Waffle

This at American Digest is one of those articles that you need to know about in case you might need it later, especially if you do creative work that you might want to publish in print some day. The AD author reminisces about a book he worked on with writer Len Shatzkin, concerning stupid, crazy sales and marketing practices in the book publishing world. Reading it reminded me of a saying I read many years ago: "Before enlightenment, sweep floors. After enlightenment, sweep floors."

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Look at today's Liliane, Bi-Dyke:

One of the props Liliane is holding is Linda and Stern's King and King! Linda de Haan works practically right next door to me and I've mentioned the controversy in the US about King and King before, in the very early days of this blog. It's always nice to see them get props.

This month's freebie from the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan archive at Modern Tales is The Weakest Lunkhead from 2001. It references The Weakest Link just like next week's Who episode (confirmed in the trailer that was broadcast yesterday).
Speaking of Who, the Filler storyline in which he made an appearance still hasn't been cleaned off the ROCR site, but I may do so any moment now. Take a look before it disappears behind the subscription wall.

... there is one.

A very uneven episode otherwise, but it's not often that Deus Ex Machina is more than just a way of resolving a plot withing 45 minutes.

I am no fan of the Slitheen, but in "Boom Town", the one remaining member of the family was a bit more effective than the ones that we say in "Aliens of London"/"World War 3".
Also, I don't think they're quite as naff as they've been made out to be in the fan community. Doctor Who caters to the general public, not just the rabid fans, and if, as I read somewhere, kids in British schoolyards are playing Slitheen by pretending to zip their heads open, then that's mission accomplished as far as the producers are concerned.

One Slitheen, like one Dalek, is more interesting, though, than a whole pack of them, and "Margaret Blaine" got some good psychology in. Like the Dalek, she got to argue her side of the story, painting the Doctor as no better than her. Unlike the Dalek, she remained a deceptive manipulator right until the end. Then again, as the trailer for next week indicates, maybe that was also true for the Dalek. I do fear that next week's episode will turn out to be a bit rubbish. It looks like all the speculation about "Anne Droid" and the Reality TV stuff was true, which could make for a very naff 45 minutes, Daleks or no Daleks. Or maybe not.

But oh, for that God in the Machine. Don't worship it, you'd never get a day off.

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One more in the build-your-own-Dalek series: living_yen at the Livejournal New Who community has spent her afternoon playing Davros, building Daleks out of goo, chocolate and English Licorice Allsorts. I could do without the latter, but two out of three still looks pretty tasty. I'm sure someone will come up with a recipe that doesn't include the yucky candy.

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... Any of you who are waiting for comics hosted by the Webhost Currently Known as Keenspace But Soon To Be Known As Something Else: don't wait up. With over 6500 comics still in the updater queue as I type this, it could be a while before everything updates.
The new Courtly Manners is available in a few other places: why not go to the Webcomicsnation mirror to help test that a little?

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