The Hazards of Practicality

Saw this at the mall yesterday. I'm not sure what they were selling, I think makeup. I should have asked if they had any Rheingold.

I went to the mall for lunch, mainly as a pretext for exercise--I parked far away from the food court and put a few staircases in my route. One of the nice things about going to school was parking so far off campus so I knew at least a couple days a week I'd get a decent amount of walking in. It's a shame I live somewhere now where there's nothing within a reasonable walking distance--I need to drive somewhere to walk, at least I need to drive somewhere to walk for more than the sake of walking.

Thursday I was in all day colouring and my back felt it by the end. I've been finding plenty of things to listen to while I colour--yesterday I listened to The Renaissance Man, a Doctor Who audio play featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela. Unlike the first one I listened to, Destination: Nerva, this one, written by Justin Richards, feels less like fan-fiction for the late 70s era of the series. It feels slightly like modern Who, actually--the Fourth Doctor even uses one of the Tenth's catch phrases, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," which was certainly odd to hear. But it had a much nicer, very Science Fiction idea, to chew on than Destination: Nerva, too.

The Doctor and Leela travel to an extraterrestrial museum, rather similar to the First Doctor serial The Space Museum, except this museum features only artefacts from Earth. When they arrive, the Doctor and Leela are surprised to find no museum but instead a manor house and a woman hunting for butterflies with a net. Of course, things aren't what they seem and the story that unravels ends up being kind of a satisfying parody of the Internet, emphasising the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Leela continues to have a much more proactive role than she had in the series, her combat expertise instrumental in several important moments. And it was funny how she kept saying, "The runny science man." But the climax definitely belongs to Baker.

I see on Wikipedia that new Fourth Doctor audio plays are planned all the way through 2016, including a series featuring Lalla Ward as my favourite companion, Romana II. Considering Ward and Baker were married and are now divorced it'll be interesting to see how much they can recapture their wonderful chemistry.