By Roy Mathur, on 2025-02-23, at 23:42:16 to 00:36:55 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
The US president's top Secret Service agent is let in on a conspiracy to preserve humanity from extinction-level events. Of course, the power-mad billionaires behind it louse it up in this 2025 Hulu sci-fi series. There's a great mind blown moment at the end of episode one. It's a zeitgeisty, well thought out reflection of billionaires' disaster planning, but for one exception. Billionaires would not cooperate amongst themselves enough to do this. Also, they know full well that a giant plentiful honeypot would attract a ravening horde of hangry post-apocalyptic survivors.
This feels like Colony, which was cancelled prematurely, so I'm not following this past the five episodes I already watched, until I know it has a satisfactory ending that we don't have to wait too for.
Partly co-created by Scavengers Reign's Joseph Bennett, this 2025 King of the Hill-style, sci-fi black comedy is about a scientist finding the universal panacea in a rare fungus, and then immediately set upon by Big Pharma who don't want the competition.
It's as lush, organic, squidgy, and mind-bending as The Spine of Night (pods 501--502) and Scavengers Reign (pod 535), with a generous sprinkling of of Indiana Jones, The X-Files, and Terminator, to name but a few. The animation style, though is more Simpsons than realism. Though I don't like the two agents whose absurdity is one step too far, I like the hippyish main character enough to keep watching.
For more mushroom-based sci-fi horror, seek pods 299 (Doctor Who: The Green Death), 476 (The Last of Us), 389 (In the Earth), etc. Like fungi itself, the subject is unavoidable in my pod. Also, when I wrote this paragraph, I'd just feasted on a mushroom pate sandwich.
Season 2's episode 11 is my favourite episode of The Simpsons. Homer eats badly served fugu, after which Doctor Hibbert gives him 24 hours to live before his heart explodes. Confronted with mortality, Homer rushes thorough making peace with his father, saying goodbye to neighbours, friends, and family, and ending his life listening to the entire Bible on cassette tape.
I'm not religious, or even a Christian, but as I grow older, this touching, satisfying, and comforting episode is one of my favourites.
You know how I feel about the "E" in OBE, but still... later this year, the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, will join the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, producer, Verity Lambert, showrunner, Russell T. Davies, and no doubt many others I couldn't be bothered to look up, who have been rewarded with the same honour.
Well done, Tom.
The government bullying Apple for a backdoor into iPhone encryption, like we're still an imperial power, then having Apple snatching away encryption from all UK users, like a judgement of Solomon.
It is incredible how UK parties of every stripe consistently fail to understand tech. Welcome to Tinpotland.
I am not of Windows past 7. Due to my reliance on very old software, I am however stuck with Windows, as I re-discovered with a recent attempt at using the full potential of my PC with a modern Linux. (I tend to forget every few years and put myself through hell for nothing).
Luckily, Mum is not tied to old software. As her first computer ran Max OS X and her current phone runs Android, there is no need for her to stick with Windows on the desktop. So now her aging Acer laptop is running a spanking new install of full-fat Ubuntu. From an educational point of view, this means now that the underlying OSs on all her computing devices are UNIX-ish, she only has to learn one set of key concepts, which will lessen my need to be familial tech support.
The Guardian finalised it's sale of the Observer to Tortoise Media (the company behind the Neil Gaiman expose podcast). Though the Guardian retains a small (GBP 5M) interest in Tortoise Media, the new owners are now hiring a raft of new staff to run the paper.
I was initially worried that it's the end of an era for my newspaper of choice, leaving me buggerall to read. But the Observer, the world's oldest Sunday, has, of course, changed hands a few times since 1791. Sink me! Where's me quizzing glass?
(Journal section moved to here).
The tumble drier caught fire on the 15th. It smoked my clothes like kippers. Apparently, a universal problem with most old Hotpoint (Whirlpool) driers that has caused many fires and some deaths, a lot of corporate lawyering up, and a total recall many years later. I filled in a webform and wrote them an angry email.
Somehow our family of three adults has used 400 quid of energy in one month (with a green boiler). Bloody Ovo.
I didn't get a very basic council tour guide job I applied for. They said the competition was high, but how high would it have to be for me not even make the interview with such a long background in heritage? Next time, I'm applying twice using my real name and a more British name to see of it makes a difference. I've read that it does, so let's shame the bastards. I don't have anything to lose.
Which brings me to the independent tour guide business I am setting up. I have hit a slight snag as there is already a well-known guide doing the circuit I wanted to do. I need to find my own niche. Since socially, things continue to go nowhere for the entire family, a job to get me out there will kill two birds with one stone in the same way as journalism did.
And finally, we viewed a property outside Bedford, but it was a bust; too small, too expensive. I was absolutely exhausted after the thirty minute drive. Neither the GTI, nor my ailing posterior, are designed for rutted country lanes.