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Jul. 21st, 2007 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ru--I have books! Lots o' books, actually. My family went to our favorite local independent book store to pick up Harry Potter, and it turned into a book-buying binge. My personal stash was a gardening FAQ which looked to be about twelve kinds of cool (and also will be a big help with the vegetables, I think), and a book called "A Great and Terrible Beauty", which looks like it features visions and secret societies and magic and corsets and high tea all in Victorian England. And *then*, since my brother was on a hunt for a book in particular, we went to B&N, wherein I got several little classic books, including "The Secret Garden" and the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The thing about all this is the fact that it's not like I'm looking for something to read. I have about twelve thousand books on my reading list, and this only extends it. And yet I cannot resist. Does that make me a bibliophile? Hm.
--Lots of stuff's been happening garden-wise. One of the female pumpkin flowers is starting to show potential signs of being knocked up--the ovary underneath is getting awfully big. I'm hopeful that this means we'll have at least one pumpkin, but we'll see. I may go ahead out there and take a Q-tip to the flower anyway, just to make sure it's been completely fertilized.
--Apparently the squirrels like purslane. Dad said he saw a squirrel gnawing on its flowers this morning, so he brought it closer to the house in hopes of discouraging them. I didn't realize squirrels would go for purslane. Then again, I've heard tell that it's edible, so.
--Last night's Doctor Who reminded me of one of the reasons why I love the show so--even the minor characters are people you want to know more about. Despite the fact that I think I may be one of the last people to see "Gridlock", I'll go ahead and post further thoughts under the cut.
It amazes me how the writers are able to create a character that, despite the fact that you may only see them for a few moments, you want to know more about. "Gridlock" is a good example of this. Taking place 5 million years in the future on New Earth, it centers on the undercity of New New York, specifically the self-contained motorway. A virus killed the upper surface, and so to save the inhabitants of the undercity, the motorway's exits were sealed off, leaving the people (unknowingly) to drive in an endless circle in an equally endless gridlock, where it takes 6 years to travel ten miles (and that's only if you're in the fast lane). In the years that it's been like that, the motorists developed their own sort of society, where you can communicate with other cars (which are more like flying VW Van box vehicle things) that are on your friend's list, there are legends about things that live on the floor of the motorway, and they all have faith that they'll eventually get where they're going, even if it takes them half their lives.
At one point in the episode there's a sequence where the Doctor jumps down between cars, being the only way to travel downwards without suffocating from the exhaust fumes. In the process, he comes across people of all sorts who have converted their cars into their homes, and sort of reverted to who they would be if they weren't, you know, driving endlessly. It starts with Thomas Brennigan, a cat humanoid (cats have evolved since then) and his human wife, and their litter of kittens (kittens + Doctor, BTW, is one of the most adorable things in existence), and from there he travels through several cars, encountering a nudist couple, hippies, a pair of Asian girls, a prim man dressed in a business suit and bowler hat, and so on. Seeing all these different people, all in their self-contained worlds, I wondered about them--who they were, why they were driving, why they made up their cars the way they did, and so on.
A pair of characters that I found particularly intriguing were the Cassini Sisters, who are actually an old married couple (Thomas, however, is an old-fashioned cat and refers to them as sisters) that were one of the first people to enter the motorway, and have been driving ever since--twenty years. They made their car up to look like a really homey room, the kind your grandmother might have, and they have their own little hobbies. One of them, for instance, likes to keep track of the new cars that arrive on the motorway. A lot of questions popped into my head about them: Where were they trying to get to? When did they realize that it would take them years to get where they were going? How did they react? Obviously they adapted to their new life, but did they run into any strife getting to that point? What was it that Thomas did such that they don't care much for him anymore? They're questions I would've loved to have answered. I did, however, like their last scene, holding hands as they gratefully drove out of the motorway and into the sunlight.
One thing I can say about the episode, though--it makes the usual traffic crushes seem like skipping merrily across an empty street.
I also realized yesterday that when the opening theme comes on, I instinctively start grinning. I'm such a dork.
--Lots of stuff's been happening garden-wise. One of the female pumpkin flowers is starting to show potential signs of being knocked up--the ovary underneath is getting awfully big. I'm hopeful that this means we'll have at least one pumpkin, but we'll see. I may go ahead out there and take a Q-tip to the flower anyway, just to make sure it's been completely fertilized.
--Apparently the squirrels like purslane. Dad said he saw a squirrel gnawing on its flowers this morning, so he brought it closer to the house in hopes of discouraging them. I didn't realize squirrels would go for purslane. Then again, I've heard tell that it's edible, so.
--Last night's Doctor Who reminded me of one of the reasons why I love the show so--even the minor characters are people you want to know more about. Despite the fact that I think I may be one of the last people to see "Gridlock", I'll go ahead and post further thoughts under the cut.
It amazes me how the writers are able to create a character that, despite the fact that you may only see them for a few moments, you want to know more about. "Gridlock" is a good example of this. Taking place 5 million years in the future on New Earth, it centers on the undercity of New New York, specifically the self-contained motorway. A virus killed the upper surface, and so to save the inhabitants of the undercity, the motorway's exits were sealed off, leaving the people (unknowingly) to drive in an endless circle in an equally endless gridlock, where it takes 6 years to travel ten miles (and that's only if you're in the fast lane). In the years that it's been like that, the motorists developed their own sort of society, where you can communicate with other cars (which are more like flying VW Van box vehicle things) that are on your friend's list, there are legends about things that live on the floor of the motorway, and they all have faith that they'll eventually get where they're going, even if it takes them half their lives.
At one point in the episode there's a sequence where the Doctor jumps down between cars, being the only way to travel downwards without suffocating from the exhaust fumes. In the process, he comes across people of all sorts who have converted their cars into their homes, and sort of reverted to who they would be if they weren't, you know, driving endlessly. It starts with Thomas Brennigan, a cat humanoid (cats have evolved since then) and his human wife, and their litter of kittens (kittens + Doctor, BTW, is one of the most adorable things in existence), and from there he travels through several cars, encountering a nudist couple, hippies, a pair of Asian girls, a prim man dressed in a business suit and bowler hat, and so on. Seeing all these different people, all in their self-contained worlds, I wondered about them--who they were, why they were driving, why they made up their cars the way they did, and so on.
A pair of characters that I found particularly intriguing were the Cassini Sisters, who are actually an old married couple (Thomas, however, is an old-fashioned cat and refers to them as sisters) that were one of the first people to enter the motorway, and have been driving ever since--twenty years. They made their car up to look like a really homey room, the kind your grandmother might have, and they have their own little hobbies. One of them, for instance, likes to keep track of the new cars that arrive on the motorway. A lot of questions popped into my head about them: Where were they trying to get to? When did they realize that it would take them years to get where they were going? How did they react? Obviously they adapted to their new life, but did they run into any strife getting to that point? What was it that Thomas did such that they don't care much for him anymore? They're questions I would've loved to have answered. I did, however, like their last scene, holding hands as they gratefully drove out of the motorway and into the sunlight.
One thing I can say about the episode, though--it makes the usual traffic crushes seem like skipping merrily across an empty street.
I also realized yesterday that when the opening theme comes on, I instinctively start grinning. I'm such a dork.