Day of the Doctor

Posted on 13 November 2013 by Erik Hare | 8 Comments

Are you ready for the Day of the Doctor? If you’re not a fan of the TV show, which has 1.6M viewers here in the US, you may have not heard the hype. For fans, however, it’s the biggest event in the last 50 years. That’s how long it’s been on, first airing on 23 November 1963 (oddly, the day after President Kennedy was assassinated). 11 people have played the title role and, except for a hiatus between 1989 and 2005, it’s become something of a tradition in the UK.

To celebrate, the special show “The Day of the Doctor” will be shown simultaneously throughout the entire planet, (23 November at 2:50 PM Eastern time, 19:50 GMT) making it the biggest simulcast of anything other than the Olympics. It’s the first truly global television show with fans absolutely all around the world. And that, alone, is worth celebrating.

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Minneapolis’ New Generation

Posted on 8 November 2013 by Erik Hare | 9 Comments

Much has been said about the upheaval in the Republican Party. But there may be just as much change happening in the Democratic Party, at least if the Minneapolis City Council election this year is representative of any trends. The generational turnover in the Council has dropped the average age from 52 to 41, by my reckoning, and increased the non-white membership from 1 to 3 of 13 – all of whom are foreign-born.

Is this the future of the Democratic Party? The short answer is yes, but it starts small. Leadership is developed at the local level, and there’s no better place to develop it than the City Council. Minneapolis has a Weak Mayor system, so it’s the council that actually runs things. And not only is the new council much younger, it was generally elected on a platform of social justice and neighborhood development – not downtown.

I may have to stop making fun of our younger sister city.

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Peter Capaldi

Posted on 9 August 2013 by Erik Hare | 5 Comments

Is it possible that the darkest force for evil has taken over the true force for good? Last Sunday it was announced live world-wide that the most important role in the universe would soon be played by Peter Capaldi. Yes, I am talking about Doctor Who, the international sensation of a telly show that has become Britain’s biggest export since smug satisfaction. But like the show, there may be something more sinister afoot …

Since the announcement, fans have clamored to learn more about the man. It turns out he was a “super-fan” as a kid who annoyed the BBC staff so much they wished the Daleks would ex-term-inate! him. The head of the fan club promised to “sort him out”. But what did get through was a letter to the Radio Times praising a recent show and mourning the death of the first man to play the Master, Roger Delgado. Young Capaldi was not just a fan of the show, he was also a fan of the Master?

Could it be that this appointment is nothing more than the culmination of a 40-year plot by the Master to take over the Doctor’s regeneration cycle through a cultivated minion?

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Suspension of Disbelief

Posted on 1 July 2013 by Erik Hare | 2 Comments

Everyone has the experience at some time. You’ve read a book or seen a movie that you absolutely loved, and you want to tell the world about your new obsession. You might even know someone that you’d love to share this new world with. So you start telling them about the intricate details of the plot and characters and after rambling on and on … and then you see their eyes slowly glaze over. What went wrong? Often it’s that you had suspended your disbelief in something that sounds too absurd to tell easily. It makes sense to you, but the retelling leaves you sounding a bit crazy.

This doesn’t just happen with fiction. A disconnected world requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.

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Funny is More Fun

Posted on 17 June 2013 by Erik Hare | 10 Comments

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies.
– E B White.

What makes something funny? It turns out that there are many different Humor Theories and none of them are funny. That may seem like a problem right there, but the irony that you expect it to be funny and it isn’t could be funny if you … Hey! Wait!

OK, so this duck walks into a bar and asks the bartender, “Why is it so often a duck?” and the bartender says, “Look, if you want to analyze stereotypes you could ask why it’s always a bar.” The duck shrugs his wings, sits down, and gets so hammered he doesn’t even remember pecking to death the priest, the rabbi, and the lawyer.

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