On budget laptops, new games and the joy of decades-old television serials

I just came in from school (after a fairly hefty delay due to one of the main roads being closed) to find my Eee PC waiting for me. I'm just going to get something to eat and then set it up. More later.


It all seems very impressive so far but I've been running into some trouble while trying to connect to the wireless network. I've double-checked the password and the settings but it just doesn't do anything. Curious.


Well, after a bit more tinkering, I still haven't got the Wi-Fi to work. It came with one week of free tech support though, so I guess I can try that either tomorrow or at the weekend. Or during the week after that, in fact, since we go on holiday after this Friday. That would be a good thing, if it hadn't just reminded me that immediately after the holidays, my prelims begin.


I haven't got round to playing Mass Effect tonight, even though I said I would. I've been too busy fiddling with the Eee, in addition to my usual routine. I did manage to play Link's Crossbow Training for a while. I'm not entirely convinced that the Wii Zapper is such a brilliant peripheral but it works well with this game, simple as it may be. I haven't done anything beyond the first set of levels yet – the urge to chase high scores is just too great.

The only minor complaint I have is that the sensitivity and alignment settings aren't unique to each Mii profile. An odd design but I can live with it. It'll probably only be Erin and I using it and she seems to like the same settings as I do.

Hold on a sec, I've gotta watch Torchwood. Will I like it this week?


It was all right. A bit melodramatic in places but, well, it's Torchwood so melodrama's pretty much par for the course. Watching a bit of classic Who now, The Time Warrior, the serial which introduced Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans. It was one of the ones I got for my birthday, along with Carnival of Monsters (which has fast become one of my favourites) and The Hand of Fear (featuring the last regular appearance of Sarah Jane).

I still have a few more DVDs that I want to get out of the shortlist I made before my birthday. I got some Amazon vouchers for Christmas and that ought to cover a few. I'm planning on buying Life on Mars at some point, probably soon so that I can catch up and watch the sequel series as it happens. Someone said that it starts tomorrow so I'm going to miss the first episode at least but I'll try to record it.

Shows like Life on Mars that have a planned backstory and arc always make Doctor Who seem all the more strange to me. Every modern show almost has to have some kind of extended story between episodes and will usually have characters and plot arcs fleshed out years in advance. Shows like Heroes, Lost and Prison Break are the clearest examples of this (though the amount of long-term planning in some of them is... debatable) but even largely episodic shows have some connection between episodes. Such as the new Who series, for instance.

But getting back to old Who. The Time Warrior was broadcast just over ten years after the start of Doctor Who, from December 1973 to January 1974 and it was the very first serial to name the Doctor's home planet as Gallifrey. It had taken two years for another Time Lord to appear in the show (not counting Susan), five years for the now iconic sonic screwdriver to show up and it was six before the Time Lords were named as such and appeared as a proper civilisation.

In the scale of Doctor Who, it's not very much. But those ten years would be like the entirety of the first two Star Trek series going by without Starfleet being mentioned. It would be more than halfway through the original series before another Vulcan appeared and we wouldn't even know they were called that until Commander Riker grew a beard and told us so*.

I'm not sure why I find that all so fascinating but I do. There's such a history associated with it and a complicated weave of plots and characters far greater than any single series could come up with today, even, or perhaps especially, if it was meticulously planned out.


A couple more things before I go. I'm not sure what the problem is yet but it seems that a couple of other computers, namely the family desktop and my mum's laptop are having difficulty connecting to the wireless network as well as my Eee. It could be related but they're both a wee bit temperamental anyway so I'll probably still put in that call to tech support, assuming it doesn't all fix itself.

Also, I've got the last part of that Maths test tomorrow. It was technically only meant to be for two days but no one's got it finished and it doesn't really count as anything other than practice anyway. I think that with a bit more time I should be able to get through it but it's got me a bit more worried about the prelims now.

Physics might also be a problem. I'll really need to do some revision on that front. Computing, I'm not so bothered about. It should be fairly easy but doing the practice papers is proving to be annoying. The commercially produced ones, as opposed to the actual exams from previous years, are always quite low quality, often having questions that don't make sense or which give far too many or too few marks for a particular answer.

Anyway, I'll deal with them later. By which I mean tomorrow, since the first one is due in on Friday morning. Bah, I'll figure something out.


I keep having problems concluding these posts. It's worst in the ones where I keep darting from topic to topic, such as... well, most of them. Including today's. I'll just have to fall back on my normal, poorly-planned escape route.

So, loathe as I am to admit to being unable to come up with anything more creative, have a nice day.






*If you don't get the reference, find the geekiest person you know and have them explain it, even though you probably won't like the answer. It's nothing bad, just boring.**

**If you think my timing is a little off with these references, then you're probably the kind of person that people will go to if they need it explained.