Russian Sledges

Rebecca Crockett is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

When Doctor Who returned in 2005, one goal of the show was that with youthful, archetypal characters it might appeal to a younger audience, one who hadn’t grown up watching the adventures of the Doctor and his companions, maybe even gaining fans that were not even born when the show was originally canceled. 

With the reboot came the introduction of romance into the show – the Doctor seeming to fall for a 19 year old girl who was just as crazy about him. A strong and confident woman who was sexually aware and loved to flirt with the Doctor, who, in his own quirky, awkward way, flirted right back.

Some fans of the show have worried that the Doctor was no longer the man they knew – “their” Doctor would never act in such a way. And now that the next man to play the character was someone who was older (in fact the oldest man to ever inhabit the role) there were fears that he would be just as flirty and romance-minded with his current companion, who by human standards looks to be less than half his age!

But head writer Steven Moffat has possibly allayed those fears. In an interview with Radio Times, Moffat has said that Capaldi’s Doctor won’t be like the other most recent incarnations of the man.

Moffat also added that while Capaldi is older than his past counterparts, that doesn’t mean he is all serious.

As a newer fan of the show, I really haven’t minded the romance aspect that has been added. It isn’t always part of the story and personally I think it shows another side of the Doctor, more about why he so truly seems to care for  humanity. I really enjoyed the times we’ve gotten to see the Doctor and River Song together and I am very much hoping that we get to see Peter Capaldi and Alex Kingston play off each other at least once. River always seemed to be one of the few humans that was an equal of the Doctor for all of his ability and intelligence, and it would be nice to see her with a man that she didn’t immediately make awkward and befuddled!

(via Yahoo TV UK and Digital Spy)

The post No More “Flirting” For The Doctor? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Some thirty thousand people visit the Notre Dame de Paris everyday, but little-known to tourists or even to the Parisians that pass by it on their daily commute, there was once a much more popular yet sinister attraction that shared a backyard with the historic cathedral, capable of luring up to 40,000 visitors in a single day. That attraction was the Paris Morgue.

There aren’t many other ways to describe the Paris Morgue during the 19th century other than as a place of entertainment, for Parisians and tourists alike. Conveniently located behind the Notre Dame on the southern tip of the Ile de la Cité, built in 1864, the original purpose of the morgue was of course not to attract tourism but to identify unknown bodies found in the city; many that had been fished out of the Seine or suicides that no one had reported missing. Their unfortunate remains were displayed on slanted marble tables behind glass, inviting friends and families to claim the deceased. Word of the morbid (and free) exhibition of dead bodies quickly spread, and soon the morgue became a fixture on the Parisian social circuit, enticing the curiosity of men, women, even children from all social backgrounds, who would visit regularly, filing past the grisly display, providing themselves with at least a week’s worth of fresh gossip on the possible identities of the corpses and causes of death. 

 

Outside on the Quai de l’Archevêché, street vendors catered to the crowds that flocked to the morgue, peddling cookies, gingerbread, coconut slices and other touristy fairground treats of the era.

“There are few people  having visited paris who do not know the Morgue”, wrote Parisian social commentator Hughes Leroux in 1888. Listed in practically every guidebook to the city, a fixture of Thomas Cook’s tours to Paris, and a “part of every conscientious provincial’s first visit to the capital”, the Morgue had both regulars and large crowds of as many as 40,000 on its big days. Despite its location in the shadows of Notre-Dame, its deliberately undramatic facade and its seemingly somber subject matter, the Morgue was “one of the most popular sights in Paris. The identification of dead bodies was turned into a show. This was public voyeurism– flânerie in the service of the state; it was”part of the cataloged curiosities of things to see, under the same heading as the Eiffel Tower and the Catacombs.”

–Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siecle Paris, by Vanessa R. Schwartz.

Indeed, the Paris Morgue was listed in many of the top travel guidebooks for Paris. Charles Dickens was known to be a frequent visitor and describes the Paris Morgue in several of his journals as an “old acquaintance”, and “a strange sight, which I have contemplated many a time during the last dozen years”. 

Here is a scanned copy of the The Diamond Guide to Paris, from 1867:

Of the three large doors at the front, the middle one remained shut and visitors filed through, entering at the left and exiting at the right, prompting the Morgue’s registrar to comment that it was nothing more than an ‘entresort’ (a carnival atrraction one paid to see by walking through a barrack and gaping at the sight within)– Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siecle Paris, by Vanessa R. Schwart.

It was open everyday from dawn until 6pm; a three story box of icy cold air on the larger of the two islands in the centre of Paris. To delay decomposition of the bodies, cold water was dripped continuously from overhead taps, the victims’ clothes and belongings hung on pegs behind them.

fuckyeahanimescenery:

Cowboy Bebop Episode 25 “The Real Folk Blues Pt 1” (1998)

The New York Philharmonic's recent staged production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which ran from March 5-8 at Avery Fisher Hall, will be telecast nationally on the PBS series Live From Lincoln Center. The production, directed by Lonny Price, will be broadcast on September 26 from 9-11:30pm EDT.

@joshritter the road sign in this picture just proves that the Devil is a Thomas the Tank Engine car pic.twitter.com/VVnjtOjBkO

utena meme - one of six side characters: kanae ohtori

I was partially inspired by Paul Scheerbart’s Perpetual Motion Machine, a sort of technical/literary diary in which Scheerbart documents and reflects on various failed attempts to create a perpetual motion machine. Scheerbart frequently refers to his machines as “stories” – I wanted to reverse the concept and transform stories into machines.

Hundreds of Boston-area consumers who bought shares in a popular meat, poultry and vegetable Community Supported Agriculture farm have been left with no food deliveries and likely no chance of a refund after the farmer filed for bankruptcy last month. The court filing for Robert Varisco, owner of John Crow Farm in Groton, listed more than 1,000 creditors, including many in Cambridge, who are owed a total of about $165,000. Varisco said in court papers that he had a little more than $4,600 in the bank, $1,750 in household goods, cars and trucks worth $25,000, some ducks and geese, and no income. His “significant other” is paying his living expenses “temporarily,” the court papers said.

Recently, while I was working on a new dress, I noticed just how many different presser feet I use over the course of one project.

It wasn’t always like this. Though machines I’ve had in the past came with a multitude of different feet, it realy wasn’t until I adopted my current Bernina that I realized just how vital they are to professional-looking sewing.

Sure, I’d use a zipper foot when I needed to, but mostly I stuck with the standard straight stitch foot for 90% of my sewing. Rarely would I switch more than once over the course of a single project.

All that changed when I got my Bernina. Partly, it’s because Bernina offers such a huge variety of presser feet and attachments that learning how and when to use them became a lot more fun.

But mostly it’s the quality of the parts. With other feet I’d used before, I just didn’t see a huge difference between using the speial foot and relying on my own hand-eye coordination. With my feet now, I know there’s a faster, easier, and more reliable way to do it.

So, today I’m going to tell you about my 3 favorite feet, how I use them, and how I store them. I’ll also include some links to great articles on Bernina’s blog, WeAllSew.com, where their experts go into even more detail.

1. The edgestitch foot (#10)

Other than the #1 foot, this is the foot that gets the most use in my sewing room.

Though it’s called the edgestitch foot, it has tons of uses beyond edgestitching. I use it for edgestitching, topstitching, stitching in the ditch, joining with a zigzag and more.

My favorite way to use it is to get even hems. After folding and pressing a hem in place, I always use the edgestitch foot to stitch the hem down from the wrong side. The vertical plate goes right up against the fold and keeps my hem tidy and even, without excess stitcking up.

Over at WeAllSew, this article explains 10 different uses for the #10 edgestitch foot.

2. The invisible zipper foot (#35)

This is the first foot I bought for my Bernina (since it came with most of the basic ones).

I sew a ton of invisible zippers because I make a lot of dresses. This is hands-down the best invisible zipper foot I’ve used.

Here’s what it looks like from the front. The foot has two diagonal channels that hold the teeth of the zipper perfectly in place while you sew.

I also like that you don’t need to adjust the needle position at all in order to sew the zipper in. That way, you don’t have to worry about stitching too close to the edge (so the zipper won’t close) or too far from the edge (leaving the zipper tape exposed).

It works perfectly every time.

Bernina has a video tutorial on using this foot over on WeAllSew as well.

By the way, if you own a Bernina and don’t have this foot, it’s currently 25% off at participating dealers this month!

3. The blindstitch foot (#5)

Last, I simply adore the blindstitch foot.

I love sewing blind hems. In fact, it’s become my go-to hem for most of my garments lately. The reasons I love it are:

1. It gives a really professional invisible finish. It elevates the look of quality to the garment.
2. It is a great was to sew a deep hem, so that you can lengthen or shorten the garment later on.

I’ve used other blindstitch feet before, but nothing comes close to the results I get with the #5 foot, quite honestly.

In the past, I’d always dealt with a bit of uneveness in blindstitching, so that the zigzag stitches don’t quite bite into the fold of fabric. This would mean that the hem wouldn’t be completely secured, and I’d have to go back and tediously restitch some parts of the hem.

I rarely have that problem now. This foot works flawlessly almost every time, so these hems are a joy to sew.

Here’s a tutorial and video from Bernina on sewing the blind hem, over at WeAllSew again.

Those are my top 3 favorites, but of course it depends on the type of sewing you’re doing. You can learn way more about Bernina feet and see a bunch of video tutorials over on their blog.

Which feet are your must-haves when you sew?

Sam became the first openly gay player ever drafted by an NFL team

monstersandthings:

burntlikethesun:

_{That’s how he does it. That’s how he does it. He makes you fight. He makes you fight. Creeps into your head. Creeps into your head. And whispers. And whispers. Listen. Listen. Just listen. Just listen. That’s him. That’s him. Inside. Inside.}

blink was shit compared to the horror of this episode

true fax

Should lawyers consider taking Bitcoin as a form of payment from clients?

A few years ago, I was surprised to find out that my friend Peter Eckersley — a very privacy conscious person who is Technology Projects Director at the EFF — used Gmail. I asked him why he would willingly give Google copies of all his email. Peter pointed out that if all of your friends use Gmail, Google has your email anyway. Any time I email somebody who uses Gmail — and anytime they email me — Google has that email. Since our conversation, I have often wondered just how much of my email Google really has. This weekend, I wrote a small program to go through all the email I have kept in my personal inbox since April 2004 (when Gmail was started) to find out.

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A memorial sign dedicated to Sandy Hook shooting victim was stolen from a Connecticut playground by a man who later called the victim's mother to tell her the massacre never happened.

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Publishing | Both Marvel and the manga publisher Yen Press are caught in the middle of the Amazon/Hachette dispute: Hachette is accusing Amazon of suppressing sales of Hachette titles in order to force the publisher to agree to its terms, according to The New York Times. Marvel uses Hachette as its distributor and Yen is […]

Fragments of a manuscript, written in the Eastern Turki language, depicting the fate of sinners in the afterlife.

Results are in from the first large scale study of the experiences of LGBT youth in Japanese schools, and unsurprisingly, those experiences suck.

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Le plasticien surréaliste suisse Hans Ruedi Giger, créateur du monstre dans le film « Alien » de Ridley Scott, est mort à l'âge de 74 ans.

Four individuals in hoods and one man in a white suit, a cape, and a horned mask were active in the proceedings, as well as a woman revealed to be wearing only lingerie. The ceremony began with a narration on the history underlying Satanism and the black mass ritual. The restaurant’s owner, Paul Lee, said in a phone interview around 11 p.m. that he was unaware of the incident. The Hong Kong is located on Massachusetts Avenue, directly across the street from Harvard Yard.

Virginians name their boys William. Vermonters like Phish. Louisiana has gonorrhea.

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martinlkennedy:

Pages from the Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Computers (1983). I’ve learned that C-3PO is good at designing Joy Division album covers and that in the future there will be giant mechanical mice!

Images courtesy of Paxton Holley. You can see the full set here

Rock band Procol Harum blamed for abducting Nigerian schoolgirls in terrorist group mix-up:

A ROCK band from the 1960s has been blasted on Twitter for abducting nearly 300 schoolgirls after a name mix-up with a Nigerian terrorist group. (Latest News,rock band,procol Harum,Nigeria,Nigerian,terrorist,group,300,school girl,schoolgirls,Boko Haram,Procol Harum,porcal harum,procol harum,band mix-up,mistake,boko harum,boko haram,Twitter,nigeria,kidnapping,abducted,abducting,300 girls,300 schoolgirls,US)