Fish pie and Sarah Jane Season 2 (so far)
Nov. 12th, 2008 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayNote to self: Bring in SQL pocket book with useful hints on how Oracle differs from all other platforms tomorrow before it drives you insane.
Anyway.
My iTunes came with a pre-written automatic 90s playlist and I thought that I'd check it out today. I can't decide whether it's having a laugh at me or not. Abba 90s? Also, Simon and Garfunkle immediately
followed by Abba is distinctly weird. It's one of those selections that you keep listening to because you want to see which ridiculous pairing it can make next.
Fish pie last night was a success. I shall post the recipe when I get home. It really is scrummy. Sadly, Holby City didn't finish dl-ing until very late so I did not get my Tuesday night veg out with HC. Instead I watched the very interesting Time Team special on a WWI dug-out and Monday's episode of SJA. It seems that I haven't done an SJA rec since the first (or maybe second?) story of this year's run.
That was very remiss of me and must be fixed.
I've been really enjoying SJA this year. Yes, even the astrology one because there were some fun bits to it. OK, the story was a bit weak and Russ Abbot cannot act his way out of a paper bag, but there were some lovely moments and some fun moments and SJA can always be redeemed by those. The boy playing Clyde, in particular, really shone here. Clyde gets better every week and I love the things that the writers are doing with him. His posession was very subtle and creepy, really worked for me.
Speaking of Clyde...
Mark of the Beserker was brilliant. We got to see his Mum (adore!) and his Dad gives us some good background on why Clyde is the way that he is. His dad is a complete bastard and I get the feeling that it didn't start with him running off with his wife's sister, that was just a symptom of his prick-ness. Also, is the baby that he's managed to father going to get dreadfully confused by his half-brother/cousin combo? Or has Clyde's dad left his aunt and shacked up with someone else?
Erm.
I did love Sarah Jane's notes around the attic. She was so determined that the kids wouldn't get into any trouble without her there to watch over them and they managed it anyway. Heh. She really should know better and at least leave them with Mr Smith so that when they do stumble across an alien invasion they have some information.
Although I really didn't mind them calling on Maria and Alan. In fact, I was kind of cheering when I realised that was what they were doing. Maria! Alan! They've not been forgotten! And they chat regularly with webcams. I did like that it was Alan that Luke needed. Whizzy hacking skills to the fore!
I am undecided about the resolution to this episode. On the one hand, I loved that Sarah Jane rolled in to save the day and adored that Alan and Maria had figured out how to find her. On the other hand, it would have been good to see the kids step into their own and save the day. Hmm. I do love the relationship that's growing up between Clyde and Sarah Jane. It's great to see that Rani isn't simply stepping into Maria's role and taking over, instead they're using it as a chance for Clyde to become awesome.
As a Sarah Jane-lite episode, it really worked. There wasn't any awkwardness in getting her out of the picture for the story. Clyde's Mum didn't think that it was weird for her to be going off somewhere and I liked the hint that they chat regularly. The writing team on these shows are very good at finding ways to write episodes without a main character (Blink and Turn Left are still two of the coolest DW episodes ever). You don't feel their absence but you still cheer when they finally arrive and they use it as a chance to showcase other characters.
The preview for the next story looks pretty darned cool :-)
One quick thing:
Dear BBC,
Why are you being so lame at putting Radio 2 shows up for Listen Again? No Chris Evans last night, no Wogan this morning. You even flaked out on the Today show yesterday (didn't try today because I wanted to see how Wogan's auction for Children in Need is going). What's going on? I rely on you to provide good radio shows and have them up at least within 6 hours of broadcast!
No love,
Me
Anyway.
My iTunes came with a pre-written automatic 90s playlist and I thought that I'd check it out today. I can't decide whether it's having a laugh at me or not. Abba 90s? Also, Simon and Garfunkle immediately
followed by Abba is distinctly weird. It's one of those selections that you keep listening to because you want to see which ridiculous pairing it can make next.
Fish pie last night was a success. I shall post the recipe when I get home. It really is scrummy. Sadly, Holby City didn't finish dl-ing until very late so I did not get my Tuesday night veg out with HC. Instead I watched the very interesting Time Team special on a WWI dug-out and Monday's episode of SJA. It seems that I haven't done an SJA rec since the first (or maybe second?) story of this year's run.
That was very remiss of me and must be fixed.
I've been really enjoying SJA this year. Yes, even the astrology one because there were some fun bits to it. OK, the story was a bit weak and Russ Abbot cannot act his way out of a paper bag, but there were some lovely moments and some fun moments and SJA can always be redeemed by those. The boy playing Clyde, in particular, really shone here. Clyde gets better every week and I love the things that the writers are doing with him. His posession was very subtle and creepy, really worked for me.
Speaking of Clyde...
Mark of the Beserker was brilliant. We got to see his Mum (adore!) and his Dad gives us some good background on why Clyde is the way that he is. His dad is a complete bastard and I get the feeling that it didn't start with him running off with his wife's sister, that was just a symptom of his prick-ness. Also, is the baby that he's managed to father going to get dreadfully confused by his half-brother/cousin combo? Or has Clyde's dad left his aunt and shacked up with someone else?
Erm.
I did love Sarah Jane's notes around the attic. She was so determined that the kids wouldn't get into any trouble without her there to watch over them and they managed it anyway. Heh. She really should know better and at least leave them with Mr Smith so that when they do stumble across an alien invasion they have some information.
Although I really didn't mind them calling on Maria and Alan. In fact, I was kind of cheering when I realised that was what they were doing. Maria! Alan! They've not been forgotten! And they chat regularly with webcams. I did like that it was Alan that Luke needed. Whizzy hacking skills to the fore!
I am undecided about the resolution to this episode. On the one hand, I loved that Sarah Jane rolled in to save the day and adored that Alan and Maria had figured out how to find her. On the other hand, it would have been good to see the kids step into their own and save the day. Hmm. I do love the relationship that's growing up between Clyde and Sarah Jane. It's great to see that Rani isn't simply stepping into Maria's role and taking over, instead they're using it as a chance for Clyde to become awesome.
As a Sarah Jane-lite episode, it really worked. There wasn't any awkwardness in getting her out of the picture for the story. Clyde's Mum didn't think that it was weird for her to be going off somewhere and I liked the hint that they chat regularly. The writing team on these shows are very good at finding ways to write episodes without a main character (Blink and Turn Left are still two of the coolest DW episodes ever). You don't feel their absence but you still cheer when they finally arrive and they use it as a chance to showcase other characters.
The preview for the next story looks pretty darned cool :-)
One quick thing:
Dear BBC,
Why are you being so lame at putting Radio 2 shows up for Listen Again? No Chris Evans last night, no Wogan this morning. You even flaked out on the Today show yesterday (didn't try today because I wanted to see how Wogan's auction for Children in Need is going). What's going on? I rely on you to provide good radio shows and have them up at least within 6 hours of broadcast!
No love,
Me
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 05:25 pm (UTC)I only realised fairly late in the day that Mark of the Berserker was a Sarah-Jane-lite story - I just sort of suddenly twigged about half way through the second episode that she hadn't been in it much! I know, I fail... But that made her coming to the rescue at the end all the better. I suppose this means there's going to be a Sarah-Jane-intensive episode (from the preview, possibly next week's?).
And YAY! Alan and Maria! It was so wonderful to see them back, however briefly.
So yes, it's all good stuff, and keeps me ticking over until the Christmas special. :o)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 09:32 am (UTC)Most of what I write is big chunks of Oracle code, or small chunks of code for other databases, and large chunks of Perl or shell script to wrap around the small chunks.
The upshot of that is that I don't know very much about "other platforms" in detail. What I'm most aware of with Oracle is the TO_CHAR function (for dismantling dates; I remember seeing a MySQL comparison which explained it was better than Oracle, because it has 30 odd date chopping functions, where Oracle has one), and probably outer joins.
Which isn't to say there aren't other things (and happy to comment on other things!), I just don't know what they are. At least, that's assuming that you're writing queries, not designing the database tables, relationships and contsraints etc.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 01:09 pm (UTC)Feel free to throw stuff this way if you want a sanity check :)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 01:49 pm (UTC)Obviously my sanity is in question.
And I've finally worked out how select dates in Oracle - there's the nifty to_date() function which Teradata didn't have. Of course, Teradata had a very bizarre way that one needed to format one's dates in...
I shall get there. Oracle isn't as foreign as it first looked, although I may steal my supervisor's PL/SQL book because the manual she's handed me is rubbish.