Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

It seems with the writers strike over and done with the studios are getting back into the swing of things. The Star Trek prequel thats been in production has been pushed back 6 months and despite the industry saying its so they will make more money a lot of people are suggesting that its to allow the director to rewrite some sections and give them time to get some SFX shots done that might not have been finished by the original release date.

As for the TV shows it looks like theres some winners and some losers. Obviously all these might change but the stand out losers in my eyes are Heroes, Lost and Jericho. Everyone knew what was happening with lost as they were very public about it but it’s only been in the last week that it w’ve really known that Lost will be cut short and what it will mean tot he story line. Jericho on the other hand looks like its actually going to finish up thanks to the strike. With only a few more episodes to be aired half of the story arc is going to be missing and most likely won’t be piocked up for a 3rd season.

FOX

* House - Done until next fall
* Prison Break - 1 more episode then done until the fall

* 24 - Done until January 2009
* Bones - Returns April 28th with 4 new unaired episodes then done until the fall
* Til Death - Should return this season with a handful of new episodes.
* Back to You - Should return this season with a handful of new episodes.
* KVille Done.
* Sarah Connor Chronicles - 4 unaired episodes. Highly unlikely to be picked up.

ABC

* Lost - 8 episodes complete, 2 aired. 5 more to be produced for a total of 13 this season.
* Grey

Originally published at The Apochrypha. Please leave any comments there.

Yes it it was great but by god did some things I seen and heard really make me want to rock back and forth and murmur about taking the bad man away from me.

The Tube
For all the London Undergrounds got going for it they sure know how to piss off people. It’s Christmas time and Covent Garden tube station still isn’t open properly. Once the platforms full they close the gates on you and say it’ll be quicker to walk to Leicester Square and get the tube from there. That would be OK if it wasn’t for the fact that Covent Garden is a huge tourist trap and so no one knows where anything is. The only reason we managed to find it is because we had walked to Covent Garden from there earlier in the after getting the Northern Line down from Camden Market. I lost count of the number of people trying to ask for directions and being completely ignored. And don’t get me started on Camden’s tube station. How can they possibly think its OK to allow prams and wheelchairs to be carried up those 96 steps that are in use because they’ve shut down every other way of accessing the station.

Upper-class goth kids with the social skills of logs

What the hell is that all about? Walking through the pissing rain we managed to make it into one of the markets in Camden that had the walkways covered by umbrellas. I heard a squeel in front of us and two girls blocked our path.

*puts on posh North London accent and inhales some helium*
“Ahhh, I wish I’d worn a belt my jeans are falling down”
“I know what you mean. I’m the same but I just couldn’t find anythi..”

“KNUCKLEDUSTERS! KNUCKLEDUSTERS!”
“Where? Where?”
“And they’re pink! I so have to have them”
“They look so cute.”

“They’ll go with my *insert fashion designers name* zipper top”
“Oh they so will”
“Wheres Daddy’s credit card?”
*fumbles in bag*

ARRRRGGHHHHH!
*Bangs head off desk*

City Hall, Westminster
Who’s bright idea was it to place 4 mannequins brandishing guns on top of the entrance to City Hall just metres from the bridge leading to the Houses of Parliament. It might have been OK if they looked a bit like armed police but they don’t. They have stuck 4 Imperial Stormtroopers from the Star Wars Exhibition on the roof of the entrance and I don’t think anyone that seen them didn’t get a fright until they realised just what they were. It’s just asking for an elderly person to hobble past, look up and then have a heart attack.

Hamleys staff
The amount of nonsense they spout just to get a sale. The Astrojax ‘rep’ was showing off and his spiel was tripping off his tongue until I heard him say, “We sell 6,000 of these every day.” Now I could believe that if it weren’t for two things. They only have two shippers in the whole shop and they hold something like 20-odd boxes each and although the guy refilled them whenever he passed by I spent a good half hour and not one box was lifted during that time. Add to that the fact that they aren’t sold on the website means I’m lead to believe he meant Hamleys as a chain rather than a single store. If thats the case 6,000 Astrojax a day isn’t that much considering. I only found two members of staff that actually made sense and were helpful without sounding as though they were a circus performer or a street market seller. One was Santa surprisingly enough an the other was the deep voiced mad professor guy from the Lego dept.

No tag for this post.

I’m really looking forward to starting up this roleplay. I’m always wary of bringing in new players because I dont see myself as that great a story teller. I’m even more warey about bringing experienced players into the group because I know the way we run roleplays is nothing like alot of people. Willie mentioned to Dave last night that any characters they come across that it will be me playing them…and I do try to add a little bit of character into it but its a rarity. I’ve seen tabletop groups that run games as if they were live roleplay events but without the moving about and ive seen folk play the game as if it was a Steven Jackson adventure book..barely saying a word in character and constantly refering to themselves in the 3rd person.

I love the storyline ive got in my head and I just hope it works out when I actually get this thing running. Just a little pissed off that the film Nightwatch has a very similar story to it from what I can work out

Anyway I’ve got 4 out of maybe 5 characters sort of agreed. Theres been very little the guys have came up with for thier chars that I’ve not been able to let them do so far and anyway their going to get a little bit of a skill boost after I’ve took them through “The Guard” training ala the step from the Star Trek roleplay where your character goes through the academy but I get to assign the dots rather than the player.

With a bit of luck we might be able to get the characters drawn up very soon which will only speed things up…