Well, no new Dr. Who until the Christmas special, now. The season finale was pretty solid, all told, if a bit “Star Trekky” in the resolution. (Not in the “fixed everything in the last 5 minutes sense” but folks will know what I mean when they see it.)

Scraped my beard back to a goatee, for the time being. It should help me in my quest for some side-contract gigs, believe it or not. I’ve found folks more willing to enlist the aid of a smooth-cheeked/furry-chin over the “wild man from Borneo” look. I think I look a lot better with some facial hair than without it, so the goat is the way to go.

MP should be in town on Thursday! Maybe I can drag Danny along, if I’m not feeling too selfish.

Why is it that I like old school TV shows with magical cuties (like Bewitched {as long as it’s not a “magical ailment episode, however much I like Dr. Bombay.} or I Dream of Jeannie) but New ones, like Buffy just leave me cold… even with *multiple cuties*? It’s not about them being “empowered”… I enjoyed the first few seasons of Xena just fine. I take it back, Charmed is growing on me. I think my issue with Buffy is that I’ve seen *every* badly written one, and none of the good ones. If every time I turned on original Trek, and got Spock’s Brain, I’d probably think it was poo, too.

I’m a bad science fiction fan. I Like Original Series Star Trek, and and DS9 that doesn’t involve the planet under the station… but all other Trek has been rather bad, too. Maybe it’s when a show panders to a specific audience, rather than a general group is when I lose interest? I’m a bad RPG pen and paper gamer, too… I remember my favorite games not being like what I think the majority of gamers were into. I’m not into Monty-haul or munchkinism… but neither was I into all-story, no combat games, either. I liked an excuse to get together, socialize, eat some snacks, and do a combination of role play with actual resolutions, and a little bit of combat war gaming thrown in on the side.

Things that I wasn’t too crazy about was accounting for every tent-stake or each inch of rope…. or more than one session of “foraging for food” or “staking out the enemy”. A half-session is great for setting the mood… five episodes in a row is a nightmare.

Actually, I take back the combat thing… I’d have been happy if it only happened once every four or five game sessions. I speak in the past tense, because it’s been an age since I’ve actually had a sit down at a table and played. I suspect I’m not up to a stint at a gaming table for more than four hours these days… flopping on a mushy couch could be good, but I wonder if my sleep-instinct would overrule my gaming instinct in a comfortable environ with large gaps between any opportunity to act?

Ok, that was a lot of nerdish. I think what I’m feeling lately is a lack of touch with that side of me. I still like science fiction/fantasy… only, it’s more mainstream these days. I hate to say it, but I liked the Incredibles more than the Lord of the Rings film. I like Discworld and the Hitchhiker’s Guide a lot more than Snow Crash or anything by Anne Rice.

I wonder what’s caused me to go to the more intelligently written humorous and light pieces rather than the more drawn out and sometimes downright padded stuff. Things that are in a colorful world with interesting characters, headed for a resolution in the same book rather than a dodecology. Even Zelazny’s Amber series, while fun, caused me to run out of steam at book eight of ten. The vast majority of the Discworld books are self-contained, but if you read the lot of ’em, you can enjoy a bigger, richer picture. I’ve already read Tolkien’s stuff, so I’ll probably never have to read any Tolkien “homage/clones”.

More Scotto tastes / opinions:

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser was a good time, but Elric isn’t really my thing.

Most Robert E. Howard good, most H.P. Lovecraft, a snooze (with notable exceptions on each side.)

Phil Farmer’s Riverworld Great, the rest, poop.

Speaker for the Dead – good, any book in that same series after #2, horrid.

Almost all of Asimov’s stuff is too dry.

Almost All of Bradbury’s stuff is smiley fantasy disguised as sci-fi, and that’s ok, in medium doses. His best work is short stories adding up to a common book.

Mercedes Lackey, Ursula Le Guin, CJ Cherryh, Anne Mccaffrey – Have one good story to tell, and repeat it over and over with names and locations changed.

Harlan Ellison – I like him in small doses. Can be a bitter pill, but works wonders with what he’s got. Short stories are the ticket, to alternate with Bradbury… sunshine and thunderstorms.

Stephen King – Good when his writing is tight, and isn’t allowed to flob all over the place. The Gunslinger series started off great, and fell apart. Still a great universe to write stories in, if you sidestep the “add people from our earth” element. I dug the The Shining and The Stand quite a bit, and some of his recurring themes like Flagg are swell.

Clive Barker… not so great. A few nifty ideas around which a padded story is written, and it feels bloated, or stilted.

Larry Niven’s Gil of ARM stuff is pretty sharp. Ringworld series… ugh. Lucifer’s Hammer, good. I never know what I’m going to get with him, but I’ll usually risk it.

Phillip K Dick, early stuff, Excellent, later stuff when he got whackadoo, not at all.

Neil Gaiman is Jim dandy, as is Terry Pratchett. Not as good when they write together, but still decent.

Community Series, like Thieves’ World, Wild Cards, Man-Kzin Wars, etc. Amazingly hit or miss.. but I usually like them, just for the sake of seeing multiple writing styles and perspectives on a bottled universe. I wouldn’t mind doing a shared universe writing project with GrayPumpkin, Mootpoint, and all the other writers I hang with online and off.

The Wizard of Oz books are a popcorn pleasure.

Mark Twain can do no wrong. (most of his stuff is satire, with only a little fantasy in there)

HG Wells and Jules Verne works for me, too, but that might just be young-Scotto nostalgia creeping in.

Edgar Rice Burroughs can be hit or miss… Tarzan and John Carter.

Doc Savage is more fun than The Shadow… but both fall into formula writing at times.

Tim Powers is a good example of cross-genre stuff that works.

I dug the Screwtape Letters, but Narnia never clicked for me.

Stanslaw Lem is weirdly appealing to me, as is Kurt Vonnegut.

As a kid, I liked Marvel Comics more than DC. Spidey is mighty Kid-friendly, but I really liked the team books… Fantastic Four and Avengers were always a hoot. Superman/ Batman Family were fun, but I just liked Marvel better. As I got older, I got into Silver Age DC, too.

I wonder how much my tastes will change over the coming years? They haven’t much since college (I was bigger into HPL and Nuts & Bolt’s Sci-fi back then…)

I’m still a book ‘ho. If someone puts a tome in my hands, Odds are really good that I’ll read it all the way through.. unless the first 100 pages causes me to quit on it… but those are rare.

In other news, I prefer Early 70s football-head Tony the Tiger to the extreme-sports post-2003 Tony. Check out his evolution.

I am very susceptible to advertising, it seems. I could go for some fresh flakes for breakfast.

Funny term of the morning… “poop-chute”.

I haven’t heard that in ages. That rates up there with Fart-knocker.

Quick Scan of the LJ indicates the last time I typed it out was on 6/22/02, in a silly chat with sweetalyssm, when a fellow lj-pal was talking about gut-issues. so, it’s been just about three years later.

Moment of Lyric: (Listen here, 2nd from the end)

Dil Ye Bechain Ve, Raste Pe Nain Ve
Dil Ye Bechain Ve, Raste Pe Nain Ve
Jindri Behaal Hai, Sur Hai Na Taal Hai
Aa Ja Saanvaria Aa Aa Aa Aa
Taal Se Taal Mila, Ho, Taal Se Taal Mila

…