Ramblin' Rosen

No, the title of the post isn’t an episode name from the new series of Doctor Who. Instead, it’s the name of a very clever iPod/Dalek wallpaper on iPodlounge. If you’re a fan of iPods, Daleks or both, be sure to check it out.

[Link from Doctor Who - Thrilling Adventures in Time and Space]

As most Doctor Who fans will already have heard, the Daleks will not be in the first series of the new Doctor Who because of breakdowns in negotiations with Terry Nation’s estate. (For those who don’t know, the late Terry Nation was the creator of the Daleks and his estate shares the rights to their use with the BBC.) Needless to say, loads of people, including myself, are disappointed in this announcement.

There’s been loads of speculation among fans as to how this will affect the new series, especially in its perception by the general public. Will the lack of Daleks turn off a non-Whovian from checking out the new series? After all, the Daleks are the most famous of Who monsters, and are a cultural icon in their own right. Does Doctor Who need the Daleks to succeed?

In my opinion, no. Doctor Who does not need the Daleks. Their lack may hurt the series a bit, especially as a Dalek episode would almost guarantee good ratings, but I think most people who were going to watch the new show will do so anyway, even without Daleks. After all, Doctor Who is more than just the Daleks, and people will still be looking forward to the new monsters a new series will bring, as well as any other old monsters that are revisited. Plus representatives of the BBC have stated that they will try renegotiating for their use in the second series, which is good news both for the Daleks and Doctor Who in general, as it indicates that the BBC is seriously considering a second series even before the first one has started filming.

For those who can’t wait until the second series for a possible reappearance of the Daleks, in the meanwhile check out the one-act play The Daleks Buy a Hotdog by Matt McIrvin.

The forthcoming new Doctor Who series is starting to get publicity in the strangest places. It’s been put in the ‘hot’ category of the latest coolest things in the August issue of Marie Claire’s UK edition (on page 137), along with the hip-hop group Goldie Lookin Chain and an egg-shaped mini fridge.

For those outside of the UK who cannot read the blurb for itself, here’s what MC has to say about the new series:

Tardis times

We didn’t expect to be excited by Daleks and timelords, but Christopher Eccleston and Bille Piper make the new Doctor Who a must-see.

It’s weird to think of Doctor Who as cool again, something it hasn’t been since the Dalekmania of the 60s. When I was in the US, it was more underground and seen as nerdy by those who had actually heard of it. In the UK, it’s perceived as something that people watched as children. Loads of people remember fondly, although the 80s period is often scoffed by people too old to have watched it as a child, and many have fond memories of watching it behind the sofa. My husband to this day still has an irrational fear of Cybermen. Still, most people probably wouldn’t call it cool, per se.

Publicity like the mention in MC can only be good for the new series. If it is to succeed, it has to appeal both to veteran Whovians and the mainstream public. Being perceived as cool once again means that the mainstream will definitely check out at least the first episode and hopefully they will want to stay and watch the rest.

As I mentioned in my previous post on World Parrot Day, we bought the Pollyvision—Strictly for Parrots DVD, the first ever DVD created for pet birds. I’ve now shown it to our two cockatiels Fred and Vic twice, so I felt ready to write a review of it.

We showed it to the boys on a 14″ TV, not a flatscreen TV as recommended, as we don’t have one. I wanted to show it to them on the computer, since a monitor has a higher refresh rate than a TV, but the DVD crashed my computer. I don’t want to blame it on the DVD, since my DVD-ROM drive has been known to have troubles with discs before, both DVD and CD. Because I couldn’t view it on my computer, I couldn’t make any screenshots, and the image above is originally from the World Parrot Trust Online Store.

Overall, the DVD played fine on the DVD player, except I noticed that some parts of it seemed highly compressed, or at least it looked like it was dropping frames, as the movement in parts was very jerky and jumped about a bit. I don’t know if just my copy has troubles or if it is just how the DVD was mastered, and I suspect that these problems may have contributed to the problems I had with playing it on my computer.

In general, however, the DVD looked really good, considering that for the most part the sources are video and not film, and our birds didn’t seem to notice any weirdness. It’s a great opportunity to watch various wild parrots in action. The parrots featured come from all over the world and the DVD is divided into sections either by geography (e.g., Australia) or type of bird (e.g., African grey). The menu allows the viewer either to select the individual section or watch the whole thing. If the whole thing is selected, the video automatically loops, so that owners can leave it playing for their birds while they are out for the day. I’m not sure what happens when an individual section is selected, as the remote control for our bedroom DVD is broken, and I can’t navigate through the menu without it.

Now for the most important part—what do the birds think? Both Fred and Vic seemed to enjoy it a lot, and they were tweeting along with the birds on TV. It made Fred hyper—not that that’s hard to do—but hyper in a happy way, not an aggressive or angry way. They didn’t react too much when the cockatiels were on screen, but the wild tiels were only on for a few minutes and did not make any sounds. As the boys seemed to react more to the sounds than the images, this could explain why the tiels weren’t as captivating as they might have been. In general, Fred and Vic didn’t ignore the images, but they tended to look at them more right after hearing interesting sounds.

All in all, the DVD is well worth the money for people with pet parrots, since it’s only £9.95 from the World Parrot Trust Online Store and all the profits go to parrot conservation and welfare. I know that both the birds and the humans in this household will enjoy this DVD for many years to come, and if they release a sequel, we’ll be sure to get it.

As any cat lover knows, cats can sleep in the funniest positions, and The Moggy Horde’s Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics is a page I discovered today that is set up to celebrate the suppleness of the slumbering feline form. I know I’ve seen cats of mine in similar positions at one time or another, and I’m going to see if I have any suitable pictures of Pussolini to enter into the Olympics. If one gets accepted, I’ll be sure to mention it here first.

After I went to this page, I noticed that it’s part of Christy Marx’s website, and I wondered why that name was so familiar to me. I finally placed it when I went to the page on her writing and realised she was the main creator behind the 80’s animated series Jem, which I’ve recently been rewatching for the first time in years on the DVD set that just came out. Jem was definitely one of the better cartoons of its time period and was in many ways an American mahou shoujo ("magical girl") show, though I doubt it was directly influenced by mahou shoujo anime, as it would have been relatively obscure at the time in the US, even among anime fans.

So now I have one more reason to admire Christy Marx—not only did she create one of the great cartoons of the 80’s, but she also loves cats. Let’s all give her one Truly Outrageous meow!

Today Tony and I went to the World Parrot Day main event at Trafalgar Square. World Parrot Day was held for two reasons: to gain support for banning importation of wild-caught parrots into the EU and to help people understand more clearly the responsibilities of owning a parrot. Along with allowing people to meet various parrots, mainly macaws, signatures for a petition to ban parrot importing were collected, and the petition was delivered to 10 Downing Street. We didn’t get to go in 10 Downing Street ourselves, but we watched as Quentin Blake, a man dressed as Superparrot, a real parrot and a few other people went in.

We took photos of the event—click Superparrot below if you want to see them.

Also, we bought Pollyvision, a DVD of parrots in the wild for parrots in our homes. Fred and Vic, our two cockatiels, seemed to really enjoy it. I’ll post a full review of it later after we’ve shown it to the boys a few more times.

Apparently we were on ITV London News, but we missed it the times it was on, and their website seems to be down at the moment, so I can’t link to it. If anyone saw anything about World Parrot Day on TV or on any websites, please tell me about it and give a link if there is one.

I just found out today that Anthony Ainley died last week. For those who do not know his name, he was the second actor to play the Master on a regular basis in Doctor Who. For me, he was the first face I associated with the Master (other than the decayed version of the character who appeared in the Deadly Assassin), and I am very sad to hear about his death. Although he was often directed to play the role a bit too much over the top, he was overall very convincing as the Master, and when I was younger and had yet to see the Jon Pertwee era, he was the Master to me.

Outpost Gallifrey has more information about his death, along with a very good tribute to him.

For those of us who love Doctor Who, he will not soon be forgotten.

Today my husband and I watched the DVD Microcosmos, a nature documentary film on insects. I’d originally found the DVD in a bargain bin at Virgin for a fiver, so I wasn’t expecting much, but the packaging made it sound interesting, as it is filmed with Macrovision and is from the bug’s point of view.

Unlike most documentaries, this one only had short voice-overs at the beginning and the end, and the rest just consisted of the sounds of the bugs and music. The results were extroardinary—it really made me feel a part of the insects’ world and I became involved in all aspects of their lives, including birth (technically, hatching), sex and death.

I do not want to go into too many details about specific scenes, as most of the joy in watching it is discovering it for yourself, but I highly recommend it for anyone who loves nature or wonderful cinematography. Unfortunately it appears to be out of print in some countries, but it’s available in the UK for under �6 from the usual online stores. Also, I noticed a lovely two-disc collector’s edition is coming out soon in France with loads of extras, unfortunately all in French, but if you know French, it looks like it could be well worth it.