The kids born to these people are going to be so lucky. (Via io9 and geekologie)

I’ve been reading Dick Francis. I’ve going full speed ahead for so long that I hadn’t had time to read at all, I doubt I’ve read a novel in the past three years, but two nights ago, I looked at the list on my iPad and there was a Francis and I read it. Then I bought another and read it. In the past three nights, I’ve read six, four I’d read before and two new ones. I read them entirely for pleasure, but while I was reading, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, Why? I don’t care at all about racing, jockeys, all the stuff he’s expert in. I appreciate his expertise, his authority-in-the-text is absolute, but I’m sure as hell not reading for the horses. His heroes are impossibly strong men who can and do withstand tortuous pain to defeat evil, and they’re completely interchangeable, the Francis Guy. (Yes, I know I write the Crusie Girl. What’s your point?) I’ve been thinking about it for three days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the men or the pain–I like the one and abhor the other–it’s the evil. Dick Francis writes a great Psycho Bastard. Continue reading →

A new Doctor, a new threat, and Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. Here’s a great way to change your protagonist: same guy, different body (not ginger). I was very resistant to any change from the Eccleston doctor, but Tennant is equally fantastic, and this is a great introduction to his interpretation of the character which is wildly different and yet still that touch of delighted mania that Eccleston had.

Bring Kleenex.

The 25th of May is a glorious day, a two-fer for lovers of great literature and even better writers.
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It’s Tap Dance Day. What’s new, Twinkletoes?
(Also the day to wear the lilac and remember your towel, but that’s the next post.)

Loren Sherman has a Gallifreyan translator you can download on this site.
So this . . .

. . . is “Nothng but good times ahead” in Gallifreyan. It makes me unreasonably happy to see what looks like a puppy face in there, too.

Andry “Shango” Rajoelina did a whole series of these on his blog. My fave? Wonder Woman, of course, and not just because of that fab golden jump rope.
Found through io9.

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“Boomtown” is a reward moment for faithful viewers, bringing back people we know in a character-driven script. It doesn’t have the emotional impact of “The Doctor Dances” or the big explosions of “WW3,” it just pits a lot of people who know each other and who have been through a lot together against a smart enemy they’ve fought before, and then fights that fight all over again, this time with trickery and finesse instead of blowing up 10 Downing Street. There’s a great deal of pleasure in watching characters we love do what they do beautifully, and the episode, sandwiched between two epic two-parters, is that small, quiet moment before the Big Finish, a chance for viewers to rest before going to war in “Bad Wolf.” There are more very very close shots of characters in this show than in any other in the series; the camera practically goes up their noses. It’s not one of the Great Who Episodes, but it’s a wonderful example of that (comparatively) still moment in any narrative before everything goes all pear-shaped.