Swap Goodies Sent to Me

I received my swap goodies from my partner on the fairy tale swap. Knowing that I collected frogs she used the "Frog Prince" as a theme.

First of all she made me this bag. How amazing is this? She decorated one side with a heart and buttons (I love buttons) and on the other she painted this lovely image of the frog prince.

The plastic frogs have magnets attached to their feet so that they stick to the fridge.

I have just finished watching the third series of STNG. I am working my way through these fairly quickly. By this point the characters are well established and the actors are more comfortable with themselves and each other. The end of season 3 also sees the first use of a cliffhanger double episode. It sees the return of Gates McFadden and the return of the Borg. I am going to come out as being completely unoriginal and say that the Borg cliffhanger episode was my favourite. Watching it again reminded me of just how good it was. One of my favourite things about these DVDs is watching the actors and crew talking about their experiences. Extras is not something I normally enjoy but I loved this series when it was out and I am enjoying hearing everyones opinions on it from when it was being made. What I found interesting was that Michael Piller who wrote "The Best Of Both Worlds"wrote what he felt was an impossible situation to get out off. he had promised the producers of the show that he would write for them and run the writing team for a year and that was it. He had no intention of coming back and saw the second part as someone elses problem. However, he then reconsidered and his biggest problem was going to be to write a part two. It does seem that way as you watch it and I remember sitting open mouthed as I watched it the first time. This is also the first time that the Borg mentions assimilation

Gates McFadden being back was something I was glad about when I watched this the first time. I didn't like Diana Muldaur as her replacement. Now I can see what they were trying to do. They were trying to bring a character into the show who was more like McCoy from the original series. It just didn't work, at least not for me. McFadden had been asked to leave the show after her first year due to disagreements over the development of her character. She was asked back for the third season as her replacement was not that popular with fans. There were continued disagreements over her screen time especially in the movies. None of this was mentioned on the extras though.

Obviously what I am mainly excited about is the return of Dr Who to our screens tomorrow. Sadly I will be working so I will have to rely on it being taped. Watching it will be the first thing I do when I get home. I am looking forward to seeing new companion Martha Jones. It will be interesting to see how different she is from Rose and how the Doctor and herself work together. From what I have heard this characters is more independent and they tend to be my favourites but we'll see. Disappointingly there is going to be that romantic link between the two of them as there was between Rose and the Doctor although in a different way. I guess it will always be like that now.

Timewarden, I haven't watched any of the movies apart from the TV movie of IT and Needful Things. It was It that got me reading King in the first place. After that I found going back to It to be disappointing and never felt the need to watch any of the others. I do vaguely remember watching bits of The Tommyknockers too. So many people tell me that Carrie and the Shining are fantastic but they just never appealed to me. I liked The Dead Zone but Kings books do tend to waffle a bit and have been criticised for that. I have been tempted to watch the TV series based on the book but have yet to get round to it.

Lili, I am glad that you are enjoying the book reviews. My reading has slowed down a bit thanks to work so it will be a while before there are more I'm afraid. I haven't stopped reading, it's just finding the time to fit it in. I am glad that you liked all the Next books and that you are going to pass them on to your family now that they have been translated into French. I am very excited about the next instalment too. I have a couple of his books signed so I am hoping that he will be here in Glasgow to sign his next book and this time I might actually get to meet him. I hope you are enjoying "Girlfriend In A Coma". Coupland has a simple writing style so you should have no problems with his other books should you go on to read them. My only recommendation is to leave "Jpod" to last if you do decide to read the others. This is my favourite of all his books and it puts the rest of them to shame (as good as they are). I got everyone I work with to read this (although I made sure that they had read the others first). He has a new book out at the end of this year. So it will be interesting to see what it is like. In your letter you asked me about the reviews in my previous blog. I didn't delete them so I'm not sure why you can't access them. Maybe it's because the blog has been inactive for so long.