CP3S

Must have been.

Damn, they are really messing things up.

adywan said:

Hurt isn't playing McGann's doctor according to inside reports. He is playing a Doctor between 8 & 9. The one that ends the time war. An incarnation that the following ones wanted to forget because of his actions. The whole "not in the name of the Doctor" thing is how they are going to try and explain away why the others call themselves 9,10 11 etc when they are in fact one regeneration further on. Hurt wasn't even in the 50th special until Chris backed out and they rewrote the story.

That is really lame. It sucks Eccleston backed out, but it seems silly to screw around with established continuity when they have a Doctor from that time frame with a wide open storyline. Even if they want to consider the Big Finish productions canon and/or didn't want to use McGann for whatever reason, having Hurt play the role of an aged 8th would have solved this problem by moving so many years past current 8th Doctor canon so not as to have an adverse effect on those stories as well as not preventing future 8th Doctor stories.

And since it has been established that Timelords only have a limited number of regenerations, they are needlessly wasting one of these on nothing.

doubleKO said:

Dear Internet,

Please learn to spell the word "definitely". I can't remember the last time I saw someone get it right.

Definitely, man! That is annoying! However, I overuse that word big time, and get it right every time; so if you've read any of my posts lately, then you've probably seen someone get it right recently. 

Hey, it's me. said:

My father is as bald as a coot, so I guess it was inevitable but its still a bit of a shock to the system. My girlfriend says it doesn't bother her in the slightest, and I do believe her. But its starting to bother me. Anyone else suffered from this and able to give me some insight in how to cope? 

My dad went bald at a fairly young age, much younger than I am now. So all my life my parents had been warning me (and scaring the crap out of me) that I was going to bald in my early twenties. Fortunately, it didn't happen. According to several different people I've known, inside of and outside of the medical community, the whole balding aspect of genetics is more likely to come from the mother's side of the family. So a bald maternal grandfather, or your mother's bald male siblings are supposedly a better indicator than a bald father. However, there is no science to back this up.

My hairline has been drifting back over the last couple of years, and there has been some thinning.

Some people report great results with topical treatments, such as minoxidil (Rogaine), others report miniscule to no regrowth with it. If you're really concerned about it, that is your best bet. Nowadays it is really cheap and won't set you back much and you don't have to worry about nasty side effects. I think a three month supply runs about $40 USD these days. I've considered this, but have yet to take the time to be bothered with it. 

Androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness) is most commonly caused by high levels of endocrine hormones. There is a drug call finasteride that has shown to produce amazing hair regrowth results, like we're talking going from practically bald to a freaking mop in a year or so. Basically it prevents conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, preventing the dihydrotestosterone from shrinking your hair follicles and causing your hair to fall out.

Unfortunately, side effects occur in over 90% of users, and the most common ones include stuff even shittier than a shiny head, such as erectile dysfunction, yellow to brown ejaculate, as well as gynecomastia (the growing of a spectacular pair of titties). So, you get your hair back in exchange for your sex life, unless you have/find someone special who is into man boobs and doesn't mind the flaccidness. Suddenly baldness doesn't sound like such a bad thing, right? Incidentally, although it was originally marketed and approved by the FDA (oh FDA...) for treatment of enlarged prostate and hair loss, they found this drug also works great in male - female sex change hormone replacement.

Like Silverwook said, see your doctor and determine the cause of your hair loss, if it is just plain old genetic male pattern baldness and it really bothers you, give minoxidil a shot and see if it works for you. Even when it doesn't work for regrowth, it has been shown to slow hair loss in some people.

I stared down at the brown soupy mess and tried to decide if it was worth risking trying again or not. It had been nearly ten hours. A long ten hours. This fight had dragged on for my entire day off, and it had gone on long enough. I was sick of it! This had to end now! If it meant driving to Wal-Mart and buying one, so be it. It was hard to believe my flat mate and I had lived here for this long without having the occasion to need one, but clearly we hadn't. I had searched high and low, through every closet, and there was none to be found.

A trip to Wal-Mart is going to be at least a forty minute long excursion. I really didn't want it to come to that. I had urinated on it several times throughout the day, it had broken down and deteriorated, the brown log that had been my morning BM was now nothing but bowl full of brown water emitting an chokingly awful odor, but still the stubborn bastard persisted and wouldn't go down. Seriously, how had we lived here this long and never needed a plunger before? There went my week long dream of spending the entire day off in nothing but my underwear.

No, I worked to hard for this! Looked forward to it for far too long! I wasn't going to let my dream die without a fight! I wasn't going to let a bit of 10 hour old fecal matter I had been at war with since mere minutes after waking up ruin my dreams! It was risky, but I was going to give it another shot!

I held my breath, and positioned a finger over the knob. "Here goes nothing..." I muttered to myself. I quickly lowered into a position where I could start closing the valve if it started backing up too far. The last time it looked like it was going to be disastrous when it backed up right to the rim. I couldn't have another close call like that. If it overflowed and flooded the bathroom, my evening was going to be shot to hell, and I'd still have to make that journey to the dreaded Wal-Mart. 

The smell was overwhelming. Why the hell did they have to put the valve back behind the commode? I hate engineers. Did they really fail to envision a scenario where someone might need to quickly shut off the valve to spare a backed up toilet from over flowing? Or did they envision it and found it a really fun practical joke to play on the world? Who the hell knew. I counted down from three, placed pressure on the knob, and prepared myself to crank the valve like my very sanity depended on it...

I watched as it backed up to the rim more quickly than I could have anticipated. Shit! Just as the panic was setting it, a deep brown whirlpool formed and the water levels began to drop. It worked! I let out a sigh of relief. Haha! I can't believe it, after all these hours, I've finally won! The fecal war of July 23rd was over!

I stood up and washed my hands really well, all the while thinking to myself, "Well, that's one for Xhonzi's minor miracles thread".

Warbler said:

ray_afraid said:

But, am I the only one laughing at the unfortunate order that post fell on?

I don't get the joke.  

It wasn't a joke, Warb. Just an unfortunate juxtaposition of comments.

Sorry you lost a good friend, Warb.

Bingowings said:

If it is an ADHD thing why don't you get an instant hit of burping dustbin and Noel Clarke doing Max Headroom with John Travolta's spray on hairdo everytime Eccehomo comes on the show?

Say what you will about the Eighth Doctor but at least he never said the word "farting" on screen.

I thought Eccleston was great, it was just the episodes and companions he was stuck with that sucked (okay, so I actually really liked Jack, so make that companion singular for the ever annoying and unlikable dyed blond Rose with her dark eyebrows and roots).

As for the ADHD thing, it is just hard to stay focuses on things like radio dramas unless they pull me in. Especially since I tend to listen to things like that while doing other things. Radio dramas usually hold my attention, and I listen to audio books constantly, but for some reason I just found myself tuning these out and wishing I was listening to something else.

I'll make it a point to check out The Natural History of Fear.

Bingowings said:

He could have worn his current new look garb :

and have done all the same survivor guilt stuff the Eccethump did and not be the George Lazenby of Who.

His "current new look garb" predates the 2005 revival of the series. If I am not mistaken, that picture of him in the jacket with the sonic screwdriver is back when he desperately wanted to play the Doctor in the then upcoming new series.

As silly and awful as most of the series one nuWho episodes were, I kind of fell in love with Eccleston in that role. He was goofy, fun, intelligent, and formidable. I am pretty disappointed that he won't be in the 50th. McGann on the other hand... I guess I just can't get the awful taste of the 1996 telemovie out of my mouth.

I tried to listen to one of the Big Finish stories, but I just couldn't get into it. Doctor Who has kind of been a passive interest for me, something I watch in the background while doing other things, for the Big Finish stories, I found my ADHD self unable to focus on them enough to get anything out of them.

It really sucks for McGann, he got a short straw. Imagine scoring such an iconic role in what was meant to be the revival of a well loved series, only to find yourself starring in an absolutely awful film and that being the end of it. You hold onto hope for years that maybe there will be another attempt at bringing back the series and that maybe you'll still get your chance, and finally after so many years it looks like it might be coming a reality, only for the role to be recast out from under you. Salt to the wound: after ten years of you dying to get your chance as the Doctor, appearing at conventions, and making efforts to bring the show back, the new guy who steals the role from you quits one series in and want nothing to do with the series ever again.

But then again, could McGann have really pulled it off? He played a really boring and wooden Doctor. All the previous actors who played the Doctor seemed to have brought something to the table, made the character their own and into something interesting, some more so than others. McGann's Doctor just didn't stand out.

doubleofive said:

Hurt is definately playing the Eight and Half-th/Time War Doctor. I don't understand why 11 would be denying his existence when 9 pretty much said that he himself pushed the button and 10 had to deal with the consequences too. RETCON!

Sounds like we are thinking along the same lines. I feel like that is the only way it will work without being overly convoluted and silly or nonsensical, not that the show is afraid of convoluted or silly or nonsensical...

When 9 pretty much said that he himself pushed the button, it doesn't have to mean he did it in his 9th incarnation. It could be that both 9 and 10 were dealing with the consequences of the things done as 8, and that 11, being a bit more childlike and naive than 9 and 10 rejected this, rather than brooding about it, and denied his existence. 

Not necessarily a huge retcon, since we are dealing with uncharted space as it were. I mean, obviously it is a retcon, but not really an offensive one. I am sure RTD meant for it to have been Eccleston that did those things, but he was very vague about the Doctor's new Time War back story for his entire run, before all of it was magically forgotten and never referred back to or dwelled upon after Moffatt took over (kind of like how RTD's constant barrage of alien invasions of Earth were also forgotten and written away in a half assed manner). However, in the first episode, or one of those first episodes, Eccleston's Doctor looks in the mirror, plays with his ears a bit, and makes a comment on the way he looks. Kind of gave the indication that he was "newly minted".

I'm interested to see the 50th (for Tennant) and maybe the Christmas special just to close the book on 11, but I'm not sure I'm going to watch past that, or at least I won't make an effort to watch it until its on Netflix.

I feel like I am done with it too.

I realize that I started watching Doctor Who because some pretty girl once told me to and it gave us something fun to talk about, I kept watching because of David Tennant, and couldn't stop watching because of Karen Gillan*...

That pretty girl, David Tennant's Doctor, and Amy Pond are all things of the past... I skipped a bunch of episodes last season, and the few I did watch (which included the finale) didn't hold my interest. Having invested my time in six seasons of the show, I'm kind of looking forward to seeing Tennant in the 50th, and curiosity will probably get the better of me come Christmas, but from there, I think I've already checked out and can't be bothered.

*Fine! Arthur Darvill deserves some credit too! While not as fun to look at as Karen Gillan, the characters of Rory and Amy are what made the show so fun to watch for the last two and a third seasons. Things fell entirely flat after their departure.

My theory is that Hurt is the 8th Doctor. This would also explain why McGann is excluded from the 50th, even though he has always been overly desperate to continue his role as The Doctor in some way or another. If they wanted McGann in the 50th, they had him.

I know there are a lot of eighth Doctor fans around, and there have been many books and audio dramas continuing the eighth Doctor's story... But let's face it, the eighth Doctor was a huge misstep. It was a really, really, really, really, really shitty made for TV 90's movie that didn't even bother to follow established Who continuity (stating that he is part human, and some other departures from established lore). They also portrayed The Doctor as a bit of a buffoon, showing him puzzled by earthly things and habbits, I guess to drive home the point that he was an alien to American audiences. The whole thing was absolutely awful. I think the reason why eighth Doctor stuff is kind of popular is because it was a whole wasted regeneration of the Doctor, wide open blank pages, just about anything could be done during it, so why not capitalize on that with novels, comics, and audio dramas? But that stuff isn't canonical. Is the crappy made for TV movie even canon? I mean, we see McGann's face flashed on the screen in a couple of Smith's episodes when they are trying to remind us of old Doctors, in the first Smith episode, and that last one with all the flashback bits. So yeah, it is established that McGann was the 8th, but is anything we know that was done by the 8th solid continuity? The movie can't be, because it is contradictory (and just plain sucked, even by RTD era standards), and the books are essentially expanded universe.

So, my theory is that time locking of the Timelords and the Daleks and all the things that happened that gave 9 and 10 their brooding survivor's guilt ridden aspects were done by the 8th, and John Hurt is McGann all grown up. The 8th Doctor, as far as the TV show is concerned, is still a bunch of blank pages they can do anything with.

It fits with everything we know, and explains the exclusion of McGann*. He was a previous Doctor who rejected the title Doctor and did some pretty terrible things, which he says he had no choice in. Time War, awful things, eventually regenerating into brooding Eccleston who got back on track as the Doctor, but still had to live with the stuff done by 8. 

*Of course, the exclusion of McGann could also be explained by that movie being so absolutely terrible that nobody wants to have to be reminded of it. Even the worst bits of Doctor Who since its 2005 revival are significantly less difficult to watch than the entirety of that atrocity of a "film".

Tobar said:

You'll never beat Serina:

Not ever!

Bingowings said:

Richard Matheson 87.

How did I miss this. :( Another one of the few great remaining American writers gone.

I Am Legend is one of my all time favorite books. It is genuinely unsettling, is a fun demythologization of the vampire legends, and it has a really great twist ending. A great short read that will give you chills.

George Romero is considered the father of the zombie genre we have today, and has admitted numerous times that the inspiration for his zombies was the original film adaption of I Am Legend 1964's The Last Man on Earth. Out of the three films based on I Am Legend, it is the only one that actually follows the plot of the book, however it changes the hoards from vampires into unspecified reanimated corpses. The very idea of some kind of infection reanimating the dead began with Matheson's I Am Legend.

This man was the grandfather of the zombie genre, and he wrote some really great and thought provoking stuff.

R.I.P. 

For anyone who has never read anything by Richard Matheson, the short story Born of Man and Woman might take you the better part of 10 - 15 minutes to read, if that, but you may just find it lingering in your mind for the next several days.

JEDIT: Oh yeah, and he also wrote:

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, the Twilight Zone episode about the gremlin on the wing of the plane, which was later parodied by The Simpsons, and also remade for the 1980's Twilight Zone movie.

Duel, a 1971 film directed by Steven Spielberg about a demonic tanker truck  stalking a single motorist for the duration of the film. Great fun.

He also wrote an episode of Star Trek TOS, The Enemy Within.

Bingowings said:

I would (if I was allowed) and I'm kind of fussy. 

Hey! If you're gonna cheat on your dude, it better be with me and my beard!

Trying to save face?

;)

Keats was a pretty great character throughout season three. He was a bit of a creeper, and came off as very menacing. In the last episode they really spun him over the top to the point of being just downright silly. I didn't like that aspect. But I'll totally take the rest, even if the idea of a special purgatory for police officers is slightly sillier than the idea of purgatory in general. I think they left it vague enough that it worked. However, yes, Life on Mars and the test screen girl was pretty much perfect.

Just re watched Shaz's death, uniform is very modern looking, and the car shown is definitely newer than the 80's.

Maybe Chinese law enforcement officers who die in Hong Kong end up in some police department in Hong Kong in this purgatory world. Perhaps the powers that be in the LoM/AtA universe like to keep things culturally relevant to the tormented souls, but also like to screw with their heads by throwing them in a different time period. A cop from the 2000's thrown into a 1970's environment they have some familiarity with is going to be bewildered, frustrated, and confused. A cop from 2000''s Hong Kong thrown into 1980's England is going to be completely lost and have no idea what is going on.

Nothing could save George Romero's later films.

I've only seen the first one (American Pie), and I thought it was absolute shit. It relies on dumb immature sexual humor and little else for laughs.

It is about a group of high school boys making a pact to lose their virginity, and the misadventure and awkward over the top hilarity that ensues on their quest. So yeah, if you are 14, or an anti-social virgin of any age, you might find it really awesome.

I agree with Fink, Austin Powers is vastly superior to American Pie, and I pretty much can't stand Austin Powers. But at least the first Austin Powers has some genuinely funny moments and is a parody of something other than just high school sexuality.

It felt really anticlimactic. We spend the whole episode watching Andrea trying to escape, the others find her dying, she dies, and the season ends.

They have all those extra survivors now, usually in The Walking Dead, people turn out to be far, far, far more dangerous than walkers (which is actually the punchline of the title in the comics, Rick's famous "We ARE the walking dead!" speech). But even if they do stupidly trust all those new survivors, they also have to feed them. Nothing resolved in season three, it ended with more problems than they started out with, which is appropriate for a continuing TV show.

Merle and Morgan are the only things resolved in the story, and neither one was of any importance to the overall story. It was nice to see the show's take on what happened to Morgan, but that part was done so much better in the book. If they would have included a few extra aspects to that, it would have been really cool. I was also disappointed Morgan didn't join the group of survivors like he does in the books. So yay, we found him, but nothing came of it.

Bingowings said:

It might have worked if once Alex had found the truth about her fellow restless souls she discovered they weren't really all English and from the Eighties but the realm translated them that way because she and Sam came from a UK background of a certain time.

They were all from different times. Shaz's death scene looked very nineties, the uniform was much more modern. Judging by the uniforms in Chris', it looked more 60's or 70's maybe. Ray's didn't have a uniform to go by, but his death scene looked a lot earlier than the 80's. And it was established that Gene died on the day Elizabeth II was coronated, which was in 1952.

My mustache and hair cut is too damn fly!

Gaffer Tape said:

its plot makes no damned sense

STORY makes no damn sense

PLOT makes no damn sense

STORY makes no damn sense

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHEitsYJnmw

stossmo said:

You can start a new game with all of your perks and I plan to just rip through to keep the pace and story as tight as possible. I spent so much time sniffing around for stuff that I lost the sense of urgency that most of the sequences should have.

I decided long ago that for games I am interested in primarily for the story, that I am not going to bother with collectables. So I didn't spend much time sniffing around for comics and dog tags. I'd raid houses for useful supplies, and occasionally stumble across a collectable or two, but I kept the sense of urgency to the game.

I plan on replaying it and finding everything, eventually.

It would kind of take you out of the game when your health was extremely low, you were sneaking around trying to avoid several guys who were searching the area for you, and you'd pick up a comic and hear Joel yell out, "Hey, Ellie! I found another one of those comics you like!"

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

SPOILERS

I thought I knew how it would end when I reached the last sequence but was pleasantly surprised they didnt go that route.  That said, I also regretted Ellie wasnt given the choice because you know she would have gone through with it, I think any of us would have.  Joel was pretty damn wrong....he just wasn't capable of letting her go.  The game was just too dark to go that route.  

I loved the ending. I became really fond of Ellie, and I didn't want her to die. For me, that whole ending sequence was agonizing, because I knew that if they could get the cure from her, then they were doing the right thing. One life for all of humanity is a very inexpensive trade off. 

But still, I wanted to pull out a gun, kill everyone of those guys, and take her away. And felt a grim satisfaction when that was exactly what the game let me do. When I got to that point, it was exactly how I wanted the game to end, but not at all how I expected that it would. I kept thinking Joel is going to get there and it will be too late, or he is going to have a change of heart once he gets into the OR, or after the encounter in the garage. The car scene was brilliant. Seeing Joel driving in silence. I held my breath thinking, What did he do? He better not have left her behind! And when he lies to her, it kind of stings. Because you know her character would have gladly given her life for humanity, and is likely something she had already considered carefully during that year long journey.

Joel didn't save her for her, he saved her for himself. He chose to let all of humanity eventually parish, rather than lose someone close to him again. I love that. It is really dark, but somehow feels just in a way. Take a look at humanity in that game. How much was it really worth saving?

Also I felt some strange sense of entitlement. Ellie and Joel could have died any number of times on that journey. They faced insane odds, and by this time the Fireflies must have given them up for dead long ago. Humanity was the primary antagonist preventing them from getting to their goal again and again throughout that year. If they had died, which they were on the brink of many times, the end result would have been the same. Only now they get to enjoy a quiet life with Joel's brother and their group. Even when the Fireflies found them at the end, a man trying to preform CPR on a dying girl, they treated them with hostility, despite Joel's pleas, and gave him a rifle butt to the head.

He fought with everything he had to get her there, and then they take her from him and prepare to dissect her. That wasn't what he had in mind when he killed countless people and sacrificed so much blood and effort to get her to them. 

The gay porn thing didnt bother me, It rang pretty true to her character after the way Bill treated her, and to the way teenagers act in general.  I like to think that if Bill had been halfway decent to her she wouldnt have stolen the mag from him.  I realize it was implied that Bill was gay but I didnt really know until after the magazine reveal and I think that was the point of the sequence.

You didn't really know, even after he said that the dead man was his partner, and read the dead man's letter written to Bill? It was pretty explicit.

It's an interesting discussion, I like that Bill was gay, it wasn't necessary for the plot but it made his character much more 3 dimensional to me.  Sadly, gay people are the butt of easy jokes all the time in the real world, why not for characters in the last of us as well? 

I guess I just feel we should be beyond a day and age when gay people are the butt of jokes.

Warbler said:

CP3S said: you'll find he plays the same damn role over and over again,

somewhat true (although the Cain Mutiny is a great example of him playing a very different character),  but he played that role very, very, well.   I've watched multiple versions of The Maltese Falcon, and no one could play Sam Spade anywhere near as well as Bogart.   

Yeah, no one could have played Sam Spade near as well as Bogart, because Bogart is awesome. A big part of the reason that film is so great is because Bogart owned the role and made it memorable.

But he did play similar roles over and over, and not every movie he is in is great or memorable. That is my point. You seem to get some people who fantasize that 1940's cinema was grab you by the ankles, flip you upside down, and slap you silly fantastic through and through and through and through. That wasn't the case. There was some great stuff then, there is some great stuff now, there will be some great stuff later. There was a lot of crappy stuff then, there is a lot of crappy stuff now, and there will be plenty more crappy stuff to come later. The great stuff will be remembered and passed onto future generations, while the crappy stuff will be replaced by newer flashier crappy stuff.

generalfrevious said:

 

Hollywood is turning into this sadistic machine charging us fifty dollars for three hour atrocities that destroy every cultural icon in its path (Star Trek, Superman, etc.). The American film industry has been in an irreversible artistic decline ever since Heaven's Gate bombed  nearly 35 years ago. They are becoming more and more crypto-fascist with every passing year, with a new low achieved seemingly every week. Someone needs to wipe Hollywood permanently off the map and spare humanity the misery they spew out every single day.

For Pete's sake, you sound ridiculous. What kind of theater do you go to that charges you fifty bucks a ticket??? And if you don't like those kinds of movies, stop going to see them! There is so much more out there in the world of cinema.

People like this stuff. So what? Let them have it, stop belly aching, and go see something decent. If superhero movies bug you, why on earth even muck around with them? And if you are not watching them, why do they bother you so much? If humanity is in such deep misery from the crap spewed out by Hollywood every day, then humanity seriously needs to get a grip.

That is my biggest problem with ST3, ST2 was fantastic and the ending was great. Bringing Spock back robs The Wrath of Khan of so much.

If you are going to kill off a major character, kill them off. If you bring them back it makes it into a cheap gag. How can you take it seriously? You have this big dramatic moment, followed by a Haha! We were only kidding around with you!