Santa Claus is a Time Lord

How does Santa Claus travel across the entire world in a single night? How has he lived for this long? How can he carry all those toys on his sleigh? These are the questions non-believers use to try and convince believers that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. The good news for all those that want to believe in Santa is there’s one answer to all those questions: Santa Claus is a Time Lord.

Santa Claus: Time Lord

As a Doctor Who addict, this revelation, surprisingly, only struck me the other day. I quickly googled “santa claus, time lord” and discovered (sadly) I wasn’t the first Whovian to make this connection. On the bright side, it made it much easier to compile all the evidence for why Santa Claus is a Time Lord.

1. He travels the entire globe in one night: Even if Santa’s sleigh traveled at light speed, the act of delivering the presents to each house would take too much time to do in a single night. However, if Santa could travel through both time and space, this becomes an entirely plausible task. Santa could literally be in 2 (or 2,000) places at once. His sleigh is clearly a TARDIS with a functioning chameleon circuit.

2. He can carry all those gifts on a single sleigh in a single sack: If Santa’s sleigh is a TARDIS, it’s obviously bigger on the inside. The entrance to the TARDIS might even be the opening of his sack of toys (assuming in this scenario the sack and sleigh are connected). This would explain its seemingly bottomless nature. The TARDIS could also transform from the sleigh into the sack of toys when Santa entered a home.

3. Santa can enter anyone’s home: The idea that a man as rotund as Santa Claus could enter a family’s house through their chimney is ridiculous. This is likely propaganda spread by Santa himself to hide the truth (after all, breaking and entering seems much more acceptable if it’s done through a chimney). In actuality, Santa just uses his sonic screwdriver to unlock the door. He could also just materialize the TARDIS within a home, but that might lead to an unfortunate accident at some point.

4. Santa is really really old and has taken many forms: Saint Nicholas was born in 272 AD and died in 343 AD. Over the centuries, the story of Saint Nicholas transformed into the story of Santa Claus. Perhaps the story changed because Saint Nicholas himself changed. The reason for the constant evolving of Santa’s appearance could be because it changes with every Time Lord regeneration. And the only way Saint Nicholas could still be alive 1740 years after his birth is if he was a Time Lord.

Can you think of any other reasons why Santa Claus has to be a Time Lord? Share them in the comments section.

What’s the Deal with Risotto?

I’ve never made risotto. I’ve never even eaten risotto. But I know what risotto is supposed to look like. Why? Because seemingly on every season of every cooking competition show, someone screws up risotto. At this point I have to ask, what’s the deal with risotto? Or more specifically, why do none of these chefs know how to make it correctly? Do none of these chefs watch the show they’re planning to compete on? Anyone who has watched a single season of TOP CHEF knows risotto is supposed to spread out when you put it on the plate. Yet there’s always someone who gets it wrong.

Jyll Evermann: "Today I'm going to teach you how not to make risotto."

The latest risotto reject was crafted by FOOD NETWORK STAR contestant Jyll Evermann of Glendora, California. According to her FoodNetwork.com bio, Jyll “attended the Epicurean School of Culinary Arts and has worked in several high-end restaurants”.  Apparently, nowhere throughout that schooling or her experience working in high-end restaurants was she taught how to correctly make risotto. And now she teaches classes to others trying to achieve their culinary dreams. So her horrible risotto technique has most likely extended out through society in the manner an actual risotto would spread out across a diner’s plate.

I’m hopeful the sheer embarrassment Jyll was forced to endure on this week’s episode of Food Network Star will finally lead all cooking reality show contestants to learn how to make risotto. Upon being served Evermann’s dry risotto, Wolfgang Puck actually got up, brought the contestant back into the kitchen, and taught her what risotto is supposed to look like. The scene was truly cringe-worthy and later drove Jyll to tears. So future Top Chef and Food Network Star contestants, do you want Wolfgang Puck to make you cry? No? Then please learn how to correctly make risotto before going on the show. I’m tired of watching these spectacular failures.

Also, you might want to have a dessert recipe or two at the ready… but that’s another rant for another time.

American Whovians, Double Check Your DVRs!

As every Whovian in America knows, the latest new episode of DOCTOR WHO (“The Almost People”) did not air here in the states over the Memorial Day weekend because BBC America thought the show’s ratings would be hurt by the holiday. To add insult to injury, upon searching through my scheduled DVR recordings on AT&T U-Verse, I noticed DOCTOR WHO was not scheduled to record this Saturday. Now I imagine many people have viewed “The Almost People” online through slightly less than legal means, but I think those that haven’t would be incredibly peeved, after waiting an extra week for this new episode, if it did not record.

Don't miss out on The Doctor and Amy's next adventure

I’ve had this problem with U-Verse before when trying to record first-run episodes of a show on BBC America. Often, U-Verse will list the British air-date as the original air-date of BBC America programs and, as a result, I missed more than one airing of LAW & ORDER: UK.  Currently the original air-date of “The Almost People” is listed as 5-28-11 (the date it aired in the UK) and so if you have your U-Verse DVR set to record only “first-run” episodes of DOCTOR WHO, the show will not record this Saturday!

I don’t know if this phenomenon carries over to any other cable or satellite providers’ DVR systems, but please spread the word. No Whovian should be further punished just for living in America.

10 Signs of the Geek Apocalypse

The rapture may not have happened on May 21st, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Be on the lookout, for these are the ten signs of the geek apocalypse:

1. Craftsman releases their first line of Sonic Screwdrivers.

2. Oscar Winner: Nathan Fillion.

3. Alan Moore supports the film adaptation of one of his graphic novels.

4. A Gotham Central television series launches with Andre Braugher as Crispus Allen.

5. Joss Whedon writes and directs The Avengers.

6. Comic scribe Kieron Gillen meets Doctor Who actress Karen Gillan.

7. Bruce Campbell reprises the role of Ash in Evil Dead 4.

8. George Lucas disowns the Star Wars prequels.

9. New episodes of Firefly begin filming.

10. One word: Hoverboards.

Is Doctor Who REALLY a children’s show?

I’m American, and because of that my path to DOCTOR WHO likely differs greatly from the ones taken by the show’s British audience. The first references to Doctor Who I’d ever heard were in articles about comic book conventions. A comic book website would post pictures of costumed convention-goers and inevitably there would be an individual with a long colored scarf. For a long time that’s all I knew about the Doctor, he wore a scarf, that’s it.

The current Doctor and his companions

A few months before TORCHWOOD’s season/series two premiere on BBC America, I learned James Marsters (Spike on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER) would be guest-starring in the DOCTOR WHO spinoff’s first episode. This made TORCHWOOD required viewing, and it became my introduction into the world of DOCTOR WHO.

I watched the first two seasons of TORCHWOOD before I even considered watching DOCTOR WHO, and TORCHWOOD was most definitely not a children’s show. So when I did start watching DOCTOR WHO, I believed, like TORCHWOOD, the Doctor’s adventures were largely intended for adult viewing. Nothing in the episodes really argued against this opinion. In every episode of DOCTOR WHO, people died. People assimilated by Cybermen, exterminated by Daleks, and slaughtered by various other alien species. If the Doctor shows up, sure he’ll save the world, but before he does, a bunch of people will usually meet their maker. That’s not something we associate with many children’s programs here in the states, so I was a tad surprised when I read this quote from Alex Kingston in an interview with EW.com:

“The one thing I hope is that more children in America get on board. In England, Doctor Who has always been considered a children’s show, at least by children. My daughter and her contemporaries, they feel like it’s their show. Parents are allowed to watch but it’s the children’s show.”

Calling DOCTOR WHO’s current iteration, complexly plotted by Steven Moffat, a children’s show would be like us in the states calling LOST a kid’s show. Perhaps that isn’t the perfect comparison, but it’s pretty close. The current story arcs on DOCTOR WHO often become insanely complicated. The first ten minutes of the season six premiere had to be watched at least twice to fully understand everything that was happening. As an adult, I love when a show challenges me to keep up. But I have to imagine an 8-year old could be left mightily confused.

"I swear your kids won't have nightmares about me. Now watch as I rip this poor woman to shreds."

If DOCTOR WHO’s only crime as a supposed children’s show was to force kids to keep up with smart complex plotting, this entry wouldn’t be about questioning the children’s show label, but rather proclaiming why all children in the US should be tuning into BBC America every Saturday at 9 PM Eastern Time. But do you see that spooky looking guy above? He’s part of an alien race called the Silence and they were the villains for the two-part premiere. Also, they were pretty damn scary.

Not since the BUFFY episode “Hush” have I seen such creepy creatures on my television screen, and I certainly would never consider that BUFFY episode appropriate for a second grader. There was a chilling scene in last week’s episode, “Day of the Moon”, featuring Karen Gillan as Amy Pond visiting a rundown orphanage filled with members of the Silence. The scene was genius, but it would’ve been right at home in an R-rated horror film like THE DESCENT.

Now DOCTOR WHO does shy away from any sexual content (at most there’s a kiss here or there and maybe a line of innuendo or two) and, despite all the deaths, there never seems to be any blood, but do those things alone qualify it as a children’s show? If DOCTOR WHO didn’t have a nearly 50-year long history in the UK and the current version of the show was judged only on it’s own content rather than on what DOCTOR WHO has historically been, would any objective viewer claim this show was made for children? I can’t imagine they would.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 26

Whedon Wednesday: My Buffy Valentine

One of the best parts of having some artistic abilities comes around birthdays or holidays. If I’m broke or I can’t find anything to buy, I can always draw or paint a gift for someone. Nine times out of ten, the recipient loves the homemade gift. And depending on the subject matter, occasionally there are tears of joy. While searching through an old sketchbook for this entry, I also found sketches of a Buffy Valentine’s Day card I made for a girlfriend. She may have been more Buffy-obsessed than even I was, so crafting a Buffy-themed card to go with her gift was a no-brainer. If you’re a Buffy/Angel fan, you may want to turn away now because this card is Spuffy-related.

Full page of sketches

Close-up on sketch of the card

 Before I gave her the card, I took a picture of it because I was rather proud of the end result. Now I’m wondering if there would be a market for Buffy-themed greeting cards on etsy.com.

The final card: colored pencil on red canson paper

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 24

Whedon Wednesday: Marvel meets the Whedonverse

Joss Whedon started filming THE AVENGERS this week and because of that, on their Twitter feed and on Facebook, Whedonesque asked what Marvel/Whedonverse crossovers would everyone like to see. Well, I thought of one… and then two… and then ten. Rather than just posting them in reply on Twitter or Facebook, I decided to post all my crossover ideas here. Some are definitely better than others.

1. ILLYRIA VS. DARK PHOENIX (Writer: Matt Fraction, Artist: Stuart Immonen): In a giant crossover event, two ancient deities battle it out while inhabiting the bodies of two skinny white women.

2. SERENITY/STARJAMMERS (Writer: Jonathan Hickman, Artist: Steve Epting): The crew of Serenity runs into Corsair and company in the middle of space. No bullets are exchanged, just tales of space pirating and smuggling.

3. SPIDER-MAN TEAM-UP featuring BUFFY: THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (Writer: Dan Slott, Artist: Marcos Martin): The quippiest heroine in television history meets the quippiest hero in all of comicdom. At some point, Buffy asks Spidey, “is that you under that mask, Xander?”

4. JAYNE VS. THE PUNISHER: FOR THE LOVE OF VERA (Writer: Garth Ennis, Artist: Steve Dillon): Two men. One very special gun. Frank Castle wants Jayne’s beloved Vera and he’ll do anything to get his hands on it.

5. GUNN and IRON FIST: HEROES FOR HIRE (Writer: Ed Brubaker, Artist: Michael Lark): The new Power Man is super lame, so Iron Fist kicks his protege to the curb and recruits a new crime fighter to patrol the streets with. With a fist like unto a thing of iron and stakes carved from wood, Danny Rand and Charles Gunn are the new HEROES FOR HIRE.

6. JONATHAN & PUCK in TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE (Writer: Jeff Parker, Artist: Skottie Young): A giant battle ensues as two universes hang in the balance. When Buffy, the X-Men, Echo, the Avengers, Angel, the Fantastic Four, and Spike are all captured, the shortest heroes of both worlds, Jonathan and Alpha Flight’s Puck, come together to save the day.

7. ECHO & MOON KNIGHT in MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISASTER featuring guest-villainess TYPHOID MARY (Writer Brian Michael Bendis, Artist: Alex Maleev): It’s utter bedlam when three individuals with multiple personalities meet up.  And with super-scribe Brian Bendis at the helm, how many of their personalities will talk like an old Jewish woman? Answer: ALL OF THEM!

8. X-FACTOR guest-starring ANGEL INVESTIGATIONS (Writer: Peter David, Artist: Mike Deodato): When X-Factor is hired to investigate a series of vampire attacks even Layla Miller doesn’t know how to stop it. So Jamie Madrox asks for a consultation from everyone’s favorite vampire with a soul, Angel.

9. WORLD TOUR with LORNE & DAZZLER (Writer: Kathryn Immonen, Artist: Greg Land): The talented team of demon and mutant tour the world, perform in front of millions, and solve crimes on the side.

10. WESLEY WYNDAM-PRYCE & BLADE: ROGUE DEMON HUNTERS (Writer: Mark Waid, Artist: Mark Bagley): What’s better than one Rogue Demon Hunter? Why, two of course!

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 17

Whedon Wednesday: Whedonverse Artwork

No one’s every questioned my Joss Whedon obsession before, but if they did, I’d just show them the pile of Whedonverse artwork I’ve done over the years. Only one of these was even done for a school project. The rest I did in my free time for fun. I’m going to post these in the chronological order of when I drew/painted them. Also, I’m posting everything I can find, so I will fully admit some of it isn’t all that hot. But I suppose the bad stuff will make the good stuff look even better by comparison.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER/ANGEL

I drew this one as an independent study in my junior year of high school. The school actually gave out Buffy book covers to all the students that year, it was awesome. This piece is less awesome than the book covers were. I was playing a lot with distortion that year. Griding up a person’s face and then playing with the size and shape of the grid’s squares on the paper to distort the person’s features. Here I did it with Sarah Michelle Gellar circa Buffy Season 2:

Buffy Distortion -- graphite

I didn’t work with acrylic paint at all in high school and on only a few occasions in college, so I would mostly play around with it in my free time. This next Spike piece, I believe I painted while I was still in college. I love working on cardboard. It gives you a great middle value to start with and, if you plan ahead, you don’t even need to buy it. Just save the cardboard sheets from your latest Amazon or Overstock order.

Spike -- acrylic paint and India ink on cardboard

I can’t remember how I came up with this next idea, but at some point I tied Indiana Jones fear of snakes to Anya’s fear of rabbits and this happened. I still love this piece.

Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Raider of the Lost Ark (white colored pencil and graphite on gray canson paper)

As an art major, going to college in Connecticut meant constant field trips into New York City to visit museums and galleries. On one such trip, I saw the work of an artist who’s name I’ll never remember, who quite unintentionally created some of the most beautiful artwork I had ever seen up to that point. The gallery had decided to display some of the artist’s unfinished art, work he had given up on. As a result, these pieces were a mix of oil painting and under-drawing, graphite sketches intertwined with vivid oil paints. I loved them so much, I decided I would try to do something similar. These next few are from that series, I liked them a lot more when I first painted them.

Spike -- acrylic paint and graphite on canvas

This next one is a disaster. The Spike one above came out pretty well (his hair is terrible though), so I got cocky and over ambitious. I think this piece has a very cool concept. Using the light exploding from Spike’s medallion to decided what would be left in graphite was a great idea, but my execution is an utter mess. The canvas was WAY too small to do this much detail work and I didn’t have nearly enough experience with acrylic paint at this point to come close to saving it.

Buffy Season 7 -- acrylic paint and graphite on canvas

The next one is an Illyria piece and I was getting better working with acrylic paint at this point. I just wish I had used the graphite/paint separation to tell more of a story rather than just blocking out random sections.

Illyria -- acrylic and white colored pencil on canvas

FIREFLY/SERENITY

This first one technically isn’t a FIREFLY or SERENITY piece. It’s Elektra from Marvel Comics, but I used a screen-capture of Morena Baccarin from an episode of FIREFLY for reference, so I’ll pretend it counts. I really like this one because there is a story element to it. Elektra is an assassin, so the image of her in all darkness minus the one box of light makes sense. She’s always hiding in shadows.

Elektra -- acrylic paint and white colored pencil

This next one is another favorite of mine. I used a very specific shot from the FIREFLY episode OBJECTS IN SPACE for reference here. I like this one so much I sent a copy to Summer Glau for her to sign. She was lovely enough to sign it and wrote a very nice note. Conte crayon is one of my favorite mediums to work in. It’s a form of charcoal, but it’s much easier to control and not nearly as messy.

River from the Firefly episode "Objects in Space" -- charcoal pencil and conte crayon

Before SERENITY’s release, there was an official SERENITY website where you could take part in challenges to earn points towards SERENITY merchandise. These next two were some of my entries to that website for those challenges. The first is a bumper-sticker, the second is a movie poster. I couldn’t find the original file for the second one, so I photographed the copy I framed (which is also signed by Summer Glau).

Browncoats Bumper-sticker (illustrations in conte crayon and charcoal pencil)

Serenity Poster (illustrations in conte crayon and charcoal)

That’s all I could find for now, but I know there’s more stuff somewhere. I may update this at a later date.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 10

Whedon Wednesday: My 10 Favorite Buffy Episodes

Welcome to the first Whedon Wednesday. Today I’m picking out my 10 favorite Buffy episodes. Now these aren’t necessarily what I consider the 10 best episodes of the show (Season Five standout, The Body, is noticeably absent here), rather these are my favorite episodes, the ones I love watching over and over again. Here are my picks:

10. Fool For Love (Season 5, Writer: Doug Petrie): I’m a big Spike fan and, for my money, this is the best Spike-centric episode.  Buffy nearly gets killed by an otherwise unremarkable vampire. Needing to know how other slayers died, she turns to Spike to explain how he got the upper-hand on the two slayers he killed. This episode serves as Spike’s origin story. We learn where the nickname “William the Bloody” came from and why Drusilla turned him into a vampire.

9. The Wish (Season 3, Writer: Marti Noxon): I’m a bit obsessed with Anya and with alternate reality stories, so I have much love for this episode. In the previous episode, Cordelia learned Xander was cheating on her with Willow and, to add injury to insult, got a piece of rebar through her gut. A new girl at school, Anya, befriends Cordelia, Cordelia wishes Buffy never came to Sunnydale, Anya uses her Vengeance Demon powers and Cordelia’s wish is granted. The best part of this alternate reality Sunnydale are the vampire versions of Willow and Xander.

8. Band Candy (Season 3, Writer: Jane Espenson): “Kiss Rocks? Why would anyone want to kiss… oh wait, I get it.” Band Candy, was Espenson debut and she delivered one of the funniest episodes of the entire series. Ethan Rayne puts a magical whammy on Sunnydale High’s band candy and the adults of Sunnydale start acting like their former teenage selves. “Mom started borrowing my clothes. There should be an age limit on Lycra pants. And Dad, he just locked himself in the bathroom with old copies of Esquire.”

7. The Gift (Season 5, Writer: Joss Whedon): The Gift is the only season finale to make my list. By Season 5, Joss Whedon had the Big Bad final battle episode down to a science, every character gets a big moment. Spike tries, and fails, to save Dawn, Willow plays big gun as she knocks Glory for a loop and returns Tara to normal, Xander gets to use a wrecking ball, Giles kills Ben, and Buffy beats the snot out of Glory and then sacrifices herself to save the world and her sister. If this had been the Buffy series finale, it would’ve gone down in history as one of the greatest series finales of all-time.

6. Hush (Season 4, Writer: Joss Whedon): For a series centered around monsters, Buffy, surprisingly, rarely had a truly scary episode. Hush, however, has some moments of real horror. The villains of the episode, the Gentlemen, are beyond creepy and when they cut a college student’s heart out while he tries to scream for help, I think it qualifies as scary. Half this episode has no dialogue and it leads to some of my favorite visual gags in the history of the series. There are Giles’s hilarious and obscenely violent drawings on the overhead projector. Then Buffy mimes she’ll stab the Gentlemen, but without stake in hand, it resembles something else entirely.

5. Doppelgangland (Season 3, Writer: Joss Whedon): I already mentioned my favorite Spike-centric episode, well, this is my fave Willow-centric episode. Alyson Hannigan gets so much to work with here, getting to play human Willow, vampire Willow, and human Willow pretending to be vampire Willow.

4. When She Was Bad (Season 2, Writer: Joss Whedon): In 1997, the season 2 premiere cranked my teenage obsession with Sarah Michelle Gellar to 11. I mean the sexy dance with Xander in the Bronze? That was ridiculous. I love morally ambiguous Buffy. She’s a total bitch to her friends, she shoves a cross down the throat of vampire to get information, and she completely messes with Angel’s head.

3. Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered (Season 2, Writer: Marti Noxon): This is the episode I would use to convert skeptics into Buffy viewers. I actually got my high school biology teacher to allow us to watch this episode during bio lab at one point during junior year. BB&B is one of the first episodes of Buffy that didn’t focus primarily on the title character. Xander gets the A-story, and it’s pretty brilliant. Every awkward teenage boy hopes that one day all the hot girls at his high school will fall in love with him, but for Xander the reality of it is a little less fun (especially when Willow tries to murderize him with an axe).

2. Once More With Feeling (Season 6, Writer: Joss Whedon): “If my heart could beat, it would break my chest” is the greatest vampire pick-up line of all-time. I’ve listened to the soundtrack of OMWF so many times, it’s kind of embarrassing. The Buffy musical episode is the only reason I even purchased the Season 6 DVD set.

1. Selfless (Season 7, Writer: Drew Goddard): The night Selfless aired I swore Drew Goddard had to be a pseudonym for Joss Whedon. I had no idea why Joss would write under a false name on his own show, but it was the only way to explain how an episode this amazing could be penned by a first-time Buffy writer. Of course, later I learned Drew Goddard was an actual person and a pretty tremendous writer (after Buffy, he would work on Angel, Alias, Lost, and write the feature film Cloverfield).

Anya is my favorite Buffy character and Selfless finally put her front and center. The origin scenes with Olaf are so over-the-top and hilarious: “Hide you babies and your beadwork!” “The troll is doing an Olaf impression!” In the present, we get an appearance from my favorite recurring demon, D’Hoffryn: “It’s like somebody slaughtered an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.” We get a callback to the season 2 finale with the  “Do you remember giving me Willow’s message? ‘Kick his ass’?”/”I never said that.” exchange.  And we get to see the title character as a villain. Make no mistake, at the end of this episode when Buffy tries to kill Anya, Buffy’s the bad guy. They even dressed her all in black to make it abundantly clear. And I almost forgot, there’s a musical number too! (That song actually was written by Joss Whedon.)

So that’s my list, feel free to leave your top ten in the comments section.

Blog-A-Day Challenge: Day 3

Brea Grant for Deena Pilgrim

Cable network FX announced this week that the pilot for the long in-development POWERS television series (based on the comic book by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming) had been greenlit. In the past year, as it started to look more likely that the POWERS TV series might actually happen, my mind quickly went to fantasy casting. My pick for the female lead, Deena Pilgrim, was immediately Brea Grant (and I’m pretty sure I even sent multiple messages to her on Twitter stating how perfect she would be for the role). Now I could make a long-winded argument about why Brea’s perfect for the part or I could just show this graphic I quickly whipped up:

So, ummm, they look a little bit alike, right? And while I suppose looking like the character alone isn’t enough to justified casting someone, the physical similarity is still pretty striking. If you’re not familiar with Brea’s work, borrow/rent a copy of Season 2 of Friday Night Lights and/or Season 3 of Heroes on DVD. You’ll see she’s got the acting chops to handle the role of Deena Pilgrim. World, please make this happen.

UPDATE: Apparently, there was a little bit of confusion on Twitter about whether I drew the picture of Deena. I did not draw that picture, that’s directly from the comic book (drawn by Michael Avon Oeming). I can understand the confusion, given I do often post my own artwork on this blog. When I said I “quickly whipped up” the graphic, I just meant I put the pictures together in Photoshop and added some text. I would never qualify penciling, inking and coloring an image as something “quickly whipped up”.