T (for Tokyo) minus three days and counting. With my list of intended targets completed and arranged into wards, I’ve started using the wonderfully handy Google Maps to pinpoint the key areas so that I’ll be able to cover as much ground as possible when the time comes (How many pastry shops can I visit in one afternoon. Thanks to Google Maps = enough to make me violently ill!). I’m loving the feature and am about halfway through cataloguing all of my destinations, but am running into trouble on a couple of fronts. First, all of those little blue pointers show up onscreen, but there’s no lettering or numbering system to tell them apart. Short of clicking on the desires location in the lefthand sidebar, there seems to be no proper way to identify the locations. Second – nearly all of the streets are in, uh, not English. Third – My handy blackberry seems to be completely useless in allowing me to use Google MyMaps. It lets me download the Google Map application (or mapplication if you prefer) but can’t access the maps I’ve created for my trip. Marty G. insists his iPhone can and thereby points out yet one more reason that his phone is superior to mine. I mean, sure his phone has a far superior web-browsing capabilities, allows him to search the internet via voice recall, offers a screen twice as large as mine, has a much better camera, among many, many other functions, but my phone sounds cooler. BLACKberry. As opposed to iPhone. Also, the blackberry has the brickbreaker game. Any blackberry users out there care to rejoin? Anyone? The Google MyMaps functions works wonderfully when I’m on my laptop but I have a feeling this may prove somewhat challenging to pull off when I’m on, say, a Shinjuku walkabout. So I’ve contacted the concierge crew at the Peninsula Hotel and asked them to look into some cool portable gadget I could rent during my stay in Tokyo, one with a wireless function and GPS that will allow me to roam the city while accessing the Google MyMaps function. I’m not entirely sure if such a device exists but feel reasonably confident that if I can imagine it, then the Japanese have already invented it.
Back on the office today for another day of SGU spinning. We skipped episode 9 (While I like the general premise and think it could be a lot of fun and, really, at the end of the day who doesn’t like fun?, I feel that, unlike the other stories we’ve discussed so far, this one is far more nebulous. Fearing we might well spend our final three days trying to spin a story out of this kernel of an idea, I suggested we move on to #10 and #11 which, at the very least, are somewhat more substantial in comparison) and moved on to the two-parter. I hesitate to call it a two-parter because, the way these episodes have developed so far, there are a threads that run through all the stories, in essence making this season one big 20-parter. Now given that some of you have started comparing SGU to existing shows on the basis of what little information has been released thus far, I thought it might be a good idea to help paint a clearer picture of the show. And so, to those of you looking for standing comparisons, I’d say more Lost than Battlestar, more Dr. Who than Heroes, more The Office than My Name Is Earl.
Check out today’s pics for an inside peek at the exhilarating highs and dispiriting lows of the writers’ room. And also our new refrigerator. It makes ice, has an alarm function, and can send you back approximately fifteen minutes in time provided you can fit inside the freezer tray.
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