless thousands.

"All is vanity", as the Preacher at Jerusalem cried.

There are plenty more photos at the link above.  Some are of structures that will leave you wondering how the heck they were built at all and others... well, you'll be bugging your eyes out trying to figure out what the heck it is you're looking at (try staring at the one of the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party without getting a migraine).

Tip o' the hat to Danny de Gracia for a great find!

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"Senator" Feinstein wants violent video game control

Somebody educate me: how do people like Dianne Feinstein get elected to anything whatsoever? Feinstein shouldn't be trusted with city sanitation manager, much less United States Senator.

Having failed in her bid to ban "assault weapons" (there is no such thing, incidentally) Demented Dianne has now decided that violent video games must be controlled and regulated by act of Congress.

From the article at VentureBeat...

Speaking to an audience of 500 people in her hometown of San Francisco, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that game publishers need to make voluntary actions to avoid glorifying guns and violence following the Newtown elementary school massacre in December.

She noted that Congress would take action if the industry didn’t do something, according to the Associated Press.

“If Sandy Hook doesn’t [make game publishers change] … then maybe we have to proceed, but that is in the future,” said Feinstein.

She went on to claim that video games play “a very negative role for young people, and the industry ought to take note of that.”

Uhhhhh... somebody should inform Senator Feinstein that ever since the introduction of first-person shooters and other violent video games in the early Nineties, mass killings HAVE BECOME MUCH LESS COMMON!  There is no correlation at all... none... between the pervasiveness of violent games and increase in crime.  If there is any relation between them at all, it could in fact be argued that such games have decreased crime, not intensified it.

For levity's sake, here is that pic of Feinstein in place of Doom's Marine guy from that Photoshop job I made of Obama two months ago...

 DOOM 2013: Where the insanest place is behind a Senator from California.

This is the same woman who last month claimed that all veterans of the United States military are "mentally ill" and thus should not be allowed to own firearms.

I would also be remiss in my duty as a blogger if it were not noted that earlier this year Feinstein expressed a desire to deprive the American citizenry of all their guns except for her own and those of other government officials (and yes, she owns a gun folks).

I am going to posit something: that the Founding Fathers had exceedingly prescient foresight when they wrote the Second Amendment.  If nothing else it is a last resort deterrent against the machinations of the power mad and the direly insane.  The latter of which is represented by Dianne Feinstein and too many others in the halls of Congress.

No, I'm not suggesting anything.  Just stating that We The People are our own best scare tactic that should give pause to the truly evil.

EDIT 11:35 p.m. EST:  It's not about Dianne Feinstein per se, but Kotaku has posted a terrific and timely piece by Christian Allen.  Allen has worked on the Ghost Recon franchise as well as Halo: Reach and many other successful video game projects.  Titled "I'm a Game Designer. I'm a Gun Owner. It's Time To End All This 'Us vs. Them'", his essay delves into his life-long experience with firearms and his involvement with producing many violent video games.  There's some harsh language so be warned.  Interestingly, much of it is aimed (no pun intended) at the National Rifle Association...

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Roger Ebert has passed away

Look, I didn't agree with all of his reviews and of his politics, far less.  But Roger Ebert was instrumental in introducing a lot of people to movies that they otherwise might never have gone to a theater to see.  Me included.

Roger Ebert passed away today after a long battle with cancer...

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.

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It is snowing and sleeting right now...

It's the fourth day of April.  Spring has been here for over two weeks.  And in as north-central North Carolina as you can get, it is currently snowing and sleeting...

And it's confusing Tammy something fierce.  I let her out to do her "doggie business", she took one good look at the weather and promptly turned back to the doorsteps.

"Global warming"?  My a$$ there is!

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End of an era: Disney closes LucasArts

LucasArts is no more.

Disney laid off the entire staff and shuttered the studio this morning.  There had been speculation that LucasArts might be liquidated after Disney acquired Lucasfilm and the other companies beneath its umbrella five months ago.  The video game studio had been flailing in recent years despite moderate successes like LEGO Star Wars.  On the other hand there were turkeys like Kinect Star Wars.  It had been hoped that games like the upcoming Star Wars: 1313 would have increased its fortunes.

But now it's official: LucasArts has been closed down.  Disney has stated that future games will be licensed to other studios for development.  Some like Star Wars: 1313 may never get released at all.  The "LucasArts" name will continue to exist but the firm itself and its development staff has been disbanded.

I can see that as an appropriate measure.  The Star Wars: The Old Republic massive-multiplayer online game was practically developed entirely by BioWare anyway.  This is the way the wind had been blowing for some time...

Even so, a little bit of my youth died today.  Star Wars: X-Wing was the very first computer game that I bought, way back in winter of 1994.  The sequel TIE Fighter consumed most of my summer a few months later.  When I played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (still one of THE BEST computer role-playing games ever) I obsessively went through all three of the "paths" that Indy could take.  To say nothing of the creatively offbeat games like Full Throttle and Sam and Max Hit the Road.

(I would be remiss if I didn't mention also Rescue on Fractalus: a game that some swear remains one of the most terrifying and fright-inducing more than a quarter century after its release.)

Well, the studio may be gone.  But the memories it evoked will ever burn bright.

Farewell, LucasArts.  And thank you for all the good times you gave us...

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North Carolina lawmakers want statewide official religion

Earlier this morning I first read about this and ever since I've been trying to find a measure of absurd purpose or mad brilliance in this legislation... but if it's there I can't find it.

Two members of this state's House of Representatives have filed House Bill 494, which if passed would allow for an official religion to be imposed upon North Carolina.

It's not a late April Fools joke.  Representatives Harry Warren and Carl Ford (each of Rowan County) want an official state religion which would circumvent judicial rulings on prayer at government functions within North Carolina.  Presumably this would be in response to courts which have struck down prayers at county commissioner meetings, school board hearings and the like.  Eleven other representatives so far have backed the proposal.

"The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people... Each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion."

Here's the real meat of HB 494...

SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

To be fair, the bill does not specify any particular religion.

If this is about localities getting to choose on their own whether or not they will have prayers to open their meetings, then I understand that frustration: the courts have been interfering beyond the scope of their rational interests in regard to prayers which have had a ceremonial role with no bearing on official policy or writing of legislation.

But this is the wrong way to address that concern.  In fact, it's incredibly, insanely irresponsible.  Unethical.  Immoral.  And this is un-Constitutional: in spirit of the law if not in letter of the law.

Warren and Ford consider themselves to be "conservatives".  But there is nothing conservative whatsoever about HB 494.  And faith enforced is no faith at all.

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The day the music dies: "American Pie" is final DLC for ROCK BAND

Today is a bittersweet occasion in the annals of video game history: Harmonix is releasing the final downloadable content for its Rock Band series.

Since the first Rock Band came out in late 2007 the studio had promised new songs weekly for downloadable purchase and play.  It kept that promise for 281 consecutive weeks: far, far longer than most players probably expected.  Maybe even longer than it has been profitable.  Hard to find that kind of reliability in any modern industry, much less the video game one.

Fittingly, the last tune that players can get for Rock Band is Don McLean's 1971 classic "American Pie".  And were I the sort I'd be drinking whiskey and rye...

I only played Rock Band and Rock Band 2, and I have to agree with what Brett Makedonski has beautifully written on Destructoid: this series had an immense impact on my life.  Not just for the fun I had playing it but also because it exposed me to a spectrum of music that until then, I had not experienced and might never have.  Indeed, because of Rock Band my wallet dropped dollars not just for the DLC but for the songs themselves on iTunes.  I am a far more musically educated and enlightened individual today for Rock Band... and that's something that'll never be forgotten or unappreciated.

Seeing as how this will be the final post that this blog is likely to see about Rock Band, let's have it go out in true style.  Here once again is that amazing opening title cinematic from the first game: "Highway Star" by Deep Purple!

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Looking up at this week's Tammy Tuesday

Whenever anyone goes down the basement stairs, Tammy has to come to the door and look down.  I think it's in the hopes that we might bring something yummy up from the freezer (which she might or might not get a tasty morsel of)...

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April Fools 'Fess-Up 2013 Edition!

Yes the rumors are true!  They were absent for a few years but 2013 saw the return of the April Fools pranks to The Knight Shift.  The story about CBS producing a pilot for a modern-era reboot of The Andy Griffith Show was my own humble entry in this year's festivities.  It seems to have been moderately successful 'cuz a few friends were taken in by it (one of whom had some rather colorful remarks about it) and a few hours after I posted it some news site in France had picked it up!  It's in some weird font though: apparently something like Iranian or Pakistani, so I don't know if they thought it was real or they were saying "look at what this American idiot is doing!"

As always, I gotta note what the "clincher" was.  Every time I do a prank like this, I try to give some indication that it's just a gag.  Also as a way of putting my "signature" upon the work.  In this year's case there were two of them.  The first is the TMZ reporter: "Istvan Teleky" was the name of the eighteenth-century European count whose spirit supposedly haunted those tarot cards in the "Three Wishes for Opie" episode of The Andy Griffith Show (one of my favorites, incidentally).  The second was the child actor who would be playing Opie in the Mayberry reboot: "Ralf Paydosilo" is an anagram for "April Fools Day".  Right clever, aye?

The joke went through a few iterations before I posted it.  Originally it was going to be Charlie Sheen as Ernest T. Bass, but he's been doing too much other stuff lately, and he would have been way too obvious a choice to play Ernest T. anyway...

Special thanks to girlfriend Kristen who helped me brainstorm some ideas for this year's prank :-)

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CBS produces pilot for reboot of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW! Modern MAYBERRY to star Kevin Sorbo as Sheriff Taylor, Aunt Bea as closet lesbian!

Keep in mind that what you're about to read is as of right now a pilot episode and maybe not even that much.  I thought it noteworthy that the CBS execs are describing this not as a pilot but as a "proof of concept".  Meaning the idea is being explored but it may not go any further and I doubt it will.  But hey, stranger things have happened in Hollyweird...

MAYBERRY pilot episode title card.  Copyright CBS Television

Entertainment and celebrity gossip website TMZ.com is reporting this morning that CBS Television head honchos have sanctioned and produced a pilot for Mayberry: a modern-age remake of the network's classic Sixties comedy The Andy Griffith Show.  Seems that when star Andy Griffith passed away last summer his last will and testament stipulated that CBS would enjoy uncontested rights to do with the show - along with spinoff Mayberry RFD - as it saw fit.  With CBS seeing success in its reboot of Hawaii Five-0, execs thought that the time was ripe for a return to Mayberry.  The pilot itself was shot in early January.

So what's Mayberry like? From the article by TMZ reporter Istvan Teleky...

The 22-minute "proof of concept" has Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) as Andy Taylor: Sheriff of a Mayberry for the new millennium. Sorbo's Taylor served two years in Iraq before PTSD sent him back home. No longer willing to carry a gun, Taylor returns to find his wife tragically killed and left to be a single father to son Opie (child actor newcomer Ralf Paydosilo). Barney Fife - voted by Entertainment Weekly as the greatest sitcom character of all time - now has borderline personality disorder and is played by Dominic Monaghan. The "pilot" also sees Steve Buscemi in a brief appearance as Ernest T. Bass and lovable town drunk Otis Campbell portrayed by Dennis Franz. Mayberry's most startling departure is The Carol Burnett Show sweetheart Vicki Lawrence as Aunt Bea: a closet lesbian whose feelings for Clara Edwards provide much of the pilot's laugh fodder. Some CBS officials expressed concern in one scene where Opie asks "Pa, what does 'masturbate' mean?"  However Sorbo is adamant about keeping Mayberry "clean and family friendly" and is demanding an executive producer role as well.

TMZ reports that several scripts are already prepared should the pilot go to series. One is a retelling of the legendary "The Loaded Goat" episode, which true to "modern sensibilities" finds the Town of Mayberry sued by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals after dynamite-gorged Jimmy the Goat explodes outside the town's only Planned Parenthood clinic. But despite such liberties, CBS execs are determined that the time is ripe for "a return to cornpone hayseed humor the likes of which hasn't been seen since Fred Silverman's 1970 'Rural Purge'."

Steve Buscemi as Ernest T. Bass.  Good Lord, I must see that someday!  But with that said: this thing sounds horrible.  It should be given a burial at sea courtesy of the bathroom toilet.  Putting jokes about masturbation into The Andy Griffith Show?  Whoever came up with that oughtta be burned at the stake for blasphemy...

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THE WALKING DEAD: Forty-five minutes after "Welcome to the Tombs"...

Okay.  Okay.  Okay.

Okay.  Oh-kaaaaay...

That was NOT what I was anticipating.  The first few minutes after tonight's season finale of The Walking Dead I was feeling... well, a bit let down.

But then I remembered that Season 3 didn't end any better or worse than the previous two have.  In fact, with each passing moment I'm finding myself thinking that this season finale was as well as it could have been.  Perhaps, even with the stakes raised for Rick and his group.  Maybe higher than they have ever been before.

The all-out war with Woodbury?  It didn't happen.  But I'm unable to escape the feeling that it hasn't happened yet. Woodbury has been liberated... but The Governor is still alive.  We don't know where the hell he has gone to.  But I'll posit a guess:

The Governor will not, can not, give up his obsession with destroying Rick, with destroying Michonne, with destroying everyone at the prison.  With being seen in any way at all as being a weak and helpless man.  The Governor is soulless survival-at-all-costs personified.  He is relentless.  He is utterly incapable of bargaining or being reasoned with.  He is also unfortunately bestowed with uncommon charisma.

So where has The Governor gone?

The Governor is the uber hardcase.  And he is now set loose to gather all the other hardcases to him.

Somewhere in the post-apocalyptic Georgia wilderness and beyond, a one-eyed megalomaniac has gone out to seek the lonely, the lunatic, the desperate leaderless...

We haven't seen the war with Woodbury, because we haven't seen the REAL Army of Woodbury yet.

But it's coming.  Chekov (the Russian playwright not the Star Trek character) had a rule of drama: if the gun is to be fired in Act III, it must be shown on the wall in Act I.  If the gun is shown on the wall in Act I, it must be fired by Act III.

That is what The Governor is.  Season 3 was us getting to look at him.  Getting to watch his veneer peeled back and the madman within leering out of that one hateful eye.  But for all that we saw in Season 3, we still haven't seen him fully unleashed.  We haven't...

But in Season 4, we will.

Rick has saved more people than he has ever been able to do before now.  He has also perhaps found redemption for his mistakes.  Carl is on the verge of losing his own sense of humanity.  A major character has died.

And The Governor is still out there somewhere...

No, this was not a letdown of a season finale.  It ended as well as "Beside the Dying Fire" did last season.  "Welcome to the Tombs" gave Rick and his ad hoc family a sense of accomplishment and a glimmer of hope that they haven't enjoyed in a long, long time.

But the powderkeg has been loaded.  The charge has been set.  They just don't know it yet.

And in Season 4, The Governor is going to light the fuse.

Congrats on another season of The Walking Dead well done, AMC!  Looking forward to Season 4 this coming fall!

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"He's Alive" by singer/songwriter Bethany Myers

Hey gang, hope y'all are having a Happy Easter!  It's also my birthday, muhahahahaha!!  So along with my girlfriend Kristen being here to celebrate, we had the return of Doctor Who last night, and then tonight it's the season finale of The Walking Dead and the season premiere of Game of Thrones.  Have the stars aligned for this geek, or what?! :-)

(And then there's the positvalutely ginormous hollow chocolate Easter bunny that she got from me this morning.  Still can't compare to the Doctor Who Yahtzee she gave me: at last a TARDIS toy of my very own!!)

Anyhoo, this being Easter, the day which we remember the life of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He made to set us free from the bondages of this fallen realm so that we may have the life abundant, I felt led to share something special with y'all...

I have been very thankful and blessed to have Bethany Myers as a dear friend and sister in Christ.  Bethany is an amazingly gifted young woman who has been bestowed with remarkable talent as a choralist, instrumentalist and songwriter.  A few days ago Bethany began uploading some of her performances on audio hosting site SoundCloud.  The first of her songs that I was asked to check out is "He's Alive".  I thought it was a very beautiful composition and well worth passing along on this blog!  So I wanna invite my readers to click on over and enjoy "He's Alive" by Bethany Myers.

And if you want to listen to more of Bethany's work, here is her main page on SoundCloud.  Discover her now... before she lands a major recording contract! :-)

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"The Bells of Saint John" chime the return of DOCTOR WHO!

It took me an hour and a half after the episode aired on BBC America before I could turn in a blog post about "The Bells of Saint John"...

So along with statues, shadows, clocks, gas masks, cracks in the walls and Lord knows what else, now we have to be afraid of our Wi-Fi networks.  Damn you Steven Moffat!  DAMN YOU!!

(But he sure knows how to run Doctor Who like nobody's business, doesn't he?)

Three months after we last saw The Doctor (Matt Smith) in the 2012 Christmas special "The Snowmen", our hero is again sulking in solitude: this time at a monastery in England circa 1207.  Considered mad by his fellow monks (not the first no doubt), we find the last Time Lord contemplating, perhaps obsessing, with the newest enigma of his long life: Clara Oswin (Jenna Louise-Coleman, in her first regular Doctor Who episode as a companion).  When the telephone on the TARDIS's exterior starts ringing - by itself something which should not be happening - it isn't long before The Doctor is flying off again into time and space.

I'm not going to say anything else about "The Bells of Saint John", except that I thought it was a fairly strong return of both Doctor Who as a series as well as the start of an entirely new period of The Doctor's life.  Jenna Louise-Coleman came to the show in this season's premiere episode "Asylum of the Daleks".  "The Snowmen" made it clear in no uncertain terms that her character... or characters... is going to become a significant part of the series' mythology for the foreseeable future.  "The Bells of Saint John" begins that next era in earnest.  And judging by the myriad of sly references to previous material (hint: look at the author of that book) this promises... or threatens... to be a hella wild and scary ride in the lead-up to the big fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who this fall.

A pretty solid episode, and one that continues the fine Moffat tradition of giving us something new to keep a watchful eye on.  What's he gonna frighten us with next... vacuum cleaners?  Fish and chips?  Toilets?

(Hey, it'd still be better than "Love & Monsters" was... :-P)

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