Yesterday I put off using the treadmill pretty much all day, until after 9pm. I felt fat and bloated, and weighed in a full six pounds heavier than the morning before. Today I bounced out of bed and hit the treadmill early in the day, and weighed in back in range with recent history. The moral of the story is, don't put off my workout. It doesn't work out. Better yet, today my wife bought me some new shorts with a 40" waist. When I started this project I was wearing a 46. I can't remember the last time I wore 40's. I do remember that in high school (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth) I wore a 38. The new shorts? They fit perfectly. How cool is that?

I also started a new Doctor Who story today, and it's a good one. Let's talk about that.

The Face of Evil - Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The story opens with the Tribe of Sevateem banishing Leela for heresy, not adhering to the dogmatic teachings of the tribe. The odd thing is that, although the tribe dresses and behaves like stone age humans, there are obvious bits of technology lying around such as a pilot's chair being used as a throne and various mechanical bits and bobs used as jewelry and other adornment. Shortly thereafter the Doctor arrives in the TARDIS and encounters Leela, who immediately recognizes him as "The Evil One". He tries to convince her otherwise by offering her a Jelly Baby, to which she replies in horror "The say the Evil One eats babies..."  By the end of the first episode Leela takes the Doctor to see his own giant face carved into the rock wall of a giant cliff, similar in scale to the faces on Mount Rushmore.

By the end of the second episode the Doctor has figured out that the members of the Tribe of Sevateem are actually descendants of an off-world expedition (the phrase "Survey Team" having long ago devolved to "Sevateem"), and that he himself must have been involved somehow long ago. There is still live technology, and a communication signal from the "god" Xoanon who speaks in the Doctor's own voice. The end of the episode has the Doctor and Leela climbing into the mouth of the giant sculpture of the Doctor's face, searching for the origin of the signal while giant floating energy ghosts shaped like the Doctor's head are attacking the village.

The most interesting thing about Leela as a companion is her utter ruthlessness. She is a warrior first and foremost, and does not hesitate to kill in order to defend herself. She is certainly not a screaming damsel in distress like most of the classic female companions, but she is also unlike previous companion Sarah Jane Smith in every regard. Where Sarah Jane was demure and conservative in dress, Leela wears leathers with copious amounts of skin on display. Where Sarah Jane was educated and thoughtful in her actions, Leela operates primarily on instinct. The one attribute they share is that both are inquisitive and eager to learn new things. It is this trait that draws the Doctor to Leela despite his frustration with her more bloodthirsty impulses.

It is also true that I first encountered Leela as a young man just entering puberty, and that I liked her a lot as a companion back then. I didn't spend much time thinking about her inquisitive nature, I spent most of my time thinking about her more visible attributes.

Seriously, what hetero teenage boy wouldn't be into this?

Watching this episode this morning reminded me of something that happened a few years ago when my wife and I took a trip to Great Britain (we visited England, Scotland, and Wales but not Northern Ireland, so technically we did not visit the United Kingdom). One afternoon while we were in London I visited a local comic shop, and they also had a variety of old Target novelizations of the classic Doctor Who stories. I wound up picking up copies of Galaxy 4 and The Face of Evil.

This one. It's still on my bookshelf.

I brought my new treasures up to the cash register to pay, and then when the shop keeper gave me the total I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of change that had accumulated since we had been in England. I was pretty certain I had enough, but for whatever reason as I stood there looking at the coins in my hand I couldn't tell them apart. For the life of me I couldn't tell the One Pound coins from the Two Pence or Five Pence or whatever. The shop keeper looked at me, and then simply said, "Oh, are you having trouble with our currency?" He said it nicely, but I felt like slow child asking an adult "Is this many enough...?" He took pity on me and fished out the correct exact change from my hand, saying cheerfully "There you go, sir, all sorted." I thanked him politely and then fled the store, hiding my face in embarrassment. After that day I stuck to paper money, and just traded in all my coinage for American cash at the airport on the way out of the country.

I'm a moron.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Leela
Episode(s): The Face of Evil - Parts 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,264 today, 1,511,941 total
Distance Walked: 3.75 miles today, 752.32 miles total
Weight: 258.44 lbs (five day moving average), net change -48.86 lbs