Bill Bodden's Blog - Posts Tagged "fun-stuff"
New Work, Plus Some Odds and Ends
It’s always a good day when I get offered new writing work; in this case, I got TWO offers in less than a week – both in the gaming industry. One is a short bit of work filling in some technical details, and the other is — something else. Not sure how much I can talk about, so until I’m certain, they will be called project Project Blue Nose and Project Red River. I also have a somewhat nebulous offer hanging right now; it depends on me covering a particular event for a local magazine shortly after the New Year, so stay tuned for more details on that one.
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In other news, I mentioned last week that I attended my first college (American) football game recently. Through the generosity of my wife’s employer, we were able to get free tickets to watch the Wisconsin Badgers play the Brigham Young Cougars at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. It was chilly that day, and the chill was exaccerbated by sitting on (or close to ) a giant slab of concrete the entire time. The Wife had to call it partway through the third quarter on account of not feeling her feet any more. And seriously, why the worshipful attitude towards the song “Varsity”? The lyrics are kinda lame, but even my dad used to tear up when he heard it.
It was a spectacular show all the way around, and I’m certainly grateful for the largesse that allowed us to see the game for free. The Badgers won the game, but frankly it seemed much closer than the 27-17 final score would indicate. I was also impressed by the Wisconsin Marching Band, who put on a great show and executed some fancy formation changes during halftime.
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With the holiday season rolling in, my schedule at my part-time job has picked up. Between that and the two writing gigs, I expect to have less free time in which to goof off. In light of this I’m moving the day I publish my blog posts from Tuesday to Wednesday. This change comes mainly because posting on Wednesday will be a little easier for me to manage until after December.
******
In other news, I mentioned last week that I attended my first college (American) football game recently. Through the generosity of my wife’s employer, we were able to get free tickets to watch the Wisconsin Badgers play the Brigham Young Cougars at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. It was chilly that day, and the chill was exaccerbated by sitting on (or close to ) a giant slab of concrete the entire time. The Wife had to call it partway through the third quarter on account of not feeling her feet any more. And seriously, why the worshipful attitude towards the song “Varsity”? The lyrics are kinda lame, but even my dad used to tear up when he heard it.
It was a spectacular show all the way around, and I’m certainly grateful for the largesse that allowed us to see the game for free. The Badgers won the game, but frankly it seemed much closer than the 27-17 final score would indicate. I was also impressed by the Wisconsin Marching Band, who put on a great show and executed some fancy formation changes during halftime.
******
With the holiday season rolling in, my schedule at my part-time job has picked up. Between that and the two writing gigs, I expect to have less free time in which to goof off. In light of this I’m moving the day I publish my blog posts from Tuesday to Wednesday. This change comes mainly because posting on Wednesday will be a little easier for me to manage until after December.
Congratulations Dr. Who!
I’ve been watching Dr. Who since it premiered on American television (in my case, my local Public Television station, WHA-TV) back in the early 1980s, and found myself smitten with Tom Baker’s portrayal. Since then, there’s been a lot of water passing under that bridge, with a number of subsequent Doctors failing to make much of an impression on me until David Tennant only a few short years ago. With the 50th Anniversary of the premiere of the series on British television, this seems like a fine time to recall a few things I enjoy about the series.
Tennant’s Doctor is charming like Tom Baker’s, but has a more powerful edginess. There is more anger there, and more ferocity too, I think. Matt Smith’s Doctor was also charming in a slightly more naiive way, but while I found his youthful enthusiasm contagious, his darker moments were less effective — less believable to me.
There are lots of favorite episodes that spring to mind, many of them more recent. From the Tom Baker era “The Horns of Nimon” is a favorite around our house, if only to mock the dialogue of one character, Soldeed. Scary and compelling is “The Seeds of Doom”, and “City of Death” has to be counted as among my favorites largely because of the skills of talented veteran actor Julian Glover. The special effects from this age of the Doctor we’re all that special, but the writing was generally quite good – and clearly the show was no longer the kid’s programme it was during its infancy. “The Five Doctors” special filmed during Peter Davison’s tenure also amuses our household greatly – so much so that we watch our DVD of it every year or two.
Tennant’s episode “Silence In The Library” must be my all-time favorite episode, in which a shadowy creature stalks visitors to a massive, apparently abandoned library. “Blink” — also creepy and horrifying and features the ‘weeping angels’ characters — is a very, very close second.
While in earlier days the numerous time paradoxes that cropped up were solved with some determined hand-waving, current scripts are genuinely more thoughtful about such issues, treating them seriously and with a certain amount of respect. It’s this respect that has me turning back into a Dr. Who fan after years away from the fold.
Tennant’s Doctor is charming like Tom Baker’s, but has a more powerful edginess. There is more anger there, and more ferocity too, I think. Matt Smith’s Doctor was also charming in a slightly more naiive way, but while I found his youthful enthusiasm contagious, his darker moments were less effective — less believable to me.
There are lots of favorite episodes that spring to mind, many of them more recent. From the Tom Baker era “The Horns of Nimon” is a favorite around our house, if only to mock the dialogue of one character, Soldeed. Scary and compelling is “The Seeds of Doom”, and “City of Death” has to be counted as among my favorites largely because of the skills of talented veteran actor Julian Glover. The special effects from this age of the Doctor we’re all that special, but the writing was generally quite good – and clearly the show was no longer the kid’s programme it was during its infancy. “The Five Doctors” special filmed during Peter Davison’s tenure also amuses our household greatly – so much so that we watch our DVD of it every year or two.
Tennant’s episode “Silence In The Library” must be my all-time favorite episode, in which a shadowy creature stalks visitors to a massive, apparently abandoned library. “Blink” — also creepy and horrifying and features the ‘weeping angels’ characters — is a very, very close second.
While in earlier days the numerous time paradoxes that cropped up were solved with some determined hand-waving, current scripts are genuinely more thoughtful about such issues, treating them seriously and with a certain amount of respect. It’s this respect that has me turning back into a Dr. Who fan after years away from the fold.
