Vive la différence

So, you think men and women are different?

Well, there's a neuroscientist in Birmingham (the one on England, not the one in Alabama) that says there are no difference between the brains of men and women.

"The bottom line is that saying there are differences in male and female brains is just not true. There is pretty compelling evidence that any differences are tiny and are the result of environment not biology," said Prof Rippon.

Oh, that's Professor Gina Rippon.

Sounds just like a woman, doesn't it. She says that it's environment, not biology that makes the sexes different.

That's right. She says sex doesn't make a difference.

I'm thinking she's not doing it right. Or nearly enough.

Classic Doctor Who Season 11

I've been watching classic Doctor Who episodes. I began with the first season from 1963, and am now in the eleventh season from 1974 (mostly).

Season Eleven was 26 episodes comprising 5 serials. It featured a new opening sequence, highlighted by the classic Doctor Who diamond-shaped logo. It also introduced Sarah Jane Smith, who was with The Doctor for four seasons, the longest of any companion so far.

The first serial of the season, The Time Warrior (4 episodes), introduced the Sontarans, and featured another appearance by Boba Fett. Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett in the original Star Wars movies, made his second Doctor Who appearance. He had previously appeared in The Space Museum from Season Two. The serial also gives The Doctor's home planet a name: Gallifrey.

The second serial, Invasion of the Dinosaurs (6 episodes), had an interesting idea in that dinosaurs were brought forward in time to the present day (1970s) and then returned, wreaking havoc in between. I think they stole this idea from Primeval by taking the TARDIS into the future and bringing the idea back to 1973. The Doctor should be ashamed of himself.

A little shame should also be heaped upon the special effects department for that serial. The dinosaur effects made Godzilla (1954) look like Jurassic Park. Barney is a more convincing dinosaur than what was done for that serial. And, in a change of recent storyline pattern, the eco-warriors were the bad guys, intent on destroying life on Earth. They did excuse them as misguided, with their hearts in the right place, though. Those wacky Brits.

A couple of old villains appeared in Season 11. The Daleks made an appearance in Death to the Daleks (4 episodes). That serial was unusual in that, for some of the time, there was an uneasy truce between The Doctor and the Daleks as they combined forces to restore power to their respective ships. At the end, of course, the Daleks are the bad guys, and as usual, are defeated. The other return villains, the Ice Warriors appear in The Monster of Peladon (6 episodes).

The season ended with the 6-episode Planet of the Spiders. I don't like spiders. The second episode of the serial could have been called "Who. Doctor Who." because of the extended chase scene involving a car, a hover craft, a flying car, a helicopter, and a speed boat. I could almost hear Paul McCartney playing Live and Let Die during it.

The spider effects were actually pretty good. Well, not bad. Certainly better than the dinosaurs. But some of the other effects in the serial were pretty bad. 1980 Flash Gordon bad.

The main event in the serial, apart from saving the universe again, is the death of The Doctor. He was regenerated -- the first time it was called that; the transition from the First Doctor to the Second Doctor was called "renewal" -- into the Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker.

The Tom Baker episodes were the first Doctor Who episodes I ever saw, on PBS back in the 1970s. And, now I'm caught up to then. Well, nearly.

Season 12 looms large. To the TARDIS, to land on Earth in 1974!

Wake up to bacon

Did ya hear about the new app and iPhone dongle from Oscar Mayer?

It's an alarm clark app that runs on your iPhone. And when the alarm sounds, it sounds like bacon. And, looks like bacon.



And ... and here's the best part ... it smells like bacon. If, and that's a big if, you have the dongle. It plugs into your iPhone and, when the alarm sounds, emits the aroma of bacon. So you can wake to the sight, sound, and smell of bacon.

Here's the problem: you can't buy one. You have to register to win one at an Oscar Mayer Website. I entered. Didn't win. Entered again. Still didn't win. Maybe they've given them all away. Or maybe I'm just not lucky enough to win one.

But, if you have one, I'd love to hear about it. Does it really work? I assume it does, but since I don't know anyone who has one, I've not heard first-hand about it.

Wait a minute. Suppose they don't have any, and never had any? What if every entry gets the same response: Sorry, you didn't win. I mean, what if it's a scam? They're getting news coverage about it, stupid bloggers are going to their Website and registering and then writing up about it so that others can go to the Website...

Um.

I think I'll just go eat some bacon. Which is really what they wanted all along. But that's okay. It's what I want too.

Ellen

Then world has turned upside down. I'm having to take sides with Ellen Degeneres.

I remember when she was an up and coming comedian (comedienne?), and thought she was okay. She was no Jeff Dunham, but she was alright. But I never thought she was more than alright.

When she got her own TV show back in the '90s, I checked it out, but didn't stay with it. It was a sitcom called "These Friends of Mine" and her character worked at a book store. I think she later bought it and they re-titled the show "Ellen" but I had stopped watching it by then; it wasn't that good of a show.

And, that's the show where she came out. Apparently, viewers of the show were the last people on Earth to know she was a homosexual. I mean, it really was kinda obvious, right? So, why it was a big deal at the time, I still don't understand.

Anyway, she's now the poster boy (so to speak) for lesbians or gays or something. And, she's the 2010s version of Billy Crystal or Johnny Carson, in that she's the go-to guy (so to speak) for the Academy Awards.

From what I can tell, it seems the Academy Awards had a TV special recently where they gave out this year's Oscars. It wasn't on Hulu Plus or Amazon Prime, so I didn't see it. But, I read about it. And, I read that a bunch of people were getting their panties in a wad over some joke Ellen told.

Now, as I said, she's a comedian of moderate talent, and some jokes work, and some jokes don't. Here's the one that people didn't like the most.

“Hello to the best Liza Minnelli impersonator I’ve ever seen,” she said — to Minnelli herself. “Good job, sir.”

Now, that's funny. There are a lot of Liza Minnelli impersonators out there. More than there are Judy Garland impersonators (go figure). Or Elvis. And, most of them are men.

But some people are getting all hot and bothered by it, calling Ellen transphobic (whatever the heck that is) and mean (what?). (Tip: Chicks on the Right)

For Pete's sake, it was a joke. Not a great joke, but a good one. But I am angry about it.

I'm having to defend Ellen Degeneres. That's how nuts the Politically Correct crowd is. In case you didn't already know.

Voting for Obama proved that

Some Website called VoucherCloud did a study recently, and it showed Americans don't know stuff.

Now, I didn't need some coupon-aggregator Website to do a study to tell me that. I've met a lot of Americans. Related to several. Am one. I know Americans, and I know a lot of them are stupid. There's no other reason than stupid that explains how Obama got elected. And that the stupid is a long-term condition is proven by Obama getting elected twice.

Okay, back to the study. It seems that 11% of Americans think HTML is a sexually transmitted disease. And, the study showed some other things, too:

• 27% identified "gigabyte" as an insect commonly found in South America. A gigabyte is a measurement unit for the storage capacity of an electronic device.
• 42% said they believed a "motherboard" was "the deck of a cruise ship." A motherboard is usually a circuit board that holds many of the key components of a computer.
• 23% thought an "MP3" was a "Star Wars" robot. It is actually an audio file.
• 18% identified "Blu-ray" as a marine animal. It is a disc format typically used to store high-definition videos.
• 15% said they believed "software" is comfortable clothing. Software is a general term for computer programs.

Yes, I sit here and laugh. But, is it really a laughing matter? Shouldn't we try to help these poor people?

No. We need to laugh at them. Just like when you see a car with an Obama sticker, you point and laugh.

Guys are guys

Saw this on the Facebook. And, I know the lady in the picture. And her daughter.



Lisa had just completed a 5K, and posted this pic of herself after the run.

But did you notice it? A friend of her daughter did, and sent this text:

<< Hey, look at this.
>> What
<< All those guys checking your mom out

Guys. What can I say. We're guys.

I don't understand why you ladies put up with us like you do, but I'm glad you do. Thanks, ladies. Thanks.

Classic Doctor Who Season 10

The Three Doctors

Season Ten of Doctor Who, the classic series before the recent resurrection of the series, featured something that must have been a delight to fans of the show: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee all appearing together.

Well, "together" isn't exactly right. Let me explain.

Season Ten, consisting of 26 episodes comprising five serials, began with an attack on time itself. And, the plot line called for the Time Lords not being able to spare resources to help The Doctor. So, they sent The Doctor. And when The Doctor and The Doctor didn't get along, they called on The Doctor to help.

I don't think I explained that very well. Except that's exactly what happened. Through some Time Lord mumbo jumbo, they managed to pull the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) into the time stream of the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), so they could combine forces and battle Omega, who's a Time Lord gone mad. Or rogue. There seems to be a lot of them.

Anyway, The Doctor (3.0) and The Doctor (2.0) don't get along, so they bring The Doctor (1.0) to keep them in line. After all, he was the mature one. He wasn't impressed with his third or second incarnations, calling them "a dandy and a clown." Due to William Hartnell's health, he was only able to appear in studio, communicating via video screen with the other Doctors. Regardless, it was great to see William Hartnell in action again.

Hartnell's appearances in the serial were his last role of any kind, not just in Doctor Who. The episodes were filmed in late 1972, and aired beginning just before New Year's, and ran into late January 1973. Hartnell's health continued to decline, and he was hospitalized in December 1974, and died in April of 1975.

At the end of The Three Doctors (4 episodes), the Time Lords removed the sentence of exile from The Doctor, allowing him to use the TARDIS as before. He made some trips with Jo, but returned to Earth, no longer unable to control the TARDIS. He did experience some issues with landing where he expected, but it wasn't the completely lost in time and space situation from the first six seasons.

Being a Time Lord can
sometimes be a drag

The Master returned in Frontier in Space (6 episodes). It was Roger Delgado's last appearance on Doctor Who. He died around three months after the episode aired while filming a movie in Turkey. Pertwee and Delgado were close friends, and Delgado's death was one of the reasons that contributed to Pertwee's decision to leave the role of The Doctor after the next season.

The Daleks returned at the end of that serial, and followed as the primary antagonist in the next serial, Planet of the Daleks (6 episodes). That serial was could be considered a sequel to Season One's The Daleks, the second Doctor Who serial, and the one that introduced those characters. In Planet of the Daleks, The Doctor encounters Thals, who are still battling the Daleks after all these years.

The season ended with the departure of companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning) after she married a hippie environmentalist professor. The serial, The Green Death (6 episodes) was a typical 1970s environmentalist piece. It was typical leftist promotion, with a giant chemical company actively working to poison the planet. The episode also featured a scene of The Doctor in drag. Those wacky Brits.

I've enjoyed Jon Pertwee's time as The Doctor, especially since he's able to cross time and space again. He had one more season in the role before turning it over to Tom Baker. I'm looking forward to seeing Pertwee's last season. Not to say farewell to him, but to see him as The Doctor some more. As long as he's in space and not doing more left-wing hippie stuff.