I thought the monsters in Doctor Who today were particularly creepy today. I won't say anything more about that. “Spoilers”, as Doctor Song would say. I didn't realize that Elisabeth Sladen, the actress who played Sarah Jane Smith, passed away until I saw the episode had been dedicated to her. I remember her from when I watched Doctor Who when we first moved to the America, as well as her appearances during the tenth Doctor's tenure. Seems as though I was not the only one who found her memorable.

The producers of the show are obviously trying to appeal to American audiences now. Beyond the fact that this episode was filmed in part on location in the US for the first time in the shows rather lengthy history, it was released in the UK, US and Canada^[1] at the same time. Australian audiences who don't download it from the Internet have to wait a whole week to see it. WTF BBC? Americans start to get a little interested in the Doctor and you rearrange everything. Doctor Who has always been big in Australia! Of course part of the reason they are airing it at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic is to reduce the number of people who download it from BitTorrent, so that they can sell ads on the BBCA version and at the same time air it ad free in the UK where people pay the BBC tax.

1. eh?

• 31 October 2008 11:18am: Monthly birthday lunch at work. The ladies talk about weddings and the guys talk about babies. How to contribute? Linux servers are easier.
• 31 October 2008 01:27pm: Boss is going on vacation. That makes me Captain Inview for two weeks.
• 3 November 2008 04:49pm: Being Captain Inview is stressful when a misconfiguration causes the stats queue to explode and it takes two hours to clear.
• 3 November 2008 09:28pm: mmmmm good and plenties may be good, but they are not plentiful when you have to fly to America to get them.
• Today at 03:48pm: I just realised that I already implemented the feature that I am working on. Either I am just "that good", or my memory is not.

twitter.com/plicease

Today right before I left work I asked Kim how her vacation was. Not good, she answered. Not enough excitement, she said. Only one amazingly beautiful sunset, she said. My instinct was to point out that some people live their whole lives and only get to see one amazingly beautiful sunset if they are lucky.

I was leaving (mentioned) and I was just trying to be friendly. The America in me wants people just to answer in short positive statements regardless of actual mood. The rest of me doesn’t like that, but it is hard to deny that it is there.

SOAP::Lite is like a mule. You can often coax it into doing what you want it to do, but not without a lot of headache. SOAP::Lite reminds me that designing good APIs is not easy. The Perl community, despite a lot of good work, has unfortunately produced some turkeys; there are warts everywhere. Boxing Day this old lady declared that if everyone just did as she said then the world would be a better place. I think anyone writing an API is something like that: either arrogant or deluded. Usually both.

Needless to say I spent the whole day coaxing SOAP::Lite

I was driving in the car, and listening to the radio today when I was reminded of just how suck radio is in America. Because this radio was actually entertaining. Because I am in Australia. Which is not America. They were talking funny shit about Rudd and Howard. I wish they would just call the election already. It’s too bad they don’t have Halloween in Australia, we could estimate the winner based on sales of Halloween masks of Rudd and Howard like you can with US Presidential candidates.

Apparently when my mum traded in the Tercel for the Corolla I made her feel like a heel for selling an unofficial member of the family into slavery. She reminds me of this from time to time, but I can hardly be held accountable for my actions (I think) because I was only like 12 or something at the time, and it was years ago and I am pretty sure that the statute of limitations on that sort of thing has long since expired.

When grandma passed away this year, mum inherited her house in Gosford. It is a tiny fibro hut with poor insulation and is very cold in the winter. I wonder how grandma, grandpa, mum and my namesake uncle Graham all fit in there. Somehow it is still home to me, even though I only barely remember living there before I moved to America^[1]. One day I will inherit that property, I am certain.

Mum told me today that she and Don had decided to knock the house down (I know they don’t do this lightly) and put up a bungalow. Although I will be perversely sad to see the old house go, I am also quietly breathing a sigh of relief, because, as I told my mother, I don’t think I could bring myself to knock it down or sell it or anything when I inherit it.

Sentimental, I know.

1. I usually mark my first memories with coming to America, but I do have faint glimmering memories of that house from back then

Most of the time lately I wish that I didn’t quite have both feet so firmly planted in two totally different countries. How did I wind up yearning for a life at the same time in each?

I watched 4 episodes of Doctor Who today, and one yesterday. Four were recorded from when I was in the states and one was aired on TV tonight. Two of them were really good: 42 and Blink. The other three were kind of blah. 42 was obviously a reference to Douglas Adams, who was a writer for the original series, but I think it was also a sly reference to 24, even though there was no torture involved. Blink was cool because it was one of those episodes which didn’t focus on the primary characters at all, and instead you get to see the weird havoc wrecked by the Doctor. They’ve done this once before and I think it has worked well in both cases.

Went to Aunty Joyce’s for afternoon tea today. My mum is still intimidated by her, which is kind of amusing. It’s nice to see her; I feel like seeing once somewhat estranged family fills in holes that are worth filling in. It also gives me hope. Tonight Don picked up this manual thingy and read the title: “A Practical Guide to SAX” only it sounded like “sex” to me so I asked “how practical is it?” SAX is the name of some hardware thingy that mum has at work.

I’m back in America. It is as good as I remember.

Pluto

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that, as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet and that March 13, 2007 be declared "Pluto Planet Day" at the legislature.

—New Mexico State Legislature

In August I am going to be in the only state in the Union where Pluto is (as it should be) recognized as full fledged planet.

I don’t usually get misty-eyed when reading legislation, but I did when I read “New Mexico’s excellent night skies.” The night sky in New Mexico is pretty, and NM is definitely the Land of Enchantment.

2007 US Tour

Some of you already know this, but for those that don’t, I will be in the USA for most of August to visit good friends, go hiking, and to eat some mighty fine New Mexican cuisine. Here are the approximate dates:

If you think you might coincide, let me know. You too can be part of the action. And knowing is half the battle.

1. somewhat flexible
2. just kidding
3. somewhat flexible
4. that place where Kirk kicked the Gorn’s butt with his home made cannon

Thinking about Babel, which as mentioned in the previous post I saw yesterday. I’m not giving anything away by saying that the story is divided into three largely unrelated stories. The connection between the stories is tenuous, but they drive each other. The central characters for two of the stories have been nominated for best supporting actress: Adriana Barraza for her character Amelia in Mexico, and Rinko Kikuchi for her character Chieko in Japan. I wonder how unusual it is for a picture to receive two nominations in the same category like that. Anyway, the nominations, and the award if it follows, would be well deserved for either. Kikuchi (26) delivers a particularly believable performance of a deaf teenager.

It makes me wonder though, why “supporting” and not “starring”? It seems mainly because they aren’t Brad Pitt or Cate Blanchet, who received top billing. Their performances were good, but not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination. It seems to me the Mexican and Japanese stories are just as important, and much more interesting than the Moroccan (American centric) story. Making the American and Australian actors the stars and the supporting actress nominations for the non-native English speakers reinforces the belligerent Ugly Americanism of Pitt’s character, who sees the world revolving around himself.

I love Sydney. Sydney does it first and Sydney does it best!

Also got good reviews from the Americans.

Hope everyone else has a fun time celebrating NYE.

Happy Turkey Day everones who is in America (or who celebrates anyway).

I for one am going to spend the day doing some spring cleaning, because it’s spring and the place is starting to look like it needs to be done.

This Dr Pepper cost me AU$2.50, but it was so worth it.

Looks like the Vegemite scare might be a hoax after all. According to news.com.au, US Denies Vegemite Ban. Although “US” denies a lot of things, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I believe them.