Doctor Who - Blood of the Cybermen

"Do you even know what a plan is?"

So asks Amy at the end of Blood of the Cybermen. And it is a good question, since the adventure that precedes the comment shows that the Doctor has no plan whatsoever. And the overall feeling of the adventure is even better because of it.

Make no mistake about it, Blood of the Cybermen represents a massive step forward from the lumpen, often tedious City of the Daleks. It has a plot and everything. Sure, there are still the irritating little games (the maze format in particular becomes very boring very quickly) and the story is far more RTD than Moffat, particularly in the way in which it is resolved. But there is a certain confidence and sense of direction in Blood of the Cybermen that was missing from City of the Daleks. It even has some striking images that could rival some of the more terrifying ones from the TV series - particularly the idea of cyber-conversion as plague. In this respect, it nicely mirrors The Pandorica Opens - it does something interesting with the Cybermen.

Sure, on the TV screen, this would be a slight episode - one watched, and then promptly forgotten about. But it feels far more like the real episode that it so desperately wants to be than its predecessor, and that alone needs to be celebrated. This time, the script did some justice to the others who desperately try to create a gaming equivalent of the TV version of Doctor Who. So if you want to play the Doctor (and Amy), then skip City of the Daleks and instead go straight to Blood of the Cyberman.

The Doctor doesn't seem to have a plan, but judging by this, those making these games may yet show themselves to be capable of effectively planning a decent Doctor Who game.

The Daily Mash and the Microsoft Black Screen of Death

Not for the first time, The Daily Mash nails it:

"MICROSOFT have admitted that some users of its new Windows 7 operating system have been confronted with the dreaded 'Black Screen of Paying £200 for Something That Doesn't Work'.

Users say the 'Black Screen of Falling For This Shit Again' appears shortly after start-up, followed by a ghostly image of Bill Gates cackling like a loon."

See, I can be smug as I own a Mac. Now, I'm not one of those gushing Mac-head types who salivates in an almost sexual way at the very sight of an Apple machine. I certainly don't use a Mac to make some sort of statement about how fashionable I am*. However, I will say this about Macs - they are easier to use, and you don't have to go through the regular Microsoft gauntlets of buying more software that not only works in an entirely different way to the last version, but also fucks with your computer and leaves you with a very expensive looking black screen with zero functionality.

There is nothing great about Apple except in comparison to Microsoft, and this is the genius of Apple. Their unique selling point truly is that their machines are easier to use and more reliable than their main competitor's. They have a business plan that is audacious in its simplicity and efficacy - they are less shit than Microsoft.

*Anyone who has ever met me will know that I am neither fashionable nor unfashionable. I exist in a parallel universe where fashion just does not exist. All such concerns happen to other people; I am just not aware of fashion.

A Technical Query

So, after years of enduring Microsoft based PCs and laptops and the inevitable systems crashes, I have defected to Apple and am the owner of a Macbook. Now, as a curmudgeon, any change is almost by default a bad thing, but I have to say this machine I'm currently typing away on is quite good. And is growing on me. 

The only downside I can see is that it is going to be a struggle to get it to work in conjunction with my Creative Zen MP3 player - that is, inevitably, Windows loving. Now I know Windows can be run on a Mac using something called Bootcamp, but before I go through all the hassle of doing that, I was wondering whether anyone knew of an easy way to get an MP3 player to work on a Macbook.

And before any "comedians" suggest buying an I-pod, I'd like to point out that such a plan is not an option for me. I pissing hate I-pods...