Peope Look East, The Time is Near...

Have I said before, "I love Advent and Christmas" ? Well, I do. A fact that can be attributed to either nurture (i.e., being raised to celebrate it), nature (there's a lot of Austro-Roma-Hungarian blood on my dad's side) or to just the plain fact that as a Catholic, I recognize the Incarnation as the most important event and high point of history.

Which it most assurredly is. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" is the most stupendous act of love and grace that has/will ever happen. Something to remain mindful of; most people say they hate the holidays, and they are referring to the commercialism.

Crass advertisements blare from radios and televisions, insisting that if you cannot get your bratty relatives and children the "perfect gift", they will hate you forever as a bumbling idiot. I suggest taking note of every company and product that makes these advertisements, and ignoring them after writing a vehement letter. Make sure you have someone check your grammar and spelling; nothing destroys the impact of a good screed like second-grade spelling mistakes.

Anyway, what's more disturbing are the people who hate the holidays because they wish to avoid their family. Or they are irritated by other people's cheerfulness. Or they want everyone to be miserable because they see the world as a miserable place, e.g. "How can you be so happy when there's so much suffering in the world?" Dig deep and most of these people are offended by the idea of Christmas because they are offended by the idea of God. They may also be even more offended by the idea that if God is a caring Being who sent his Son to dwell with man, then there is an obligation on THEM to be and act as Christians.

Simple philosophical idea: To reject the gift is to reject the giver, and any obligation to him.

 Many who have rejected Christianity and/or the Godhood of Christ and the Incarnation, do so because they want to believe that they don't have to act as Christians. For the record: Most sensible Christians do recognize that there is suffering and evil in the world. Believing in God doesn't turn a blind eye to it; instead it comes with a recognition of responsibility as a Christian to work with God, offer up one's own suffering and hardships, and to act with Christ as a follower.

So, It's Time to Cancel "Doctor Who"

Now, hold on a second.

Just for the record, there are no plans to cancel Doctor Who. At least, none that I'm aware of at this writing. I love Doctor Who; it's one of my favorite shows and watching the series generally just pumps me up and makes me happy. Well into Series 6, I was watching it eagerly.

And then something happened. The bloom was off the rose, the humour was off me now; etc, etc. This wasn't a sudden transition; it was something that happened slowly starting with Series 4 of the "New 'Who".  The show captivated me, but I was finding more and more reasons not to be emotionally invested in it. Below, my reasons why it might be time to put Doctor Who back in the mothballs for a while.

1) The longer the show, the less emotional impact. At first, it was hard not to get sucked into every episode, even the more mediocre ones. And with the Tenth Doctor in particular, he moved from being a cocky, devil-may-care pretty-boy to an emotionally scarred, wistful, yet wiser man. And they played out his regeneration story for all it was worth. This makes the new series' constant teasing of Eleven's "death" just damn annoying as we already mourned one doctor, thank you, and we're not ready to be dragged through the ringer again. Stop it!

2) Lack of consistency becomes more evident. What Time Lords can and can't do becomes more squiffy with time; Nine cannot damage history because things will eat time (also, he will not even attempt to change fixed points in time); Ten gets righteously smacked down for trying to make himself "Time Lord Victorious"- and Eleven- well, I won't reveal spoilers, but they're playing fast and loose with the notion of "fixed points in time" all over the Eleventh Doctor's run.

3) We could use some of these people in other projects. Sherlock needs more consistent plotting, which Moff can collaborate on with Mark Gattiss- when he isn't doing Doctor Who. I'd love to see Sherlock have a regular series of at least eight episodes, because that show has some phenomenal characterization. Let's do more of that! Arthur Darvill is a great actor who's demonstrated some impressive range. Karen Gillan could also work in just about any show and bring more to it. It's really refreshing to see good actors running around. However it's also really annoying when they are likely to be pigeonholed in one series instead of getting to work as either main protagonists or part of a good ensemble.

4) Longer the series, less quality control. It's been remarked that with the scope of Doctor Who, a little silliness is inevitable. And although I didn't care for RTD's "silliness" in terms of the monsters and writing that Earth is endangered in every single series of his run, at least he worked on even characterization for everyone. Disturbingly, characterization seems all over the place in Moffat's run, even though it's usually his strong suit besides playing with the "timey-wimey" aspects of Doctor Who. Although he didn't write "The Girl Who Waited", he allowed an episode to run that was one of the worst bits of character-defamation and inconsistency in the entire series 5-6 run. "Let's Kill Hitler" illustrated that how clunky a "dating catwoman" theme is for Doctor Who. This is one very long-running show which makes it harder and harder to do new things with it.

In summation, folks, let's cancel Doctor Who for just a while, until sanity sets in again.  I know popular opinion and the notions of the BBC are against me. The series even now is one of the better things on television, but it's time to move forward to new vistas, different projects. I think if the Doctor was meta-aware, he himself would agree, and push the people who have devoted themselves to portraying his adventures to move forward to exciting new ones. Remember: "Any time, any where. Just one rule: it has to be amazing." Time to take that line as good advice.

So, I'm Off Social Media

Just my blog and my email, for now. Why?

Simply put, I don't like having too much information out there. I never did. I want to silence that voice in your head that composes status updates as you go. Not that I think that there's a real risk of me being targeted for whatever.

Basically, I sat down and wondered where my life got to the point where I socialize by spending my free time sitting alone in front of a computer. That's messed up and not how I want to live. Even if going out there and meeting people isn't what I expect or planned, it's real.

And I also think of it this way: I'm ready to go. I've been thinking and praying about it, and I want to just keep in contact with the people God has put in my path, without getting distracted by superficial demands on my time and energy. I want to do things, not just write about when I do them or be preoccupied with the idea that I have some audience. I don't.