Witness to a Terrible Car Accident

On Sunday I went with my High-School friend Jhon to see “Moon”, a pretty good indie sci-fi flick. We went to the Angelika film centre in Plano. I had sat for a moment lost in thought while the light turned green, and joked that I should probably figure out how to drive at some point. We had turned on legacy, and in front of us was the Dallas North Turnpike and the bridge.(Where the road crosses over the Dallas North Turnpike) “Have you ever been in an accident?” asked Jhon. I started to reply “Well, kind of, that one time -”

“Holy shit.”

Not too far ahead of us, a car was crossing the intersection between Legacy and the Side road. As if on cue to Jhons question, it got hit. HARD. A car had been speeding along the side road at full speed, and it slammed into the front of the poor car which was crossing. Debris went cascading into the air, shattered bits of glass, metal and tire littering the road, as the car which had struck careened to a halt, front battered. I immediately stopped the car, and we jumped out along with a lot of other people to help. A sad sight awaited us as phones called 911 and people rushed to the wreck to help.

The front of the car – everything in front of the passenger compartment was just GONE. The front had been ripped clean off the car, engine and tires a memory. Broken glass was everywhere. The Driver of the shattered car, a blond girl of college age, had safely gotten out.  She  shakily walked a few feet then just collapsed to the ground, shaking violently and crying loudly.  She wasn’t harmed, but as I looked toward the car, I saw hair.

There was another girl in the passenger seat. She wasn’t moving. I had difficulty seeing, but several other onlookers had beaten me to the scene and seemed to be talking to her. I didn’t hear her voice but they seemed to be getting a reply, in any event the girl was trapped and she didn’t move a muscle. I’m not sure what trapped her, though the windshield was scarcely holding together, cracked in a hundred places inches from her head. It wasn’t long until police and a fire-truck arrived, and it was then that we decided we were only getting in the way. As we pulled away, firefighters had a stretcher next to the car, and were trying to free the trapped girl. I can only hope that she will be alright.

It was stunning and unreal, as if on cue we saw it happen. It was one of those accidents you always know happens but never see – until now. I was astonished at how cleanly the front had been ripped off – and also of the fact that if it had struck a few inches farther back, both of the girls in the car would probably be dead. I was humbled by the whole affair, and it definetly made me think of how transient life can be sometimes. Thankfully nobody was killed (I hope), but it was close.

Torchwood: Children of Earth

Rating: 10 Duckies out of 10

Torchwood, for those of you who aren’t into Sci-Fi like I am, is a spin-off series of the wildly popular British show Dr. Who. Doctor Who has always been a show known for its light-heartedness, campiness (in a fun way), and generally being a fun ride while still managing to touch you deeply along the way. It’s not geared towards adult audiences.

Torchwood, however is. In its first two seasons, the show often felt like they were trying to say “Hey! I’m an adult Dr. Who, I’m going to use excessive profanity!” It also retained Dr. Who’s campiness to a lesser degree. All that is gone in its Third series, an epic five-part story called, you guessed it, children of earth.

Torchwood is an organization outside of the government lead by Captain Jack Harkness, who has the distinction of being unable to die (the cause being the focus in several Dr. Who episodes). They operate to protect humanity from alien threats, as Cardiff sits atop a rift in time and space blah blah. The point is, Torchwood’s first two seasons were good, but nothing astounding.

Children of Earth is a masterful work of art that left me emotionally shattered and drained by it’s end. It makes full use of TV’s biggest advantage (that almost universally gets ignored), which is the ability to tell longer stories then you can in Movies. Children of earth is essentially a five-hour movie, an excellent one at that. If you’ve never seen Torchwood or Dr. Who, you should still watch Children of Earth – it still stands powerfully poignant even without the backstory.

It’s a grim tale, a serious tale. The Aliens are no longer Daleks (who are totally awesome by the way), instead something which is genuinely frightening to behold as both the Torchwood team and the Government grapple with unthinkable choices. Nobody is as one-dimensional as they first appear to be. The good guys hold dark, horrible secrets, the bad guys secrets and motivations of their own.

The characters suffer incredibly, and there is some astounding acting as the world falls apart around them. All of them sacrifice greatly, some with their lives, others with their very humanity. I won’t spoil the plot, but needless to say its good. Really good. I was left in a state of emotional shell-shock afterwards that only Battlestar Galactica and Apocalypse Now has left me in within recent memory. Absolutely heart-breaking, but good. As a friend of mine texted me…. “Ok, this is getting really messed up, even for Torchwood”.

I don’t know how coherent this has been (I’m trying not to spoil anything). All I can say is, watch it. It’s no Battlestar Galactica, but it is a shining example of the art of Television and Film in general. I don’t think you will be dissapointed. You can pirate it if you like, or it will air on BBC America starting July 20 (every night for 5 nights in a row).

Now if you’ll excuse me, its been one ride I’ll need months to recover from…..and that’s a good thing.

It is coming….and Torchwood is awesome.

So about that post I promised, about the love and the writing. Its coming. But there is a problem:

Like everything else I do, its EPIC!(How epic is epic? A 15 page blog post epic enough?) Unfortunately, thats also the problem. I stop talking about the way romance is portrayed in writing (horribly half the time), to talking about myself and how I think. I also might be getting a bit more personal then you would feel comfortable reading (I’m quite open myself, no need to hide behind a mask like we like to do in our society). So I’m trying to finish it, cut it down, and get something legible out of it (instead of doing psychoanalysis of events that lasted all of three seconds like I’ve been doing.) Something that hopefully you actually read through. As I’ve said before, I hate how we all put on masks and too much of the time you never get a chance to really know people. It’s probably unavoidable to a large extent (as much as I wish it were so, we cannot all sit down at dinner and talk about our deepest feelings. That would be a bit weird.) So, maybe it will give you a look at me from a new angle

I’m also utterly astonished at the number of hits I’m getting. I got four yesterday, which is four more then I would have expected. I feel like I’m entertaining or something cool like that. Thanks _______! (fill in your name here so you can feel like I’m addressing you personally and ignoring the fact that I have no way to know who you are).

Oh, a post will also be coming sometime about Torchwood: Children of Earth. I’ve been blown away so far. I’ve always loved the show, but this brings Torchwood up a step in my book. In fact, if David Tennant weren’t such an amazing actor, I’d be sorely tempted to put it above Dr. Who. For those of you uneducated in sci-fi-ness, its a spinoff series of Dr. Who that for this season has turned into a 5 part epic tale aired over 5 consecutive nights.

Happy Independence Day! An Epic Post is coming soon…..

Happy Independence Day everyone! I hope summer has been treating all of you reasonably well so far, and that it hasn’t completely sucked! I’m working on a real substantial post about Love and the way its portrayed in writing, but given that love is the single most exciting and interesting thing in the universe to talk about(in my humble opinion), its ballooning at such an astounding pace that I’m going to have to cut out a lot, unless you wish to read a novella about it! Really, its going to take multiple posts, but it is about something I don’t get to talk about much, and it is the most important thing in life !

I will relate a rather amusing anecdote from today. I was at Adam’s house, playing God of War. There is a scene where your character starts out in the room of a ship, with two naked women in the bed. You can walk up to them, and a little circle appeared above their heads. “Oh, dialog, that will be good, I wonder why there are two random naked girls in this bed!” Much to my dissapointment and confusion, there is no dialog. Instead the camera suddenly shifts to a vase on the table. Buttons to press come up, and when i hit them the table shakes, accompanied by moans of your name and so forth. Most of you can probably guess what is happening.

I was confused. Why the vase? Was there a genie or some spirit trapped within the vase that I’m trying to free? I went on this assumption for a few more tries, but nothing happened and I was confused. A genie would talk to me in some sort of dialog box anyway I would imagine….what in the world is going on? And what would the girls have to do with it? I sat puzzled for several minutes, exploring the room and whatnot, doing it again. Well, the vase might move if the bed shook, but why would the – ohhh. But I’m some sort of demi-god thing, wouldn’t i be above something like – oh this is the greek pantheon. I promptly stopped the minigame, turned around, and ran out of the room as fast I could. Apologies for the doubtless poor writing, but its 2am and I’m on drugs. That’s my excuse anyway >.<