Alden Bates' Weblog

So, it's less than a week until the American elections, and I'm currently wondering more who will be the next actor to step into the role of the Doctor than I am who will be the next US President. Because David Tennant has announced he's stepping down as of the end of next year.

That means for series five we'll have a new producer, new Doctor, and likely a new companion. That hasn't happened when the show's been an ongoing prospect since 1970, when Jon Pertwee took over. That's kinda scary.

OTOH, the Moff's a genius, so I'm sure he'll do well.

TSV 60 went live on the NZDWFC site last night. Originally printed in mid 2000, this issue features, amongst many other very good things, some stuff written by me. Primarily an article on Tetraps, which on reflection I should have waited until after the release of audio adventure "The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind", as it had a bunch more Tetrap lore in it (though I wrote a sequel article for TSV 63 anyway).

Interestingly this issue also has an article about the Doctor Who references in "Queer as Folk", one of the series Russell T Davies did before reviving Doctor Who. If you look at a QAF character list, you may notice that two of the protagonists of that series share last names with Rose Tyler and Martha Jones. Hmm. If crossover articles are your thing, there's also one called Star Wars Connections, which notes actors who've been in both Doctor Who and Star Wars.

This cartoon makes me snicker every time I see it.

Next up, TSV 61, which has one of my favourite TSV covers ever!

Previously: Doctor Who and the City of Death
See also: comments by Paul and Jamas.

I went hunting recently for a new mobile phone. For various reasons I wanted to switch from Vodafone to Telecom, as Vodafone's prepay plan was no longer suitable for my purposes. My primary condition of sale was that the phone had to be $200 or less - paying more for a cell phone is just excessive.

After checking out what phones Telecom had on offer, I checked out the online reviews (having been stung before) and only one phone in the price range I'd set had uniformly good reviews - the Sanyo SCP-3200. The only problem was that Telecom was only offering it in one colour: pink. I'm not a huge fan of pink.

I asked at the local Telecom shop and was told that Sanyo used to have it in black as well, but it had been discontinued. After visiting another four or five shops, I finally found a black one in the Noel Leemings in Queensgate, so I'm now the proud owner of a Sanyo SCP-3200!

The only thing remaining is to work out how to get my custom Doctor Who ringtone onto it. Reading the manual, I'm beginning to suspect that Telecom has neutered the bluetooth support so that it's only possible to load files on by paying for them off Telecom's site...

It's time for another edition of search engine mailbag!

simple instructions on how to build a working dalek

First take one Kaled mutant...

is andy lane a good guy to work with?

He seems like a nice enough chap...

are you sure this planet's meant to be here?

...

what next? suns?

Sure, why not?

is it safe to masturbate at 15?

... there's always the danger of blisters, I suppose.

i want to fuck nicola bryant

...

Um... Yeah, good luck with that.

Note to self: stop looking at search engine stats!