I had a pretty awesome time tonight, which was a nice counter balance to this morning (which I will get to presently). Tonight I was hanging out at my usual Thursday night thing, singing at my local open mike night. I had just finished a two song set on guitar, and then the MC says, "Next up, Joey wants to sing a song..." It turns out that Joey was none other than Joey Fatone, whom you might remember from NSYNC. He's a nice guy, and also my celebrity stalker (not that he knows me from Adam) -- he keeps showing up at places where I am at. So anyway, I'm glad I didn't know he was there until after I finished singing. I probably would have choked. Or, worse, attempted an acoustic cover of Bye Bye Bye.

The other big thing that happened this evening was that my housing development was completely closed off by the police for several hours. Turns out that a guy (who will surely be nominated for Father of the Year) left his car running with his four-year-old daughter in the back seat while he ran inside a local pawn shop, and while he was inside another guy decided to steal the car without realizing there was a kid inside. As soon as he realized that he was a kidnapper on top of being a car thief, he ditched the car in my neighborhood with the kid still inside. The child is fine, btw, although I bet her mother isn't very impressed. So anyway, the police sealed off the entire area while the searched for the suspect. There were police cars everywhere, helicopters, news vans, the whole deal. Big excitement. As far as I know, they never caught the guy. I bet dad gets cited for reckless endangerment of a child, though.

As for my morning, I only have two things to say about it. So let's get to it.

The Twin Dilemma - Parts 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Thing One: I forgot to mention yesterday that they changed the opening and closing credits sequence with the new Doctor. More precisely, they made it much, much worse. I didn't like it the last time it changed, from the classic time tunnel to the newer star field, but it was a sensible change and it grew on me pretty rapidly. This change, however, is not that kind of a switch. All they did was take the Fifth Doctor era credits, which were very clean, and added a hazy kaleidoscope filter over the top so there is a rainbow of fuzziness all around. Then they altered the logo, not be creating a new one but by taking the Fifth Doctor neon tube logo and distorting it into a curve and adding a hazy rainbow of fuzziness around it as well. They basically took a very clean and effective opening sequence, and made it look like you are watching the whole thing through smudged glasses with a light shining in your face. And speaking of faces, they didn't just replace Peter Davison's face with Colin Baker's face in a static image, no. The replaced it with a sequence of Colin Baker face images so that he starts out semi-serious and then breaks into a stupid grin. The whole thing is awful and I hate it.

Speaking of hating it, there is the remainder of the story. The Doctor mellows out somewhat in that his manic destructive episodes happen less frequently, but he continues to be completely lacking in the moral core that was at the center of every other incarnation. Then at the very end of the story, after the poor-man's Jabba is defeated, the Doctor gives a speech to Peri that is clearly meant to be the writers addressing the audience directly. He tells Peri that he is an alien, that he can't be expected to abide by the same morals and niceties that she expects as a human. Then he says, and I quote, "I would suggest, Peri, that you wait a little before criticizing my new persona. You may well find it isn't quite as disagreeable as you think. Whatever else happens, I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not."

Well, guess what: I don't like it. Neither did the audience. Neither did the executives at the BBC. That's why the show got put on hiatus after a single season of the Sixth Doctor, and that's why he got booted after his second. I have to stress that this was not Colin Baker's fault, he acted the part that he was given and he has been a fantastic ambassador of the show ever since, but the writing decision to make the Doctor cold and alien was a bad one. And one that would be repeated, for some reason, with the Twelfth Doctor. I presume that when the Eighteenth Doctor rolls around he will be a raging prick as well.

I said it yesterday, and I will say it again: It is going to be a long three weeks to get through this.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Sixth
Companion(s): Peri
Episode(s): The Twin Dilemma - Parts 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 7,742 today, 2,218,491 total
Distance Walked: 4.40 miles today, 1,140.86 miles total
Weight: 246.76 lbs (five day moving average), net change -60.54 lbs