Month: June 2006

The BBC has announced that in November, the 1968 Doctor Who story “The Invasion” will be released on DVD – including fully-animated recreations of two missing episodes.

For those of you who are unaware, 108 of the 253 episodes produced during the first 6 years of the show have been lost, erased and discarded by the BBC in the 1960s and 1970s for space-saving reasons. (This was in the days before commercial video releases….and at the time, the BBC didn’t do re-runs, either, so they saw no reason to keep the episodes around.) Luckily, audio for all of the missing episodes exist — often taped off-air by fans.

Using that audio, the missing two episodes of the classic 8-part Cyberman story will be animated by Cosgrove Hall, the production company that did Dangermouse and the one-shot Richard E. Grant “Ninth Doctor” animated webisodes, Scream of the Shalka.

A 20-second preview of the animated “Invasion” (in Real Video format — sorry!) is available here.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who recently wrote a piece in Rolling Stone, pointing out the irregularities of the 2004 election, says in an interview with PR Week that he’ll be bringing lawsuits against as-yet undisclosed defendants, noting that many of the “same people” involved in suspicious activities in 2004 are “up to the same shenanigans” with respect to upcoming elections.

In the Rolling Stone article, Kennedy said that he has “become convinced that the president’s party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004.” He now says that he’s meeting with lawyers to devise a “litigation strategy” to address the problems raised in his article. “And I would say very soon we’ll be announcing lawsuits against some of the individuals and companies involved.”

It’s got a Kennedy name attached to it, so perhaps the lawsuits will be enough to draw the attention of the mainstream media, which could get the awareness of the Republican voter-supression and subversion tactics out there before the 2006 mid-terms….

…but I’m not going to hold my breath. The American people have clearly communicated that screwing around with not one, but two Presidential elections could be done without reprisals. Why would they bother to get incensed about a mid-term?

Nothing is going to get us into the streets. Nothing.

Friday: and I finally went to Best Buy and replaced our dead TV. We purchased this:

It’s pretty nifty. A 30-inch widescreen from LG Electronics. HDTV-ready, if we ever decide to upgrade, but in the meantime, it makes DVDs look great.

We also went ahead and got my birthday present: An XBox. Now that the 360 is out, you can get the “old-school” version cheaply, so we did. Grabbed a few games as well, from a used-game place downtown: HALO, Jade Empire, Crimson Skies, Ghost Recon, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, True Crime: Streets of L.A. and FIFA Soccer 2004. There are tons of older XBox games out there which I’m interested in getting, so I should be in gaming goodness for quite some time, without the need to upgrade to the $400 “new hotness” that is the 360.

Saturday: Ran errands, played the aforementioned XBox, and then headed out to the “De-Frag” party for the Safety staff of Heartland. Couldn’t drink at all, due to taking Cipro and Tramadol for the sinus infection. Discovered that my tolerance of some folks, minus the socially-lubricating presence of alcohol, is somewhat lower than I thought it was. Greatly enjoyed spending time with friends.

Sunday: Breakfast with ‘s parents, for Father’s Day, followed by having folks over for “Geek Salon:” Watching of movies, chatting about stuff, nibbling of nosh, and grilling out. The presence of friends, and the great time that resulted, was a nice distraction from the fact that I didn’t get a Father’s Day call from the two of my kids who live with the Ex. :(