Dollhouse. Thoughts and musings. Spoiler free. Whedonites rejoice.

It's been a rocky career for Joss Whedon. With the cancellation of Buffy and angel and most recently Firefly, one can say he has not had the best career in television. But what the man does have is a legion of fans. The exploits of whedonites and the more prolific Browncoats are well documented, with Serenity being the most remarkable.

His new show Dollhouse has been going on for 6 weeks, and although early criticisms have rung true, we're told that the show will hit it's stride and be totally awesome from the 6th episode onwards. Early reviews of episode 6 have been positive.

I'm here to agree. The show so far has been freak-of-the-week-type of affair. Having an engagement as the A plot and Paul Ballard's FBI agent shticks as the B plot. Mostly. The show has had six weeks worth of world-building and this is where it reaps the fruits of it's labour.

Without giving away too much, this episodes turns what has been status quo for six weeks upside down and gives us a whole new ballgame. The new seeds sowed in this episode blows our preconception about the show out of the water. It was called a flawed, but intriguing concept before but this week the flaws are taken out of the equation.

Every scene gels together so well you'll wonder what has been going on the past few weeks if you haven't been reading the blogs. The studio's decision to give up interfering with the direction of the show has proved to be for the best. This episode is easily the best hour of television I've seen in a long time.

For those who have followed Dollhouse out of a sense of loyalty to Joss Whedon, the time is now. Time to tell your friends and family how freaking awesome this show will be. Because after watching episode 6, there's no way that you can't.

Discard your preconceptions. Nothing in this show is what it seems. If you have been interested but haven't checked it out, now's the time. Sad to say, I fear there won't be a suitable jumping on point for new viewers in the future. Because Whedon has said he's not a fan of "reset television", in which every episode is self contained and does not have a large, overarching plot. Episode 6 feels very much like the payoff we've been waiting for. We sat through the pilot and the faux suicidal Britney episode(which actually sounds kinda cool written that way) for this.

Critics have slammed it since the pilot, calling it a flop, wasted opportunity, and having untapped potential. Well the tapping has begun. There's no better proof of that than episode 6. The DVD release better sell like gangbusters.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let there be a season 2.

This astonishes me(Fun religion bashing)

From the official website of the Institute for Creation Research;

"Plants do replicate within their kind, but so do certain crystals and some chemicals. They replicate within kind, but they are nowhere said to possess chay (life) or nephesh (soul), the Hebrew words for living things. Job 14:8-10 is cited as evidence that plants die like people die, but that passage most certainly does not use the words for life."

Wow.

Just. Wow. Note that this little gem was taken from the "evidence" section of the site. While quoting the Bible for evidence is nothing new to creationists, this is the first I've heard of plants being "not alive."

More choice quotes.

"Our solar system appears to be near the center of the universe. Galaxies look the same, and are moving away from us in the same way, in all directions. The cosmic microwave background radiation comes to us very uniformly from all directions. These and other data strongly indicate we are located at a very special location by design."

Wait, didn't we discard a similar model of the universe when we decided Copernicus was right? We can't even see the whole of Universe due to limitations of our light-based perception. For all we know it might be infinite(Which we don't, yet). In which case there is no "center" of the universe. How can something that has no boundaries have a center?

Aaaaand my favourite so far...

"The universe is only several thousand years old.

Comets are an example of a natural clock within our solar system. With each orbit around the sun, comets lose considerable mass. They cannot be very old because they cannot survive many orbits.

To get around this problem, many astronomers assume there is a vast cloud of comets out near the edge of the solar system, which releases new comets every so often. This imaginary cloud is called the "Oort Cloud," named after the astronomer who proposed it. The problem is that there is no observational evidence such a cloud exists at all.

Each year our knowledge of astronomy increases with new evidence concerning the origin of our solar system, our galaxy, and our universe. While it is possible to make assumptions beyond what can be observed and verified, the heavens continue to bear witness to recent creation."

I can't believe they mentioned observational evidence, or any kind of evidence for that matter.

Oh silly Creationists. And you wonder why they didn't let you hand out Science Degrees.

a link to icr.org if you're interested in more.

Trott Grilling

Today we went into cst advertising, looking for Dave Trott, and we found him. He gave us a proper grilling. We went away energized, hungry, and eager.

He sent me away with a souvenir. Sort of. A copy of "how to get your first job in advertising" with a quote written on one of the blank pages.

"You can have what you want, or you can have reasons for not having it."

I showed it to Lyn.

"No excuses, basically."

Yeah. That pretty much about sums it up.

No excuses for not having what you want.

No excuses for not doing what you need to do in order to get what you want.

No excuses for failing.

Right now what I want is a job.

Street Fighter 4 and job interview

Apparently the Street Fighter 4 arcade cabinet arrived in Trocadero London right after I left the UK. When I found out I was so disappointed because that meant I would have to wait a about one and a half month before I got to try it out.

Well today is that day. After all that waiting, the sight of two HD linked Street Fighter 4 cabinets felt like a dream. I had to mentally slap myself for a few seconds before I put down my coin to finally, finally try out the newest iteration of the seminal fighting series.

Nothing disappoints. Except maybe my own skill, but even then I played a lot better than I expected myself to play. I still couldn't pull off Ultras but boy did it feel good. Smooth as silk and controlling like a dream. Street Fighter 4 is the very pinnacle of 2D fighting games.

Maybe I'm still starstruck, but I spent quite a bit of cash (I'm not saying how much) in that arcade, and I left wanting more. This just makes that interview tomorrow that much more important.

Which brings me to this. Job interview. Tomorrow. Finally. Luck has smiled upon me and tomorrow is my first official book-crit. It's make it or break it. Lucky too. Second day in the UK my partner tells me he's got an appointment with Adam&Eve London tomorrow and has invited me along. I couldn't be happier.

Look at you, jw. 23 year old and gushing over Street Fighter. Hoping to land that jon/paid placement just so you can play more Street Fighter 4. How much lower can you sink?

Bastards. I shall not give in. Loving Street Fighter 4 is nothing to be ashamed about.

Tomorrow's the big day.

Now's the time for rest.

Air Asia X: London review (bring your books)

Perhaps the biggest failing of Air Asia X is that it does nothing to exceed expectations. Everything you've come to know(and hate) about Air Asia is present here in full force. Low price, rubbish service, ridiculously overpriced food labeled as "reasonable", somewhat uncomfortable seats, the whole package. For better or for worse.

For some people, the low price(if you are lucky enough to get it) is forgivable for everything else.

Take the rather expensive comfort kit for instance, which is just terrible. Consisting of an inflatable neck pillow and a blanket, my coat served as a better blanket, the back of my scalp a better pillow than the sorry excuse of a kit that is supposed to provide comfort.

Food, is of course, as previously stated, abhorrently expensive, but is passable. The Sri Melur Jaya Roti Jala they served gave me chuckles, for which the reason I know not. Just be sure to pre-book unless you don't mind getting the leftovers of the pre-bookers. Contrary to the in-flight menu and catalog, there doesn't seem to be any savings involved when you pre-book a meal, curiously.

While the subpar service other bollocks are permissible on a short distance flight under 4 or 5 hours, a 13 hour flight is a different beast entirely. Not to say that there isn't entertainment, just that it will cost you. Like everything else on the flight. The upside is that you can see in advance if the stuff provided is to your liking before you blow RM30 or so on a screen roughly the size of an average notebook.
If you're not planning to spend extra money, just be sure you bring a book or two. Your PSP or NDS will not last you 13 hours. That I guarantee.

another surprise for you.

Kevin Smith on Watchmen.

Reviews on the Watchmen are split half and half. Bloggers and fanboys generally love them, and snot-nosed-holier-than-thou mainstream journalists except Roger Ebert generally hate it.

I've always been a fan of Kevin Smith. Despite whatever people think of him these days. I think he's a great guy, has an impeccable ear for dialog,and always always tells interesting stories.

He's also a huge comic geek and it's no surprise he loves the Watchmen movie.

Here's a humongous 1hour35minute review/discussion/podcast he's done with 4 other guys on slashfilm.

I am starting to feel that he's mostly right about this movie, especially from the point of view of a fan.

Watchmen fans, be grateful. The movie is awesome, the original ending wouldn't have worked on screen anyway, and I'm going to see it again soon. This time without looking out for what they have cut etc.

note: this was not the thing that I forgot which I was going to write about. I'm still bummed about that. It's like an parasite eating at my brain, causing it to itch constantly. Man I hate that.

For the life of me

I can't remember what it was I wanted to write.

AGAIN.

4 more days

and I leave for the UK again. My friend over there has told me that shit is not good. Market getting worse.

Gloomy gloomy gloomy weather ahead. Dark clouds, thunderstorms, warts and all. Why am I going back there? Probably because I really wanted to work there. Even just for a little while. Just to say that I have(how naive). Also the pound is still 5 times stronger.

amazon.co.uk. 10 mbit internet speeds. None of this streamyx one mbit but not even that kind of cockery. Nice people. Weather is shit but everything else kind of makes up for it. Football matches. Humour. BBC.

Still, I give myself a maximum of 6 months. Come back after that. No point otherwise. Even though it's not like the market here is getting better anyway.

I have to be hopeful. Tomorrow is printing and tidying up portfolio day. 3am now. Sleep.

this made me smile today

And not just because I'm a fan either.