Biking To Panic Town

[roguederek]

► It's been a few weeks since I got my new bicycle. Dad's been a bit... annoyed... that I haven't ridden it, so I decided to take it out for a spin early this afternoon. My plan was to bike to Dad's place and surprise him. Unfortunately, I only made it half way (I got lost a bit since this area of town is still new to me) before I started

Comments

[morienos]

When visiting Texas in 95, I ended up on a major major motorway on a bike by taking a wrong turn. There is nothing as sad as being on a push bike by surrounded by the entire zeitgeist of american car lust. I eventually hauled into a service station/road side café, exhausted, and found another guy on a bike. I asked him if there were hand-signs for turning in the USA, and he said "Yes, there are, but everyone gets a car so early, its only other cyclists who know what they mean"

Me very scared.

Then the service station turned out to be a used book store.

Texas is a strange place.

[roguederek]

The guy was probably right, I doubt many people know the hand turn signals. I think I learned them as a kid but don't remember them if I ever knew them.

Everything I've heard or read makes me think Texas is in it's own dimension.

[morienos]

In the scheme of things probably didn't help I was on a ladies bike with a purple and pink helmet. Not my finest hour.

[roguederek]

In Texas that's daredevilry.

[anonymous]

MalcolmD says: I'm quite in agreement with both of your points about The A-Team and "Karate" Kid.

I'm curious as to what you think of Dr. Horrible, and I'm also curious as to what your blog would be like if you transitioned to a sing-along version. ;-)

Oh, and I ride a bike all the time in Saskatchewan, and I find that hand signals only confuse drivers.

[roguederek]

I watched Dr. Horrible back when it was briefly available on it's original website (a friend insisted I watch it). I loved it except for the ending. My main criticism with Joss Whedon is that he'll start a show strong, having it fun and entertaining, but eventually just succumb to his contrarian excesses and fuck with the audiences, or lose his grasp of the premise entirely. Dr. Horrible is a fun, cheesy superhero musical with a bizarrely and randomly dark and depressing ending. The ending seemed like a tacked on afterthought.

Whedon always does stuff like this. If a character becomes popular his first reaction is to have them killed off seemingly just to spite the audiences. Fine, he wanted to kill off Fred on Angel, but did he really have to add that her immortal soul was destroyed so that she non longer existed in any plane of reality? That's just cold.

[anonymous]

MalcolmD says: I thought that the ending was appropriate, given the tone that was set at the start of the second act, the goals of the character that were stated in the first act ... and the fact that the protagonist was a supervillain. ;-) I haven't seen the final season of Angel, so I did not know about Fred's fate--that does sound pretty sad. I wonder if that was Whedon's decision, or if his influence over the series was pretty minor by that point.

But back to Dr. Horrible: can you think of a good ending that you would have written for it? It's okay if you need to peel the plot back to the first act.

[roguederek]

It might have been appropriate since the character (Dr. Horrible) was an aspiring villain, but I didn't think the ending fit with the tone of the rest of the show. As I said, it was jarring to have such a tragic ending to a frothy funny musical comedy. I don't have any idea how it should have ended.

Fred's death and the destruction of her immortal soul was caused by her body being taken over by an other dimensional demon goddess. That way they kept Amy Acker in the cast, although from then on blue and white.